The Young Ones (TV Series) - Synopsis

Synopsis

Stories were set in a squalid house where the students lived during their time at Scumbag College. It can be classified as a comedy of manners.

When it was first broadcast, the show gained attention for its violent slapstick. Though new to mainstream audiences, Mayall and Edmondson had been using it in 20th Century Coyote for some time. The show also featured surreal elements, such as puppets playing talking animals or objects. Confusion was added with lengthy cutaways with no relation to the main plot.

Throughout the series, the fourth wall is frequently broken for comedic effect by all characters at various parts of the show. The wall is usually broken as either a punchline to a joke, or to make a plot point more obvious. Alexei Sayle breaks both the fourth wall and his character to address the audience in his real life Liverpudlian accent.

The series featured a wide variety of guest appearances by comedians, actors, and singers, including co-creator Ben Elton, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Hale and Pace, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Mark Arden, Stephen Frost, Jools Holland, Terry Jones, Chris Barrie, Norman Lovett, Lenny Henry, David Rappaport and Emma Thompson.

Episodes in the second series sometimes included "flash frames" (three frames, equivalent to one eighth of a second), but these were edited out of some repeats. These were included as a mockery of the British and American public's fear of subliminal messages in television and music. Unlike original flash frames, which lasted only one frame, these were long enough to be noticeable without actually being identifiable. The images included the end caption of Carry On Cowboy, a rusty dripping tap, a leaping frog, a dove in flight, a skier and a hand making pottery.

The episodes ran 35 minutes, and episodes were very often edited to a standard half-hour running time when repeated on the BBC or satellite channels.

In the United States, The Young Ones started airing on MTV on June 5, 1985. The show also ran on PBS, USA Network's Night Flight, Comedy Central in 1994, and BBC America in the early 2000s.