“Harry the Bastard” was also the Nasty episode. Here’s the dialog from the scene (with Mike and Vyv; Neil was up in the yucky bathtub):
- but reading those bits of dialogue, I can hear the exact voices. Dammit, I miss that series.
How can one pick a favourite ? Impossible. (OK, Mike’s character never really git to the front, so it’s a three-way tie. Aw heck - I’ll just say SPG is my favourite.)
Favourite episode: Has to be “Bomb” - how it upsets the domestic routines when there’s suddenly a nuclear bomb in front of the fridge.
Me too. During his vicious attack on Neil for not paying £200 for his own benefit show, Rik announces, “Watch out Norman Tebbit!” Once Neil has sullenly handed over his last 50p, he mutters, “Well, he’d better be good, this Norman Tebbit…”
I took this line to Disneyland with me. In fact whenever I’m sitting waiting for a show to start, in public, I always mutter it in a stage whisper. Always bugs someone nearby.
I like Rik best, meself. I always felt bad for Mike, though, because he was potentially a terrific character. Didn’t quite work but that was the script’s fault, not Chris Ryan’s. I think they were genuinely just so into the anarchy of the concept that a normal cool person wasn’t easily conceived. He’d have been much better as a version of, say, Mayall’s Lord Flash-heart.
Neil’s great. Vyvyan is just a plot device on legs if you ask me, turned into a fiery reality by Adrian Edmondson’s brilliance.
Another Vyvyan here. Although I liked the carrot in one of the episodes. He was dancing with some sort of food (a cheese? We’ll just say it was cheese) and the cheese gets squished.
Cheese: Darling carrot. Could you ever love a cripple?
Carrot: No. I don’t think so.
When I first got into The Young Ones I was a teenager, it was the mid-80’s, and Mike was not very popular as a character.
But in retrospect he actually is a lot better than people give him credit for. The problem is that his character isn’t as wacky and caricatured - he’s understated and has a sophistication (as far as it goes) that makes him seem less interesting.
Chris Ryan’s ‘Dave Hedgehog’ in Bottom though is excellent! He and ‘Spudgun’ are wonderfully gormless. Brilliant!
Not sure what the name of the episode is, but Mike sealed up my vote when he nailed himself to the table, trying to keep the plates from being burned. That whole scene just kills me.
That would be Cash.
Ah yes, watching that episode was an epiphany for my dad :). He used to hate TYO, usually leaving the room when it came on, and made it pretty clear that he hated us kids watching that rubbish on his TV. One day he decided to sit & sulk through it rather than leave the room, and when it got to the bit where Vivian loses his head to a passing train and then his body starts kicking it down the track, my dad couldn’t stop himself from laughing. From then on, he was a fan. The older generation, huh?