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The Young Ones
1982 · TV series · 29 min episodes · 2 seasons
Created by Ben Elton, Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, Lise Mayer
The misadventures of four lunatic students who live in a shared student house. There's Rick, the overblown political one addicted to Cliff Richard, Vyvyan the experimental scientific one/part-time anarchist, Neil the worried hippy, and Mike the ladies' man (at least he is in his mind).
3 positive5 neutralfrom 8 commenters
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8 comments on Hacker News
TV series, absolutely; I've actually never heard the radio program. It aired on PBS in my area along with Monty Python, The Young Ones, and other shows from "across the pond."
In a classic episode of The Young Ones, when the TV inspector knocks on the door, the others stall him while Vyvyan attempts to eat the TV.
Finally the inspector barges in and finds Vyvyan with a power cord hanging out of his mouth to which he replies “It’s a toaster”.
Seinfeld was the first good sitcom.
That's such a silly thing to say I'll assume it's intentionally provocative and not intended to be truthful rather than representing genuine ignorance.
But for anybody young enough/daft enough to take it seriously, check out
Fawlty Towers
Young Ones
Blackadder
Yes Minister
Dad's Army
Etc
Etc
That's just a quick UK list off the top of my head, I'll leave others to correct the parent comment with US (Bilko?, Cheers?, etc) and other national (Let The Blood Run Free?) suggestions...
I was subject to discussions at school about the UK gov's ludicrous 'Protect and Survive' novelty booklet in the 70s. Some years later The Young Ones episode 'Bomb' seemed like the most appropriate response.
Having grown up pretty much assuming I'd be incinerated by nukes at some point (I frequently dreamed of mushroom clouds on the horizon as a child), this is all nothing new to me. I've lived longer than I ever expected.
The Young Ones ran on MTV in 1985. It was hilarious. There's one episode... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_(The_Young_Ones) which really stands above and beyond.
Counter point: British television shows are too short!
My two all time favorite TV shows are Fawlty Towers and The Young Ones. Each consist of two 6 episode seasons. I really wish there were more. (though honestly, they did exactly what they set out to do, mic dropped, and the rest is history)
I was watching some old episodes of "The Young Ones" on NetFlix a while back, and noticed that they did this in their show quite a lot - each episode had at least one or two images inserted randomly in them for a split second. Nothing to do with the episode story at all.
I was intrigued because I never noticed them decades ago when watching the original series - they are far more obvious to me now. Must have been a common technique at the time, because I remember watching another English show from the same era (the name of the show escapes me), which did the same thing.
The Young Ones nailed it with:
Witch: Oh, would you two shut up! Would you like some Turkish Delight, my child? Vyvyan: Not particularly. You got any kebabs?
I think the episode is "Flood".