That Rik Mayall thing - Classic or Dud?

It's the sort of prog where because you like the people in it, you try to forgive its inherant faults.

(Is that how you spell inherant? It looks wrong)

xpost Yeah! It's like Suddenly they appeal to your parents more!

Ahem, yeah I'd go for that one. Amongst the "Young ones" and the "Comic Strip" box.

Perhaps this is the statement that Tag was actually referring to. What a false dichotomy!

When we woz kids he lived up the road from me - he in the posh end of town - and my mate's elder brother nicked his (expensive, Kings School posh kids type) bike. That's it.

Dressed as Hitler in those "no to the Euro" ad things he appeared in = the worst thing he ever did (just above quad biking and going to Kings School in Worcester).

Don't it make your heart so/ar/e?

It did remind me of the people back in the "Turkey Dance Troup" back in the day...

Haha I went to Kings School Worcester... kids used to write Rik Mayall/Chris Tarrant in their text books so they could claim they had a "star"'s old book. I'm about 98% sure I never did this, I should add.

What, cause he didn't like the euro?

!!!

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27770266#TWEET1152067

+

nooooooo

Seriously bummed here. What a legend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKfbSHW9uGA

https://twitter.com/KamahlAJE/status/476016130696306690

And the grown-ups will say "But why are the kids crying?" And the kids will say "Haven't you heard? Rik is dead! The People's Poet is dead!"

Yes, had to repost that tweet here.

yeah that was the first thing I thought of but it seemed slightly disrespectful. RIP people's poet

Oh balls.

One of my comedy heroes. Colin Grigson one of my favourite ever characters.

oh shit

The noisiest mime-artist ever!

One of my friends just posted his obit on fb and said "RIP Drop Dead Fred"

That's not the first thing I'd remember him for, but whatever. RIP indeed!

RIP :(

I loved me some people's poet

hands up, who likes me

when I saw americans bumping this I knew he was dead :-(

kinda think the young ones is not very good but Bottom was the shit when I was fourteen seventeen twenty-eight

wait he was only 56? What the fucking fuck!

well this sucks a lot

RIP. :(

I liked bottom when I was 12 but other than that it was only ever flash that I liked but tbh flash was the shit so rip

Sad news. I was just thinking about him the other day when someone on here was discussing quad bike accidents.

RIP

DEAR, MISTER, ECHO:

Funnily enough, I was up till half past two last night...

Doggersea Bats Home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNhTYJGjc2g

I really loved him as a kid.

Even though he was supposed to be a disgusting loser in Bottom, my mother found him very attractive in that role.
In retrospect it's quite a weird show (actually Rising Damp and Steptoe & Son were quite dark and dingy too). Loved the crazy fights when he swung his arm several times before punching.

In the three channel era The Young Ones was so hilarious. I even bought the crappy C64 Young Ones computer game. Mr Jolly Lives Next Door is a classic.

Crappy c64 Young Ones Computer game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeYiyPs18u4

"Pretty good game 7/10" ?

Blimey, the rest must have been really bad!

Just lost track of him after The Young Ones and Drop Dead Fred -- much easier to do in the US -- but he was certainly brilliant in TYO. Good night, funnyman.

Mayall is set to appear in this weekend's Official Chart countdown, after a social media campaign encouraging fans to honour his memory by downloading a track he recorded for the 2010 World Cup.

The song, Noble England, failed to chart at the time of release but reached 38 in the midweek sales chart.

.. and is supposed to be hovering outside the top ten at the mo.

has anybody heard this?

it is very odd

I don't remember hearing anything about it in 2010, i'm curious now as to what other obscure novelty songs by celebs are out there that could potentially become hits in the event of their untimely death

flag people

has anyone anywhere heard this?

it's on youtube

Laughing Gnome

So, I guess this song will be the top "England" song after the Italy match

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMAFme1hBH0

song is weird, video weirder

Number seven, which is pretty good going

its a bit KLF-esque ..

yeah, working a Grim Up North / America No More vibe

directly after algeria/russia, ITV4 showed Guest House Paradiso which was fucking incredible, like a dom delouise comedy made by mentalists and somehow not from the 1980s but with simon pegg and vincent cassel?! really kind of the ultimate unexpected late-night movie

Yeah, it totally bombed on release but I love it. The scene with the candle in the crawl space is one of the best things they ever did.

I was squirming during that! Well during a lot of it TBH

the tribute on bbc2 last night had Bottom down as his masterpiece. i never really rated it.

also, the repeat of the young ones had that creepy person hiding in the flat that was mentioned in some other thread.

Bottom definitely his masterpiece according to 10 yr old boys in the mid-90s if my peer group at that time was anything to go by, maybe enough of them grew up into ppl with media jobs that this is now the consensus view?

Red Dwarf was also very popular with this demographic- what comedies to 10 yr old boys of 2014 like?

I watched the tribute too.

I still like Bottom, I'd rather watch it than Young Ones. I've still never seen the show about the Tory politician. Considering how some comedies are repeated endlessly that's a bit annoying.

I've always found it odd how gloomy and dingy a lot of older british comedies are. Even when newer comedies are going for gritty and depressing they always look cleaner and lighter.
I used to find old episodes of Rising Damp and Steptoe & Son really spooky because of the gloomy old dingy settings, which I don't think was intentional.

15 Storeys High was good for gloomy and dingy, early series of Peep Show, too

I've still never seen the show about the Tory politician. Considering how some comedies are repeated endlessly that's a bit annoying.

most of The New Statesman seems to be available on youtube

definitely true re the dingy 70s gloom. even relatively lighter, less dramatic SitComs like On The Buses and Some Mothers.. really make me queasy.
all these hideous nutcases cooped up together in tiny houses and freaky clothes, all at each other's throats.. i mean i got enough of that at home. the Some Mothers theme tune still makes me feel like throwing a wobbler.

steptoe & son for me was always the most unpleasant-looking. wilfred brambell gave me nightmares

to me, bottom was a less good rehash of filthy rich which was a less good rehash of young ones. but i guess if you hadn't seen the first two then you wouldn't be so critical.

> what comedies to 10 yr old boys of 2014 like?

some bbc3 guff probably. family guy.

15 storeys high was sunlight and puppies compared to Ideal and Shameless

ftr I loved Bottom

not as much as the Young Ones but it was def great imo

^^ this

As a Minnesota adolescent the dingy brooding darkness of the British sitcoms they'd show from 10 to 11 pm every weeknight on public tv was heady exotic stuff to me. It seemed like the protagonist of butterflies could decide to off herself any episode. And Leonard rossiter, forget about it.

I finished watching 15 Storeys High recently and I liked it quite a lot, I was going to mention it. I don't think Peepshow ever looked that dingy or washed out bleak.

Even as miserable as Shameless and Phoenix Nights looked, I don't think my younger self would be on edge waiting for ghosts to start haunting the place, which is how I honestly felt with Rising Damp and Steptoe & Son. I liked Rising Damp but I genuinely felt like asking my elders if it was gradually turning into a horror show.

It's weird because some of this stuff I find unbearably ugly and some of it has a real beauty to it. Films made by Shane Meadows make me think the only happy ending could be Britain bombed to shit.

Sean Locke once presented a documentary called Great British Sunday and it was one of the most hideous and depressing things I've ever seen (mostly 70s footage) and he even finished the show saying "it was shit but it was ours".

Bottom undeniably the masterpiece imo, as particularly the live shows the endless Beckettian bleakness shone through - the second half of the 2001 show had them trapped in a steel room they couldn't escape from, realised they would die there and mindlessly passing the time until then.

I did see them doing "Waiting for Godot", whenever it was, with Christopher Ryan

wow i have to see this Great British Sunday thing..

I think someone was saying just before this latest revive how you'd assume bottom was a 70s show from the grotty look of it

aldo otm btw

beckettianism cannot be understated, the live stuff i watched on youtube was next level beyond the tv show

people in the pub have also pointed out that bottom is better than i remember it.

but mainly i came to post this:

> I've still never seen the show about the Tory politician.

it's showing on freeview channel 8 "London Live" in the london area, tonight (along with drop the dead donkey and 8 episodes of black books)

here's that great british sunday thing mentioned above. some superb bits in it, not least the david frost clip and the geordie guy at the start saying what sunday means to him:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2g68h0_the-great-british-sunday-3rd-february-2008-ws-pdtv-xvid

sorry, wrong link. this is the one: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2g68h0_sean-lock-the-great-british-sunday-2008_fun

I'm surprised you found it. Did you find it as depressing as I did?

grim old britain is one of my favourite things, nourishes me, and i like sean lock a lot so yeah, loved it!

oh and i found it in my old archive of stuff downloaded from uknova and burned to disc. it got banned from youtube despite not being available on dvd or anywhere online at all, such bullshit

I love Sean Lock too.

As I think I said somewhere above, a lot of these things have a real beauty but there are other things, like boys made to wear shorts and have overly neat hair that I'm thrilled are mostly dead. Britain still has plenty of grim ugliness though. Just wish there was as much tress and grass as there was in the 70s.

Trees and grass.

saw a boy in school uniform shorts yesterday morning. poor sod.

(that said, i saw a woman with a puffa jacket and scarf and hat but bare legs last week)

Those uniforms are cruel. I'm amazed they still exist. I was freezing enough in regular school trousers.

some friend of humanity has uploaded 'Rik Mayall Presents: Dancing Queen' in full. man this is absolute gold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X5ZuTrfZ84

Oh God, Helena Bonham-Carter playing working class.

Ade Edmondson was on Desert Island Discs this morning and well, oof.

Adrian Edmondson talks about Rik Mayall’s passing. pic.twitter.com/9H9gjXSRRq

— Ben (@Jamin2g) September 22, 2023

;_; heartbreaking

Ah shit. Ambushed by unexpected emotion part 35.

yeah quite overwhelming w tears here

I've heard Aid nakedly emotional about Rik a few times but that was so raw and beautiful. Jeez.