The Young Ones

While watching television late one Sunday night in early 1986, I stumbled across an odd program that was running on MTV. It's rare now that something worthwhile is found on MTV, but back then they actually had some good programming in their schedule. This was one of those program. It was a BBC comedy called "The Young Ones," and it was absolutely hilarious. I know the British sense of humor is somewhat dry and takes a bit of getting used to, but I had practically been raised watching episodes of Monty Python and Faulty Towers on PBS. So "The Young Ones" immediately appealed to me.

The show follows the, um, adventures of Rick the anarchist, Neil the hippy, Mike the cool person, and Vyvyan the punk, all college students, all not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer. In the 12 total episodes the BBC made of this series, their circumstances (amongst many) find them dealing with vampires, their criminally-insane Russian landlord, a nuclear bomb in their kitchen, oil in their basement, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a hamster named Special Patrol Group, a female serial killer who's dressed like Alice in Wonderland, Vyvian getting pregnant, and a fateful trip to a laundromat.

The You Tube clip below is from the episode, "Bambi," one of my favorites. In this episode, the boys find themselves competing in a television program called University Challenge against Footlights College Oxbridge. If some of the faces look familiar, they should. Competing for Footlights College are Emma Thompson, and Hugh Laurie long before his stint as Gregory House, M.D.