< The Young Ones

The Young Ones/Funny


The Young Ones is viewed by many as perhaps one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sitcoms of all time, and here are just some examples of why:

  • The fact that Vyvyan is a medical student.
  • From "Demolition", Neil has outlined his plans to hang himself on a gallows that lights joss sticks and plays "Rock Around the Clock" when the trapdoor opens... except that the trapdoor is only a few inches above the floor, so that he doesn't fall far enough to pull the rope taut.
    • Rick's reaction when "Rock Around the Clock" begins playing? An annoyed "Well, that's put the rent up by a third!"
    • Vyvyan's first entrance is priceless - he smashes through the kitchen wall carrying a severed leg as the other three are eating dinner. Rick shouts, "Vyvyan, you might have washed your hands!", prompting Vyv to walk over to the kitchen sink, kick it so that it falls of the wall, and wash his hands in the water flowing through where the tap used to be.
    • Later in the episode, Vyvyan is carrying out his brilliant plan to destroy the house before the Council can demolish it for being a health hazard. This includes kicking a hole in the toilet bowl while Neil is sitting on it.

Neil: Wet feet. Nice one, Vyv.
Vyvyan: [opening bathroom door] I thought you were dead!
Neil: Well, that's no reason to hassle me on the toilet!

    • "Some of these bricks explode!"
  • In "Oil", Neil accidentally stabs Vyvyan in the head with a pick. Vyvyan then stands up and says in a completely calm and polite voice "That's okay Neil. It was bound to happen sooner or later."
    • The whole thing being due to Vyvyan lying about striking oil.
    • When Mike tells Rick he can't go into his own bedroom:

Rick: Have you turned my bedroom into some kind of roller disco? [walks past Mike into his bedroom]
Mike: That's uncanny!
[cut to Rick's room, which is now... a roller disco]

  • The Monopoly game in "Boring".

[Mike rolls the dice and moves his token]
Rick: Ha ha, Mike! Landed on the Old Kent Road, that's mine! Rent, come on, pay up, now!
Mike: [counting out the money] Yeah, all right, all right, I think the Mike Exchequer can handle a debt of four pounds.
[Vyvyan rolls the dice and moves his token to a Community Chest space as Rick grabs the money from Mike]
Rick: Hey, wouldn't it be a-maz-ing if all this money was real?
Vyvyan: That is the single most predictable and boring thing that anybody could ever say whilst playing Monopoly!
Rick: Well, what about "Vyvyan"? I could say "Vyvyan", couldn't I, that'd be pretty boring!
Vyvyan: [taking Community Chest card] Ah. "You have won second prize in a beauty contest." [Rick laughs derisively and picks up the dice] "Smash Rick over the head with the bank."
[confused, Rick puts the dice down and reaches for the card as Vyvyan smashes him over the head with the bank]
Rick: Waagh! It did not say that! Michael, Vyvyan is cheating!
Vyvyan: Mike? [hands Mike the card]
Mike: No, he's right, Rick, that's exactly what it says.
Rick: In biro, Mike, in biro, over the top of the print!
Vyvyan: But we had to change the rules because Monopoly's so boring!
Rick: [picking up another card] "Congratulations, it is your birthday, you may set fire to Rick's bed!"
Vyvyan: [proudly] Good one!
Rick: [picking up another card] "Get out of jail free. You may keep this card, sell it, or stick it up Rick's bottom!" Vyvyan, you've ruined the game!
Vyvyan: I was bored!!
Mike: Yeah, well that's nothing! Neil got so bored he's gone down the garden to kill himself! And it's his go!

    • The Bolowski of the Week (clinically insane Billy Bolowski) knocks at the lads' front door, but no-one can be bothered to answer it:

Mike: There's someone at the door, Rick.
Rick: Someone at the door, Vyvyan.
Vyvyan: There's someone at the door, Neil.
Neil: There's someone at the door, Mike.
Mike: I know! [more knocking, louder this time] There's someone at the door, Rick!
Rick: There's someone at the door, Vyvyan!
Vyvyan: There's someone at the door, Mike!
Neil: There's someone at the door... Neil...
Mike: Well don't look at me, I'm in Paris.
Vyvyan: You haven't left the house all day!
Mike: Vyvyan, you ever heard of cloning?
Vyvyan: [thinks for a moment] No!
Mike: Oh, that's good! Would you swear to that?
Vyvyan: Certainly, if that's what you want! [jumps over the back of the sofa and leans across the kitchen table toward Mike] Big - jobs! [he sits down on the kitchen chair on which Rick is resting his feet]
Rick: OWWWW! [he moves his feet to the floor and glowers at Vyvyan; the knocking at the door becomes louder]
Neil: Hey! Hey, guys! Great idea, listen. Listen. Why don't we, right, decide who's gonna answer the door, right, and then- and then that person could, like, go and answer it, right, and then- [Vyvyan begins yawning] and then, find out who it is and who they want to see, right, and then, like, come back in here, [Rick begins sobbing, literally bored to tears] and tell whoever it is that there's someboy who wants to see them! Yeah?
Mike: [shaking his head in exasperation] Neil, do me a favour.
Neil: What?
Mike: Die.

    • Then, as Neil goes to answer the door, Billy Balowski has already let himself in. Neil comes back a minute later and says "There's no one there!"
  • From "Bomb", the lentils scene.
    • After the lentils are lost, Neil suggests cornflakes as an alternative. Vyvyan's response? "Cornflakes for breakfast? That's disgusting, Neil!"
    • Rick getting his anarchist credentials by not paying his TV licence. To which Vyvyan replies,"What are you going to do Rick, burn your bra?"
    • When the TV licence man shows up on their doorstep, Neil yells back that he has asked if they have a television, and adds "I'm gonna have to lie!"
    • The attempts to get rid of the television. Dismissing Rick's plan to distract the TV licence man by saying "Look at that incredibly interesting thing!" while smuggling the television out dressed as an old lady, Mike tries throwing the television through the window - and it simply bounces off the glass. He then tells Vyvyan to eat the telly, which Vyv has always wanted to do.

Vyvyan: [pointing to the electric cord hanging out of his mouth] It's a toaster.
TV licence man: It's a telly, you yobbo! [grabs cord and pulls] Give it to me, I wanna nick yer!

    • The TV licence man decides to lie in wait until Vyvyan passes the television. He asks where the bathroom is and is told "Upstairs, just follow your nose."

Vyvyan: It's alright lads, I always poo before I get up.

  • The Christian door knocker in "Interesting" being killed by a sandwich, then Neil and Rick's reaction to the sandwich.

Rick: That's just typical! Five minutes before the most important party of my life and the house is destroyed by a giant sandwich!

  • From "Flood", Vyvyan's secret potion. "It's basically a cure...for not bein' an axe-wieldin' homicidal maniac!"
    • The two incompetent spies (also played by Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson) who believe the lads are aliens and are staking them out from over the road.

Ade: This may sound like a stupid question: Lip, nip, nip, nip, bip?
Rik: Yes, it does.

Bambi: So your starter for ten, no conferring. Born in 1311 of Manchurian stock, he came to- [buzz]
Announcer: Scumbag, Neil!
Neil: Er... can I go to the toilet, please?

  • From "Cash", Neil's letter (written by committee) to his bank manager:

Neil: "Darling[1] Fascist bully boy:[2] Give me some more money,[3] you bastard.[4] May the seed of your loin be fruitful in the belly of your woman,[5] Neil."

    • The lads finally decide one of them has to get a job to solve their cashflow problem. They consult the "Situations vacant" pages in the newspaper... which are all blank except for a single Armed Forces recruitment advert (misspellings theirs):

Join the Profeshionels. It's graet! You can have a gun if you want! And there's money in it (not the gun)

    • After Rick claims to have a perforated ear drum, Mike claims to have flat feet, and Vyvyan claims to be pregnant, Neil is nominated to join the Army. He is dressed in one of Mike's suits (which is several sizes too small) and has his hair cut (on one side only), then he is literally thrown into the recruitment office... and immediately thrown out again.

Neil: I only said I was a pacifist!

    • Fortunately, a police recruitment office is just over the road; this time, Neil passes the interview (conducted by Alexei Sayle as "Mussolini")... as the only requirement is being able to make a "Kkh!" sound over the police radio.
      • His first assignment is to bust a wild party held by some of his fellow hippies. He starts by knocking at the door and shouting "Open up, it's the pigs!" The other hippies assume he has come as a guest and shrug off his claim that he has come to arrest them, until one of them discovers Neil's police radio:

Warlock: [into radio] Hello Earth, can you read me? This is Starship Captain Warlock from the planet Freakout, broadcasting to you on the interlectrogalactic airwaves! Can you read me, Earth?
Policeman: [over radio] We receive you! Do you require assistance?
Warlock: [amazed] Far out, man! Er, yeah, we require ten assistants! Preferably Swedish!
[screeching tyres, followed by a horde of policemen smashing the door down and attacking the partygoers with truncheons]
Warlock: [eating his stash] Oh no! I knew I should have stuck to rum punch!

  • In "Nasty", Vyvyan setting up a sawblade to slice Rick's bed in half, which Rick somehow didn't anticipate despite being certain Vyvyan has rigged his room somehow.
    • The cutaway scene to an 18th-century convict ship.

Captain: Aged, toothless, and bent old crone!
Crone: 'Ow'd yer know me name?
Captain: We wish to engage you as ship's cook and concubine.
Crone: Oh yeah? What's a concubine then?
Captain: It's a small, spiky mammal.
Crone: [shakes head] No, that's a hedgehog.
Captain: Oh. Well in that case, we wish to engage you as ship's cook and hedgehog.

  • From "Time", the radio announcer is trying to warn the lads that Helen, the mysterious girl Rick found in his bed that morning, is a murderess, but as Neil has been knocked unconscious (by Helen, of course), Rick and Vyvyan are busy fighting over whether or not Rick is still a virgin, and Mike is trying to seduce Helen (who is trying to kill him), no-one is paying attention...

Announcer: You stupid bastards, I've been trying to tell you for the last ten minutes, that girl with her hands over Mike's ears is a dangerous murderer!
[Helen covers Mike's ears, leads him over to the sofa, and begins smothering him with a cushion]
Mike: That's it baby! Treat me rough!
Announcer: No, no, a murderer! [Vyvyan picks up the radio and throws it at Rick] That's better. Now will you listen- [Rick picks up the radio] No no you idiot I'm your last hope- [Rick throws the radio at Vyvyan; he misses, and the radio crashes through the window]
Vyvyan: Missed, virgin!

    • Eventually, the fight between Rick and Vyvyan escalates to dangerous levels...

Rick: Vyv! Where did you get that Howitzer?!
Vyvyan: Found it!
Rick: Well you can just about bloomin' well put it back this instant, young man!
Vyvyan: I will, I will, just as soon as I've blown you to pieces! [fires a round as Rick dives for cover]

    • Meanwhile, the reason the episode is called "Time" has finally become clear as Neil is carted off to a mediaeval peasant village... and happens to point at the huts just as the shells from Vyv's Howitzer land on them, convincing the peasants he is an evil sorcerer.

Neil: Barricade the door! Lock the windows! Pretend to be invisible! I've just committed, erm, a bit of a faux pas.
Mike: Neil, have you upset the neighbours?
Neil: No Mike, I've blown them up!
Rick: Phew! And who said Sunday was a day of rest?
Vyvyan: God did!
Rick: That's right! I knew it was some old Tory!

    • Eventually, the peasants surround the house:

[an arrow parts Rick's hair down the centre as it hits the telly]
Rick: Oh no! The whole house has been surrounded by angry mediaeval peasants!
Mike: They think we're witches and they're gonna burn us!
Vyvyan: We're completely trapped! The outlook is bleak!
Neil: Oh, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do??
Vyvyan: ... [rolls eyes] Oh, who cares.
All: Yeah.
[they sit down and start playing cards, ignoring the peasants as they charge through the door and begin rummaging through the lads' belongings]

  • From "Sick", Vyvyan lighting a Molotov cocktail and saying "It's funny, but being ill makes me lose my usual tolerant and easy-going approach to communal living!" before lobbing it into Rick's bedroom.
    • Early in the same episode, Mike comes into Neil's bedroom where the others have gathered holding a fish. He asks "What's this?" to which Vyvyan replies "A fish, Mike!" He leaves, satisfied. He then comes back soon after and finishes the question "What's this fish doing in my bed." Vyvyan replies, "It's not in your bed, Mike." He then leaves and comes back without the fish. "What's this fish doing in my bed?" The others reply, in unison "WHAT FISH?"
  • Vyvyan's rant against The Good Life:

Vyvyan: No! No! NO! We're not watching the bloody Good Life! Bloody bloody bloody! I hate it! It's so bloody nice! Felicity "Treacle" Kendal and Richard "Sugar-Flavored-Snot" Briers! What do they do now? Chocolate bloody Button ads, that's what! They're just a couple of reactionary stereotypes, confirming the myth that everyone in Britain is a lovable, middle-class eccentric - and I - HATE - THEM!

Mike: That was a highly articulate outburst, Vyvyan. I only hope they're not watching.

  1. ↑ Vyv's suggested replacement for "Dear"
  2. ↑ Rick's preferred term for "Bank manager"
  3. ↑ Mike's recommendation for requesting an extension on his overdraft
  4. ↑ Vyv's idea, on the assumption that bank managers respect strength
  5. ↑ The translation of "Boom shanka", Neil's suggestion after Vyv overrules "Love" and Rick vetoes "Yours sincerely"
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