Terrible Analogies

As a child of the 80′s, I grew up on television.  Most days I sat on the floor, legs crossed, slack-jawed and unresponsive as a cavalcade of classic television seeped into my cortex and numbed the part of my brain responsible for intellect and reasoning.  This was the era of CHiPs, Three’s Company, The A-Team, and MTV when MTV played honest-to-God music videos that were hosted by people called “VJs” (shout out to Martha Quinn and Remote Control).  And it was in the 80′s when MTV first began to experiment with the non-musical format.  During this transitional era MTV aired what was one of the most original and unhinged television shows ever to hit the small screen.  

This show was called The Young Ones, and I instantly fell in love with it.  

The Young Ones centered on four college students (in reality, only three were in school, but I digress) who shared a dilapidated flat on the wrong side of town.  Rick (the anarchist), Vyvyan (the punk), Mike (the cool one), and Neil (the hippie), did whatever they could to get under each other’s skin, spark neighborhood riots, attempt to take over Britain with a nuclear weapon, sham their way on to game shows, and generally scheme their way through life.  

During most episodes there would be extended non sequiturs into abstract sketches, and visits by a comedian who played a variety of characters (a bank robber, mobster, landlord, fascist sympathizer, mentally challenged bicycle taxi driver, etc…).  Surrealistic scenes were spattered throughout the show (ex: house flies filming a documentary, talking vegetables, stuffed animals humping, subliminal messages, medieval dungeon scenes, Russian poet soothsayer) that kept the viewers on their toes.  And, if you paid attention to what was happening in the background, you might catch some strange goings-on.  

But what really put this show over the top was the inclusion of musical acts that would seemingly appear out of nowhere.  Bands such as Madness, Dexys Midnight Runners, Motorhead, and The Damned would jam as, more often than not, bedlam broke out around them.  

This show was sheer genius.  It’s an example of giving the cast complete control to produce a uniquely wonderful product, and to this day it remains my favorite television show of all time.  I’d like to think that this show could somehow be revived, but that would be difficult to pull off because, after all, the four mates all died in a flaming double-decker bus as it careened uncontrolled down a narrow country road before plunging several hundred feet off a cliff (Richard?), exploding in an inescapable fiery fireball of deathly doom as it slammed headlong into the canyon floor below.  

Now….that’s how you make an exit!

Brian "Damage" Balowski takes over the flat during a street riot

"We interrupt tonight's scheduled program, "The Bastard Squad", to bring you up-to-the-minute coverage of a siege which is now underway in North London"

"What I need is the drill, the hedge trimmers, and some ordinary household bleach..."

Accidents are bound to happen whenever you dig for oil in your basement