Cartoon humour arrived in the BBC 2 post watershed slot back in 1982 and the world was never the same again....

This was in the days of bachelorhood for the dave27 muse and I remember the rumours going around in YOUNG PEOPLE LAND about this mad TV sitcom long before it exploded across our screens. Me and my mates had picked up on Rik Mayall in the crap cult comedy prog, 'A Kick Up The Eighties', when he had made a career out of a Black Country accent in the role of investigative reporter, the abominable Kevin Turvey, and were all ears when we heard about THE NEW PROJECT.

It was about a bunch of students living in a flat together, together with their grasping landlord, Jerzy Bulowski, played by the man with the tightest suits in showbusiness, Alexei Sayle, but that was about all we knew. I remember a collection of drunken, drugged up, layabout types huddled round a TV waiting for that first episode in hushed awe. But we were just not prepared for what was about to absorb our consciousness.

That first series was scheduled for just six episodes and was penned by Mayall, together with his girlfriend of the time, Lise Mayer, and Ben Elton, who made some cameo appearances in the show, but was then an extremely nerdy, studenty chap.

The show was indeed about students, four of the worst students you could ever have imagined and it made huge stars of the participants.

They were (in no particular order):

Rick, the People's Poet, played by Mayall, as the most despicable and irredeemable character in the entire world. He was convinced he was cool, but was in reality abhorred by the entire universe and we found that his name was spelt with a silent 'P'. He is the ultimate in political correctness, hates THATCHER and is a VIRGIN.

Neil (Pye), played by Nigel Planer, was the morbid, eternally depressed, miserable, hippie, the put upon one, the butt of all the jokes, although slightly less unpopu
lar than the abysmal Rick.

Mike (Coolperson), played by Christopher Ryan, liked to think of himself as the cool dude, the man of the world, the successful shag piece, although he ain't really.

Vivien (Bastard), played by Adrian Edmondson, the loud mouthed, orange haired punk with metal studs across his forehead, the dealer of all sorts of violent retribution upon both Neil and Rick.

The Bulowski Family, played by Sayle, an East European collection of thugs, committed to the exploitation of our little bunch of desperadoes.

It helps to think of the students as four aspects of a family. Mike is the Father Figure and Neil the Earth Mother, Cook and Housewife. Viv is the violent man child and Rick is the spoilt and irredeemable daughter, and boy do they play up to those roles with a real vengeance.

Eventually, they made two series, each of six episodes, before Rik, Ade and Nigel branched off on the unsuccessful 'Filthy, Rich And Catflap', before ditching Planer and finding their true forte with 'Bottom', but the Rik and Viv characters were constant throughout, although Viv mutated into Eddie Hitler late in life.

I'm going to stick to just the first series here, but in many ways this tells you all that you need to know about this veritable classic of BBC comedy...

'The Young Ones' was in many ways groundbreaking comedy. It wasn't particularly subtle or clever, and relied on very student like humour, but it was brash and outrageous and noisy and so over the top that it came down with snow on top. It took slapstick to new heights and the violence with which Viv dealt with Rik was a wonder to behold. Suffice to say it variously involved glass windows, cricket bats, Molotov cocktails and a spade.

Each episode revolved loosely around a central story, although it was really just the framework for some violent and hilarious set pieces between the main protagonists, an
d there were often quite surreal off script happenings with such doyens of alternative comedy as Robbie Coltrane, Elton, French and Saunders, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. There was also a mid point live performance from a band and these included Madness, Motorhead and The Belle Stars.

The episodes were always titled with one odd word and we variously received Demolition, Oil, Boring, Bomb, Interesting and Flood. I'm not going to give you a clue as to plots and one liners, because that would be a waste of time outside of the context of their zany mayhem. You just need to check out this brilliant series and you have two choices - you can either buy the video or alternatively you can catch the repeats on UK Gold if you've got Sky.

Be prepared though to ditch your sanity and go with the flow - there's no rhyme or reason involved here, but there is an awful lot of violent jokes and mind bending farce - it's all a bit like Brian Rix with an axe through the head.