The Young Ones (TV Series) - After The Series

After The Series

The end of the series was not the last appearance of The Young Ones. For the British charity television appeal Comic Relief, the four recorded a song and video for Cliff Richard's "Living Doll", accompanied by Richard and Shadows guitarist Hank B. Marvin. Alexei Sayle was not involved, as he felt collaborating with Richard was against the alternative ethos of the show, but had already achieved chart success in 1984 with "'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?".

In 1984 Nigel Planer released an album of music and skits in character as Neil, entitled Neil's Heavy Concept Album. Musical direction was by Canterbury scene keyboardist Dave Stewart. It featured Stewart's alums Barbara Gaskin, Jakko Jakszyk, Pip Pyle, Gavin Harrison, Jimmy Hastings and Rick Biddulph. "Hole in My Shoe", a single taken from the LP, reached number 2. Soulwax used "Hello Vegetables" to kick off their Radio Soulwax mix "Introversy."

At the 1986 Comic Relief stage show, The Young Ones performed "Living Doll" live (following a short skit which involved Rick doing a comic song about showing his underwear and bodily parts, before being ejected from the group by Mike, and Vyvyan supposedly having backstage sex with Kate Bush with Neil as his contraceptive). The skit climaxed with Neil claiming Cliff Richard could not perform with them and John Craven had been booked as a replacement, only for Bob Geldof to appear on stage.

In 1986 MTV aired edited versions of the episodes.

Mayall, Planer and Edmondson reunited in 1986 for the Elton-written Filthy Rich & Catflap. The series had many of the same characteristics as The Young Ones as did Mayall and Edmondson's next sitcom Bottom. Ryan, for his part, was regularly recruited to play roles on associated series (such as Happy Families, Bottom and Absolutely Fabulous). Mayall, Edmondson and Planer have also appeared in episodes of Blackadder.

Both series were repeated consecutively over twelve weeks in early 1985, but went unrepeated for four years, when the second series was shown on BBC2. In the mid-1990s all twelve episodes of The Young Ones were shown on BBC2 in a 30-minute revised format, missing scenes and dialogue. The series was also shown on digital channel UK Gold throughout the 1990s. A mix of both the edited and unedited versions was shown in the 2000s (decade) on UKTV G2.

In 1999, Mayall and Edmondson starred in their co-written film Guest House Paradiso wherein Richie and Eddie are in charge of the worst hotel in the UK which is situated beside a nuclear power plant.

DVD releases have been somewhat basic: only the U.S. "Every Stoopid Episode" edition featured documentaries and no extra footage was included. Musical references proved difficult to clear so "The Sounds of Silence" (one line) and "Subterranean Homesick Blues" were excised from the U.S. editions. A "bloopers" tape made for the amusement of cast and crew has, according to a BBC employee, gone missing from the BBC archives.

A new DVD release of all episodes ("Extra Stoopid Edition") was launched in November 2007, containing new documentaries and two commentary tracks (pilot and final episodes only). This edition restores the line from "The Sounds of Silence" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues".

The UK 25th Anniversary box set also features documentaries and claims to have the full uncut episodes.