The Young Ones: The Complete Collection [Blu-ray]

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Planer There wasn’t much health and safety. Things were falling on our heads! I had to go to the osteopath after the episode with the giant eclair! I’m the tallest so I took the weight of it. We actually had a live elephant in the studio. There’s a scene where Rik and Ade are fighting on the bed and the floor caves in. And on the actual set, the floor caved in! They fell 15 feet on a bed. They both jarred their spines. They carried on acting but that was certainly one of the narrow escapes. Mayer Mainly me and Rik chose the bands. The Damned and Motörhead were really sweet. The naughtiest person we had on – and you probably wouldn’t even notice it was her – was Andi Oliver, when she was in Rip Rig & Panic. This is a 40th Anniversary Edition boxset that contains all the episodes plus a bunch of news special features. Starring Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan and Alexei Sayle, the sitcom was amongst the first and most iconic comedies to emerge from the "alternative comedy" scene to make it to television. So altogether there’s a huge amount to see and enjoy in the series, and when you rewatch episodes there can often be little details you spot that you missed before, as they crammed so much in. The episodes aren’t in crisp high definition with every little thing visible in sharp detail of course, and we shouldn’t expect that given their age and the video tapes on which they were recorded (with occasional use of film instead). But they have been remastered and upscaled, and do seem to look as good as it’s possible for them to be, and the sound quality is great as well. There will be others out there who can analyse the picture and sound properly of course, but I’m very happy with the quality personally, and I love the fact that there are lots of extras as well. So let’s get on and dig through it all. Series 1

Bonus-packed The Young Ones coming to Blu-ray - British

Andi Oliver (Rip Rig & Panic) I was about 19. When I see it I look like a small child. I think Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders were on that episode because I just remember them being hilariously funny. Gareth Sager [Rip Rig & Panic frontman] decided that we weren’t going to have proper instruments so they were playing washing-up liquid bottles and stuff. There was a lot of alcohol involved. Years later, I saw Lise Mayer and she was like: “God, you guys were wild!” Both Episodes of ‘Boom Boom… Out Go The Lights’ Introduced By The Producer Who Put Alternative Comedy On The Telly This was not and never will be LucasFilms, but this is part of the mystique. The episodes were filmed in the early eighties and appear as such. The opening sequence has a strangely grainy texture in the digital format. The age of the film has brought about a slight paleness and iffy clarity but these characteristics merely reinforce one of the main philosophies of the show: No matter how progressed we think we are, there is still a ways to go. The Young Ones: Every Stoopid Episode is presented in same full-screen format as the original television show and appears much the same as my memory serves me. In any case, the video presentation is much better than the fuzzy VCR recordings I resorted to watching in college. Audio: How does it sound? Mayer Watching it at the time, all I could see were the bits that didn’t quite come out right. Now, even though lots of it doesn’t work, it’s got so much in it. So many ideas in it. There’s something about the verve of doing things when you have no idea what you’re doing. You’re making mistakes in public but you also invent things. Punk wouldn’t be punk if it wasn’t rough around the edges. If you tried to tidy up The Young Ones, you’d ruin it. This series includes occasional random flash frames in every episode, in response to people’s concerns at the time about subliminal messaging, and to give audience members with VCRs an extra treat that they could pause to see (and it’s now easier than ever to freeze them on Blu-ray of course). They include the ending caption from the film Carry On Cowboy, a flying white tern (not a dove as many think), a leaping frog, a dripping tap and a skier.

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Planer They had to pull a shot when Rik is playing with a tampon. He finds it in a girl’s bag and pulls it out and pretends it’s a mouse. And as I recall, he popped it into her glass of red wine and it swelled up and came out red. And that was the only point when the BBC felt it had gone too far. The BBC say that “These episodes have been restored and remastered using the existing film where available, with any standard definition content upscaled during this process.” I watched them all again fairly recently and thought they’d gotten a bit naff so kinda wish I hadn’t. Mayer Alexei was the person that everyone was in awe of. He was more senior and he was actually working class whereas everyone else was just pretending. Having his seal of approval helped. When Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders started doing standup, we wanted them in it, too. We were able to create employment. The only casting we did was for Mike; for everyone else, it was like, “Let’s give that part to so-and-so …” On that note can we have an ultimate box set for Bottom too? Maybe the "You've hit the F***ing nail on the F***ing head there ya C***ing B*****d" Edition?

The Young Ones: The Complete Collection | Blu-ray Box Set

The next two options are additional sit-com endeavors by members of the cast. Episode 1 of Filthy Rich & Catflap stars Rik Mayall as a celebrity named Richie Rich, Adrian Edmondson as his freeloading friend Eddie Catflap, and Nigel Planer as RichÆs perpetually intoxicated agent. It is refreshing to see the actors performing different roles, especially since RikÆs character has moved from completely depressing to mildly depressing. VyvyanÆs attitude is still noticeable in Adrian but the red hair dye is out along with the piercings. NigelÆs character is a far cry from Neil-the-hippy as he plays a lush with a fantastic comb-over hairstyle. The plot revolves around RikÆs character accidentally and repeatedly killing ôMilkyö (thatÆs the milkman, for those of you reading from the States). ZOMG I was actually just thinking the other day about how much I want a BR upgrade of this. Sounds like some great extras, too. Ryan Everyone involved was brilliant: witty, clever, energetic. I didn’t feel I really belonged. I wasn’t of their stable. Nothing against them because they were fantastic. But I never got hold of that character. People often say: “You must have had great fun; you must have really enjoyed it.” And I always say: “I wish I had.” It was brilliantly written. But I was never relaxed enough to enjoy it.

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In fact, that whole "Bambi" episode is an absolute classic and this is worth buying purely for that alone. I dunno how old your kids are, but mine are probably too young for Blazing Saddles. They’re the absolute prime age for the bogies & physical violence of the Young Ones, though. I would definitely have the conversation with them before watching something like that - it’s not on the same league, but I was planning on letting my son watch Ghostbusters this weekend and was going to have a chat about the language in there beforehand.

The Young Ones: The Complete Collection Blu-ray

Mayer It very much felt like a punk thing. Instead of: “Here’s three chords, now go and form a band”, it was: “Here’s a microphone, now go and be a standup comedian.”In addition, almost every episode includes a musical performance by a guest artist and/or Alexei Sayle, with just one episode featuring a lion tamer instead. Some are better than others, naturally, but none are awful. They’re loosely shoehorned into the plot in some way, and were included so that the show could be classified as a variety series instead of a standard sitcom. This gave them a higher budget and allowed them to spend two days filming in the studio instead of one, so they could get a lot more done. Sayle When the Comedy Store opened it was kind of a circus, really. Rik and Ade started putting it on the path where it was noticeably different: it wasn’t just mad people; it was people with something identifiably different and identifiably good. And young. The album includes the single Hole In My Shoe, a cover of the Traffic song, which impressively stayed at Number 2 in the UK chart for 3 weeks (sandwiched between Two Tribes and Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood at Numbers 1 & 3 respectively). Neil promoted the song and the album during his enjoyable appearances on Top Of The Pops and Saturday Superstore in the UK, and Countdown in Australia. It also won Best Comedy Record at the BRITS in 1985, with Billy Connolly making the presentation to Nigel Planer.