The sex dolls episode. First broadcast 15 January 1989.
Del's latest items to sell are video recorders from Taiwan (sorry, Formosa) and tomatoes from Jersey. And a consignment of fifty faulty dolls that Denzil picked up from a shop in High Wycombe; he was meant to take them back to the factory but it burned down before he could do so. Spotting an opportunity, Del forges a signature on the form from the factory and buys the dolls from Denzil.
Back at the flat, Rodney discovers that the dolls are in fact inflatable sex dolls. Del suggests that they take them to a man named Dirty Barry, who owns a sex shop. Meanwhile, Denzil finds out from the TV news that the dolls are filled with propane gas, which will explode if exposed to heat (it's reckoned that this was the cause of the fire that destroyed the factory). He sets off to try and find Del to warn him.
Later that same evening, Rodney informs Del that the video recorders were intended to be used in mainland Europe and don't work in the United Kingdom. At that moment, two of the sex dolls self-inflate. After initially trying to flee, the Trotters attempt to deflate them, but cannot due to their faulty valves. While Rodney gets dressed for a date with Cassandra, Del has an idea about how to get the dolls to Dirty Barry's.
Back at the Nag's Head, Trigger complains about the tomatoes, and Boycie turns out to be the one who bought most of the faulty video recorders. Denzil rushes in, trying to find Del, but he's not there.
Over at Nelson Mandela House, Rodney and Del have dressed the two dolls in their late mother's clothes. An old man mistakes them for real women and Del imitates a female voice. The Trotters throw the dolls in their van, and Rodney heads off to meet up with Cassandra, leaving Del and Albert to drive over to Dirty Barry's. When they get there, though, they find that he's had his licence revoked by the council. With nowhere else to drop them off, Del and Albert head back to the van to think of another way to get rid of the dolls.
At a restaurant, Cassandra tells Rodney about the sex dolls that she's heard about on the news. Rodney runs off to find and warn Del. Eventually, Del and Rodney take the two inflated dolls and dump them in an abandoned area. The dolls explode after the Trotter brothers have got clear. They head back to their van, only to find out that another doll is inflating. On seeing this, they run off into the night.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Even though she admits she shouldn't laugh about such a thing, Cassandra is rather amused at the thought of a load of highly explosive sex dolls after seeing the report about them on the TV news.
- Alliterative Name: The sex dolls are marketed with the names "Lusty Linda" and "Erotic Estelle". Del later refers to them as "Polythene Pam" and "Vinyl Vera".
- Ambiguous Ending: Quite what happens after Del and Rodney run off is never made clear, although the van clearly survived the ordeal as it's in all future episodes.
- Brick Joke: Mike gets complaints about his food after buying some of the tomatoes from Del. Towards the end of the episode, Rodney quickly leaves the posh restaurant he takes Cassandra to — he's actually running off to warn Del about the dolls, as he's only just found out how dangerous they are, but he claims that he's feeling sick. The head waiter notes that that's the third complaint they've had that night, and wonders where they got those tomatoes from.
- Comically Missing the Point: Denzil watches the TV news report about the dolls being filled with propane gas while waiting to collect a Chinese takeaway; although he's already paid for his meal, he runs out without collecting it in his haste to find Del and warn him. This really confuses the owner of the takeaway.Takeaway owner: Usually they take the food and run off without paying. This guy's got it all wrong!
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The whole thing with the dolls could have been avoided if Del hadn't impulsively bought them from Denzil. Had he not done so, Denzil could've just contacted the police after seeing the news bulletin and explained that he hadn't been able to get to the factory in time. In fact, had he not been persuaded by Del to give the impression that his delivery business was larger than it actually is (it's just him and a van and his original intention was to just do local deliveries), Denzil probably wouldn't have been given that particular delivery job in the first place on account of the distance involved (High Wycombe being at least a couple of hours driving from Peckham).
- Deadpan Snarker: Rodney, as per usual in the later episodes.Del: Well, you know where I was last night while you was up at the Albert Hall, head-banging? I was having a drink with the managing director of the Advanced Electronics Research and Development Centre.Rodney: Didn't that used to be Ron's Cash and Carry?Del: Yeah, yeah, that's right, but he changed the name. That bloke's come on a bundle in the last few years. That man is at the front of new technological frontiers. He's got a Queen's Award for Industry plaque.Rodney: I know. I was there when you sold it to him.
- Dirty Old Man: Dirty Barry, the proprietor of a sex shop to whom Del tries to sell the dolls.
- Every Man Has His Price: Upon finding out that the dolls are actually sex dolls, Del decides to just get rid of them as he doesn't deal with that sort of thing. This lasts until he finds out what they retail for note , and then his profit instinct kicks in.
- Everyone Has Standards: While usually happy to go along with Del's money-making schemes, Albert is clearly disgusted by the mere presence of sex dolls in the flat (although he still helps Del out, he makes his feelings clear). Later, Trigger gives a funny look to Boycie and Mike when they burst out laughing at the thought of Del being in serious danger thanks to the very real prospect of the dolls exploding.
- Fell Off the Back of a Truck: Boycie, who bought the video recorders from Del, quips that the lorry they fell off must have been driving through Düsseldorf, given that they only work on mainland Europe.
- Filth: Naturally, given that the main focus of the episode is a consignment of inflatable sex dolls.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Del. Some of the local yuppies have started hanging out in the Nag's Head in order to avoid him after he started frequenting the local wine bars and tried to befriend them with mixed results. When he turns up in the pub, they're visibly put out.
- Honor Thy Parent: Throughout the series, Del refused to hear a bad word against his late mother, who he sincerely believes is watching over him and Rodney. It's only in this episode, though, that it's revealed that he has never got rid of her old clothes, even though she's been dead for over twenty years.
- Hypocritical Humor: Rodney tries to explain to Albert that the blow-up dolls are actually advertised in magazines aimed at "kinky, sleazy little men" — as opposed to publications like the Radio Times, which is what Albert thought Rodney meant by "magazines". Albert does not believe him until Rodney whips out his own dirty mag to prove his point.
- Liar Revealed: Cassandra calls out Rodney on his falsely claiming to have lived in a big house on Kings Avenue in the previous episode. Since she isn't a Gold Digger, she finds the whole thing more amusing than anything else.
- Made in Country X: Uncle Albert tells Rodney that Del has just bought some new video recorders. Rodney replies that he was just reading in the paper that Taiwan is the only country with no rubbish dumps; they send it all to Del. Del quickly replies that the video recorders were actually made in Formosa. Albert tries to explain that Taiwan and Formosa are the same place, but Rodney advises him not to bother.
- Never My Fault: Rodney blames Del for the fact that he gets his suit covered in tomato juice. To be fair, Del was the one who told him to dress smarter for work, and also the one who made him carry the box-loads of tomatoes into the pub.
- Noodle Incident: The last time Del flogged a load of faulty dolls, they were children's dolls. Which were boss-eyed. At least one little girl on the estate had nightmares because of this.
- Oh, Crap!: Rodney, the master of this trope, has a truly impressive one when he learns from Cassandra that the sex dolls are in fact highly explosive. Earlier on, Denzil has the same reaction when he found this out from the TV news report.
- Percussive Maintenance: Del's doing this to the video recorder that he's plugged in and linked up to the TV even before he's finished telling Albert about how great they are.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: A variant, as Del and Rodney are quick to dress the dolls in their mothers' old clothes in order to take them out to the van without arousing suspicion from the neighbours. The dolls remain fully-clothed for the rest of the episode.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is this to Danger: UXB, a 1979 ITV drama series about a bomb disposal team in World War II.
- Shout-Out: A couple.
- Albert not only saw WarGames on the TV, he describes it pretty accurately.
Albert: It was all about this soppy kid who messes around with computers. Then one day he broke into the computer that controls the American nuclear defence system. He almost got us into World War Three!- When Del and Rodney have dressed the dolls in their late mother's clothes and are waiting for Albert to get the van, Rodney makes a reference to Norman Bates. Del, meanwhile, refers to one of the dolls as "Polythene Pam".
- Spotting the Thread: Rodney is the one who picks up on the fact that the dolls are sex dolls, because he's the only one who bothered to actually read the paperwork.Rodney: Del, these dolls aren't called "Barbie" or "Cindy". These dolls are called "Lusty Linda" and "Erotic Estelle".Del: You can't get dolls with names like that.Rodney: You can if you go to the right shops, Del!
- Stealing from the Till: Denzil worries that the company he did the delivery for will think he's doing this as he did not deliver the dolls to the factory.
- Story Arc: Denzil has set up his own delivery company, Transworld Express (he wanted a name that sounded more local, to reflect the fact that it's just him and a Ford Transit, but Del persuaded him to use a name which makes it seem like it's a much bigger operation); this will be mentioned in several later episodes, notably "Mother Nature's Son". Also, Clayton Cooper, the old man who the Trotters encounter when they're trying to get rid of the dolls, will reappear in an episode of the prequel, Rock & Chips, in which he dates Reenie Turpin.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The dolls, at the end. The quote at the top of this page is Del's attempt to explain the explosion to the tramps on the waste-ground where he and Rodney had just dumped the dolls.
- Take That!: When Dirty Barry laments that the government is cracking down on sex shops, Albert (who's disgusted by the whole sordid business) quips that "that's the first decent thing Maggie Thatcher's done".
- Unlucky Everydude: Denzil, who's stuck with a consignment of faulty dolls that he failed to deliver to the factory after choosing to take his wife out for dinner on their wedding anniversary note . And then the factory burned down. If he takes them to a depot owned by the same company, they'll think he's unreliable because he didn't do the delivery when promised, and if he doesn't, they'll assume he's on the take; either way, he loses their business. Del takes them off his hands, but this just adds to Denzil's woes as he then tries to warn Del once he learns his dangerous the dolls are, but he can't find him.
- Yuppie: A group of these have started hanging out in the Nag's Head, apparently to avoid Del who's been trying to befriend them in the local wine bars. Mike responds by rebranding his beef stew as boeuf bourginon and doubling the price.
