Ho Yay / Bottom

Eddie, my knob has gone numb! It’s gotten a lot bigger, though!

Out of all the characters Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson have portrayed together, Richie and Eddie seem to be the ones who have the most Ho Yay between them, with most of it coming from Richie, who’s also heavily implied to be bisexual. There’s even more of it in the live shows than in the series, where Richie’s apparent latent bisexuality is wrapped up to eleven.

TV Series

Season One

Smells

• If one pays close attention, Eddie, while drunk, can be seen trying to grab Richie’s waist for support so as to not fall over.
• While drunk on the sex spray, Eddie tries it on with a guy before Richie pulls him away.
  • While still drunk on it, Eddie flirts with Richie at the end of the episode. Not only that, but the fact that Eddie knew who he was hitting on could also imply a drunken Love Confession.

Gas

• This exchange when Richie immediately panics after answering the door to the gas man and Eddie walks over to him:
  Eddie: Who is it, darling?
  Richie: IT’S THE GAS MAN!
  Eddie: Well, don’t leave him out in the cold, dreamboat. Show him in.
• When Richie and Eddie initially believe that they murdered the gas man, Eddie suggests that Richie gives him the kiss of life. Richie, while resistant at first, becomes eager when Eddie reminds him of his wishes to find out how kissing feels.
• Richie’s "threesome" with Rottweiler and the girl the latter was sleeping with.^note When Richie slipped under the bed covers to try and get a better look at the girl, Rottweiler, in his sleep, grabbed him and started kissing him.
• "You and me, together, from here to eternity!"

Apocalypse

• Richie is so terrified of his predicted death that he makes Eddie test all the food that they have in the flat for poison. He ends up scoffing a great deal of grub and booze as well as some chocolate liqueurs they were "saving for (their) anniversary".

Accident

• For a party game including Spudgun, Hedgehog, Richie and Eddie, Richie suggests "sardines" - a game that usually involves one person hiding while the others try to find them. In Richie’s mind, it also involves the hidden person getting to make out with whoever finds them. He seems keen on the idea before quickly dismissing it and deciding that they’ll simply play the game normally.

Season Two

Parade

• Richie and Eddie need to detach a false leg on an ex-war veteran in order to gain money to bet on a horse with. Eddie, however, is hesitant to complete the task due to how wrong Richie’s instructions sound.^note "stick your hand right up there and undo the false leg."Richie then slips his hand up the veteran’s trouser leg and stops at a certain point with a big grin forming on his face.
  • Not to mention the fact that Richie sings a lullaby to him.

Culture

• Richie claims that the TV was taken away as him and Eddie fell behind on the rent. To avoid boredom, the both of them spend the episode coming up with things to do (i.e. making martinis and playing chess). Eddie even spends the entire night trying to teach Richie how to play the game properly despite the latter having to have the rules explained to him "124 times" and still being unable to understand. The end of the episode reveals that Richie hid the TV behind the fridge the entire time with his reason being that he wanted to spend more time with Eddie.

Holy

• Interestingly, in the uncut version of the episode, Richie’s Christmas present to Eddie is a self-portrait of himself.
• Richie is once again willing to play "sardines" with Spudgun, Hedgehog and Eddie.^note The game was first mentioned in "Accident", with Richie’s own version of the rules being that whoever found the person who was hiding got to make out with them. Richie was almost too open to the idea before firmly changing his mind.
• In the same episode it emerges Eddie made Richie a wooly hat, which Richie thought was a dress.
• When Richie brings in a baby he finds outside his and Eddie’s door:
  Richie: I’ve got a baby.
  Eddie: What? We don’t want a baby. Get rid of it. We’re happy as we are. Why spoil everything? We'll drift apart. It’s bound to come between us.
  Richie: Well, I think that it’s come between us already... Besides, it's a fact now. We have to deal with it.
  Eddie: Why couldn’t you be more careful?

S'Out

• When the tiny tent is put up and it becomes clear to Eddie that him and Richie would have to share it, his mind seems to jump straight to lewd ideas. Richie's assertion that he'd rather stick his genitals in a bee's nest than have sex with his flat mate only makes Eddie call him "kinky".
• Richie comes over all embarrassed asking Eddie if he saw Richie's pants as he was getting into the sleeping bag. Although Eddie assures Richie that he did not, the fact that he calls them "gaudily-stained" would suggest that he has seen them before.
• At one point when Richie and Eddie are lying right next to each other in the small tent, the former leans over towards the latter and smiles at him before he asks him about the book he’s reading.
• When it’s time for lights out, Richie leans over to kiss Eddie goodnight before pulling himself back once he comes to realise what he’s doing.

Season Three

Hole

• Richie admits to appreciating a man’s pectorals, even after realising that he wasn’t a woman as he initially believed.

Dough

• "His wife isn’t supposed to know!"

Finger

• Firstly, there’s a scene where Richie and Eddie are fantasising about Ted Rogers.
• The plot of the episode involves Richie and Eddie stealing honeymoon tickets and masquerading as newly-weds in order to stay at a fancy hotel.
  • Richie starts to go off on removing Eddie's fancy underwear with his teeth, before quickly reminding himself that it's Eddie and fervently hoping he doesn't get drunk.

Live Shows

Bottom Live: The Stage Show

• When Eddie sees a box on the table:
  Eddie: That’s an interesting looking package!
  Richie: (stares down at his own crotch before looking back up at Eddie) Why, thank you, Eddie!
  Eddie: No, I meant the parcel on the table.
• Eddie arriving home and shouting, "Darling, I’m home!" to Richie.
• When it’s revealed that Richie was tricked into signing a marriage certificate between him and Eddie.
• Near the end of the show where Richie is about to be killed on an electric chair-like lavatory, Richie says thank you to Eddie for being his only friend despite all their arguments and fights. Eddie looks as if he's about to cry. Although he immediately goes back to setting up the lavatory, it’s one of the few moments in both the entire series and live shows that Richie and Eddie actually seem to care about each other.
• Richie and Eddie hold hands while electrocuting themselves at the end of the show.

Bottom Live: The Big Number Two Tour

• There’s a Call-Back where Richie arrives home and shouts, "Darling, I’m home!" to Eddie.
• At the end of the show, Richie dry-humps Eddie.

Bottom Live 3: Hooligan's Island

• There’s a brief scene where Eddie appears to be touching Richie’s rear. (26:08).
• Richie has to have an injection in his bottom and Eddie’s willing to do the job but Richie is resistant to the idea of Eddie seeing private areas of him and so Eddie puts on a blindfold. However, Richie, not wanting to go through the pain, gives Eddie two coconuts and Eddie proceeds to feel and compliment them, all the while thinking that it’s Richie’s own bottom.
• Early in Act 2, Richie gets aroused by a cloud he believes is shaped like "the busty mysterious one off GMTV". Despite being convinced by Eddie that it's actually shaped like BBC weatherman Michael Fish (in a thong!), he still attempts to masturbate to it.
• One scene has Richie and Eddie perform a brief Handyman/Housewife roleplay.
  • What follows is Eddie beginning to make suggestive advances towards Richie, leading the latter to freak out and knock the former unconscious. At this point, it’s officially safe to say that Richie has a canonical crush on Eddie:
  Richie: (kneeling down next to an unconscious Eddie) He’s unconscious… And warm…^note This statement leads to someone in the audience shouting out to Richie, "Touch him!", causing Richie to bore a delightful reaction.I was only looking for love! Who could be so hard-hearted as to deny me a little bit of human warmth? Especially around the bottom… (begins to slide his hand up Eddie’s shorts)
  Eddie: (wakes up)
  Richie: OH, FUCK! EDDIE! YOU’RE ALIVE!
  Eddie: YES, I AM!
  Richie: What did you hear???
  Eddie: EVERYTHING!
  Richie: (nervous) My ploy of pretending to want to have sex with you in order to frighten you back from your unconsciousness managed to make you- no! Make me feel that- that- Oh, god! Eddie, I can’t make it up anymore! Look, we’re both about to blown to smithereens by this nuclear device so why don’t you just give me a blow job and say no more about it??!
  Eddie: Do my ears deceive me???!
  Richie: Just come over here and take me roughly from behind!!
  Eddie: You’re losing your marbles!!
  Richie: Well, you better come and play with them while they’re still here! (gesturing his own genitals)
  Eddie: Come and sit down! (leads Richie to a chair)
  Richie: That’s right, Eddie! Treat me rough and do whatever you like! I am your slave!
  Eddie: (proceeds to electrocute Richie)
• During a sequence where Richie and Eddie try to imagine Gladiators in order to get erections ^note  Richie had suggested it as a way to prevent themselves from reactivating the French nuclear bomb , Eddie initially envisions Kirk Douglas as Spartacus. Although, in this case, Eddie was apparently under the impression that Kirk Douglas was a woman, and is quite shocked when Richie informs him otherwise.

Bottom Live 2001: An Arse Oddity

• In the beginning of the show, Richie experiences a wet dream about Eddie.
• The scene where Eddie uses pet names for Richie (dear, darling, tulip, petal, flower and… double scotch.)

Bottom Live 2003: Weapons Grade Y-Fronts

• First, there’s this gem. (4:09-4:12)
• Do we even need to discuss the scene where Richie sticks his hand in Eddie’s pocket? (pictured above)
  • The fact that Eddie doesn’t even object and simply looks on in surprise is even better. It’s like he’s contemplating and processing how it feels to actually have Richie touch his penis.
• When Richie places both of his hands on Eddie’s chest:
  Richie: Sorry, force of habit.