Trivia / The Young Ones

• Acting for Two:
  • Alexei Sayle appeared as several members of the Balowski family.
  • Ben Elton appeared as the host of Nozin' Aroun' and as one of the Footlights as well as the guy in the beer commercial and one of the Grange Hill kids.
  • Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders played two different characters in "Interesting" and "Time".
  • The main four double up several times, including as coppers, the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse and the cast of a fake-out version of Dallas in one of Neil's dreams. And also a brief cameo as themselves.
  • Rik Mayall also voiced SPG.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Keith Allen was considered for Mike. He made a cameo as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Pestilence) in "Interesting".
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Nigel Planer got to show off his guitar playing on occasion.
  • Alexei Sayle was given an opportunity in each episode to show off his stand-up comedy skills (hence each episode credited him with 'Additional Material').
• Creator Backlash:
  • Alexei Sayle initially wasn't too fond of "Bambi", probably the best-known episode, allegedly because it gave too much focus to the "lighter", college-educated side of the alternative comedy circuit.
  • Adrian Edmondson doesn't seem to think much of the series in recent retrospectives, regarding it as "dated", "tedious" and "not that funny". Ironically, he considers The Good Life to be a show that has aged better.
• Creator Cameo: Co-writer and creator Ben Elton appears as the male presenter of the terrible BBC TV young adult programme Nozin' Aroun'.
• Creator Couple:
  • Rik Mayall co-wrote the series with his then-girlfriend Lise Mayer.
  • Neil's parents from "Sick" were played by Brian Oulton and Peggy Thorpe-Bates, who were married in Real Life.
• The Danza:
  • Rik Mayall as Rick.^note Mayall took the 'c' out from his name in the late 1970s
  • Alexei Sayle appeared as Alexei Balowski in the second episode of the first series.
• Dawson Casting: The characters are university undergraduates but Nigel Planer (Neil) was 29 during the first series and Christopher Ryan (Mike) was 32. Though it is sort of hinted that Mike is more mature than the others and in any case he's only at the university through bribery and blackmail. Adrian Edmondson (Vyvyan) and Rik Mayall however weren't too far off the average age of an undergraduate, being 25 and 24 respectively.
• Deleted Role: Colin Baker taped a sketch portraying the evil Count Dustbug, which was deleted from the finished edition.
• Doubling for London: Despite being set in North London, the external scenes were actually filmed in Bristol, just over 100 miles away; the show's producer, Paul Jackson, lived in Bristol at the time. The house used for the external scenes is in Codrington Road, Bristol.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: When it came to Alexi Sayle's bits, the scripts said, "Alexi does his bit". In addition, he was never available for studio rehearsals, so everyone genuinely had no idea what he was going to do until filming started.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • The episode "Bambi" had this, because Alexei Sayle loathed guest stars Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Griff Rhys Jones. Not because they had done anything to him personally, mind you - they got on with the rest of the cast famously - but because Sayle perceived them to be exactly the upper class twits they were lampooning.
  • According to Lise Mayer, the most disruptive musical act was Rip Rig + Panic from "Interesting". Sayle recalled:
  They were awful, they were so badly behaved, they were all "this drink's real - let's pinch it" and I was like "no, no, no, they're props we need them for continuity...They were terrifying, they were really scary.
• The Merch: Nigel Planer released an album in character called "Neil's Heavy Concept Album" featuring a mix of 60's covers and comedy sketches. His cover of Traffic's "Hole In My Shoe" actually reached #2 on the British charts.
• Role Reprise: Nigel Planer played Neil in the American pilot, Oh, No! Not THEM!.
• Stillborn Franchise: Lise Mayer revealed on Alexei Sayle's podcast that she wanted to a Sequel Series called The Middle-Aged Ones, following the main characters in later life.
  I always had the idea of doing The Middle-Aged Ones. I'd had this idea that Neil would have cut his hair and be wearing a suit. Vyvyan would be on his third marriage and work in a hospital and still drink too much. The usual disappointment of most people’s lives – what they think they are going to do when they are 18, 19 or 20, and what they end up doing.
• Surprisingly Lenient Censor: The creators were surprised that the censors allowed a scene at a party of Rick going through a girl's handbag, finding a tampon, and having no idea what it is. It's not that The BBC censors weren't paying attention - they did try to cut Vyvyan showing the girls how many pushups he can do, because they thought it looked like he was having sex with the floor so they wanted to cut it.
• Uncredited Role: Chris Andrews as the ghost body in "Cash".
• What Could Have Been:
  • Timothy Spall was considered for Mike, but it was decided that he and Nigel Planer looked too similar.
  • Peter Richardson, who was a part of The Comic Strip Presents group alongside Edmondson, Mayall, Planer and Sayle, was also considered for Mike's role. However, as he did not get along with director Paul Jackson, he was quickly replaced by Christopher Ryan, the only one of the main five actors, who was not a stand-up comedian.
  • A pilot for a Foreign Remake, aimed at American audiences and titled Oh, No! Not THEM!, was produced by Fox in 1990. According to IMDB credits, Nigel Planer reprises his role as Neil, while Jackie Earle Haley plays a character named Adrian ^note (probably the series' equivalent of Vyvyan, since his name seems to be a Tuckerization of Adrian Edmondson), and Hardcore Punk group GBH does a musical performance. The pilot was left un-aired, remains unseen by the general public, and it never went to series. Nigel reportedly hated the direction the pilot was going in, and was glad when the show wasn't picked up and he was released from contract.
• Word of Saint Paul: According to Adrian Edmondson, Vyvyan isn't really a punk, he just cobbled together his look from other styles, such as the metal t-shirts.

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