Product Details

• Actors: Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan, Alexei Sayle
• Directors: Geoff Posner, Paul Jackson
• Writers: Rik Mayall, Alexei Sayle, Ben Elton, Lise Mayer
• Producers: Paul Jackson
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: September 10, 1996
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304154275
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,018 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't laugh, I nearly went to Ethiopia, June 13, 2004

By 

Curt Surly (Bellingham, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Young Ones - Demolition/Bomb/Sick [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is really the only non-animated show I've seen that plays precisely like a cartoon. It isn't just "wacky", it is gleefully sadistic. I love the violence and animosity each character expresses quite vividly towards one another and everyone else. On "Sick" on this tape, Madness performs "Our House" as a riot blossoms on the street around them. Gradually the band becomes involved until they too are fully enganged in an orgy of senseless violence.

The political aspect of the show remains relatively vague. Rick pretends to be an anarchist but he's a weeping ladies' blouse. Vyvyan has no political consciousness and just smashes everything because it is really fun to smash things. Mike is too cool for politics and Neil is a hippy.

"Demolition" is great for Vyv's unbridaled explosion of destruction. Also, Mike's attempt to score with the lady from the coucil, who is leading the demolishing brigage, is classic. But, like every episode--the best bits are from Alexei Sayle. His turn as Jrzy "Jeremy" Balowski in this episode is typically brilliant. He gives a lecture in semantics: "Abba...Abba...Swedish? I new them when they were a Lanceshire clog-dancing trio."

"Bomb" is the weakest episode on the tape. Except for the bit with the tv licence man--he's wondefully authoritative-- and, of course, "Dicky and Dino". It also features Rick with a royal hair up his bum, parading about in his silly military fatigues. He looks like a semi-aggro Ed Grimley. Alexei Sayle plays Reggie Balowski, international arms dealer, scrap metal merchant and french cabaret chanteuse. Vyv enjoys a light snack and desperately tries to activate the atom bomb blocking easy access to the refridgerator.

"Sick" is typically vile, replete with the aformentioned riot action. Neil is spewing some green slime and the boys fashion a garbage bag about his head to contain the discharge. Again, Alexei Sayle's turn as madman hostage-taker Brian Damage Balowski is fabulous. Of course the whole mess turns ugliest just at the moment Neil realizes his aged parents are paying him a visit. The rest is inspired lunacy and quite explicitly states just what kind of show "The Young Ones" isn't.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where it all began., June 7, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Young Ones - Demolition/Bomb/Sick [VHS] (VHS Tape)

My wife introduced me to these maniacs years ago, and I'm still hooked. And, as other reviewers have pointed out, this is the place to start.

DEMOLITION--This is your primer to the Young Ones. Here is where the newcomer is introduced to the characters and what makes them tick (and then explode). Musical guest: Nine Below Zero.

BOMB--So, a misdirected (maybe) nuclear bomb winds up in the boys' kitchen. Rik wants to blackmail Thatcher with it. Neil wants to defend himself against it. Mike wants to sell it to the underworld. Vyvyan, of course, wants to explode it (complete with wrecking ball). Alexei Sayle is brilliant as an arms merchant who, on the spur of the moment, decides to erupt into a fit of "Cockney Patois". Dexy's Midnight Runners do Van Morrison.

SICK--This is perhaps the most scatalogical of all of The Young Ones' episodes. After Vyv tosses a molotov cocktail (made of vodka) into Rik's room, Neil explodes into a sneezing fit that sends his snot flying. A feces smeared toilet eats a plunger. A street riot breaks out while Madness performs "Our House". Another brilliant turn by Alexei Sayle who plays Brian Damage, an escaped psycopathic killer.

This trio of episodes is not to be missed.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Once In Every Lifetime, June 10, 2003

By 

Captain Cook (Leeward to the Sandwich Islands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Young Ones - Demolition/Bomb/Sick [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The Young Ones epitomised the confusion of the generation that came of age in the Thatcher Years. Caught between a right wing government, the residue of punk and left-wing ideas from the 60s and 70s, and the continued disolution of the class system, British youth went through an identity crisis, struggling to find a suitable sub-group to belong to, whether it be punk (Vyv), spiv (Mike), hippy (Neil), or 'right-on' left-wing radical (Rick). Throwing these 4 student-types together in an anarchic, surreal house-share was a stroke of genius.

The main focus is the explosive relationship of the pretentious Rick (Rik Mayall) and the brutally straightforward Vyvian (Adrian Edmonson). These 2 actors later reprised a stripped down version of this relationship in "Bottom". Neal the Hippie and Mike the Spiv provided useful ballast and a wider range of plot options preventing this central comedic relationship from imploding.

People who saw the Young Ones the first time round tend to remember it as much funnier than it really is. With repeated viewing the some of the weaknesses in the writing become apparent. Nevertheless there is also a lot of comedic genius and an anarchic spirit that remains eternally refreshing.