History Series / AbsolutelyFabulous

* DeadpanSnarker: Saffron, although most characters have their moments.

* FashionableEvil: If Patsy has a D&D-style CharacterAlignment, this is it.

The series aired from 1992-1996, and then again from 2001-2005. It is [[AndTheFandomRejoiced due to return for three more episodes]], the first of which is due to air 25 December 2011. Oh, and there might be [[TheMovie a movie, too.]] It has won both Emmy and BAFTA awards.

* A flashback scene involves Patsy appearing a her supposed 70s self, which looks remarkably like Joanna Lumley's "Purdey" character from ''TheAvengers''

->''Wheels on fire, rolling down the road...''

British comedy series about the misadventures of Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone (JoannaLumley); two alcoholic [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist party girls]] who are so far over the hill they've crossed the valley and started up the next hill. Other major characters include Edina's elderly scatter-brained mother, her level-headed and long-suffering daughter Saffron, and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} secretary Bubble.

* ActingForTwo - Jane Horrocks, who plays both Bubble and overly cheerful TV star Katy Grin.
* AlwaysCamp - The vast majority of fashion people Edina and Patsy encounter in their careers.
* AuthorAvatar - Ruby Wax would make occasional appearances as a high-powered fashion editor.
* BeehiveHairdo - Patsy's trademark look.
* BigApplesauce - One episode has Patsy and Edina visiting New York.
* BilingualBonus - The punchline of one episode is that Patsy and Edina have been staying in a run-down French cottage when they were supposed to be in a fancy chateau. Three times during the episode a French man tries to explain this to them. Any audience members who speak French will have figured this out about 20 minutes before the characters do.

* BumblingSidekick - Bubble, who takes this to new heights of incompetence. Edina keeps her around only because Bubble makes her look good. In the newest episode "Job" Bubble tells the new intern she keeps her job not because of what she does not know, but because of what she DOES know.

* CulturalTranslation - The sitcom {{Cybill}} was sort of an unofficial Americanized variation; an official remake never got past the pilot stage.

* FrothyMugsOfWater - Ginger ale is substituted for champagne. A gag reel however shows the side effects of using real wine over multiple takes...

* StudioAudience: Most episodes of the show were [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin filmed in front of a live audience]], save for the various scenes filmed on location.

* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: Edina. Her ex-husbands cut her off at one point when they find out she has been scamming them for years, and she fears becoming poor. But it turns out that even without them she's stil wealthy, Saffy just lets her think she'll be poor to teach her a lesson. [[CaptainObvious Doesn't work]].

* VisitByDivorcedDad: Edina has two ex-husbands, and a child with each of them. Both became recurring characters and visited frequently.

* ActingForTwo - Jane Horrocks, who plays both Bubble and overly cheerful TV star Katy Grin

** Roseanne had the US remake rights for it for almost a decade but sat on them after ABC told her, point blank, that for them to consider a remake of the show airing on the network, all references to drugs would have to be nixed and that much of the humor bowlderized.
** Also High Society, another attempt to adapt the show for US audience with Mary [=McDonald=] as a Edina-Expy and Jean Smart as a Pasty-Expy.

* FrothyMugsOfWater - Ginger Ale is substituted for champagne. A gag reel however shows the side effects of using real wine over multiple takes...

* TheGhost: Edina's son Serge for the majority of the series. Whenever some important event occurred he was always "taking lava samples in Sumatra," or some similar scientific activity to explain his absence. Finally showed up for the Special "New York" in which it was revealed that he was actually working in a bookstore in New York City all this time, and that the rest of his family had conspired to keep this a secret from Edina.

* HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: Saffron had one, which included being abandonned in the park, used to stub out cigarettes by Patsy, and more emotional neglect than seems humanly possible. Now that she's grown and still lives with her mother, she's undergoing a Hilariously Abusive Adulthood (though she has by now learned to fight back).

* HollywoodDressCode: Saffron dresses mostly in conservative cardigans, Patsy wears dark fashionable clothes, Edina usually resembles an LSD hallucination. Bubble's clothes defy explanation.

* MustHaveNicotine: Patsy spends an episode secretly sticking Nicotine patches on (non-smoker) Saffron. Who spends the rest of the episode craving cigarettes and not knowing why.

* OlderThanTheyLook: An episode featured Patsy's estranged sister who claims to be the younger of the two. At the end of the episode she reveals that she is actually in her seventies. Patsy is horrified: "Then how old does that make me?!" In the audio commentary for one episode, Jennifer Saunders theorizes that Patsy has so many chemicals in her body that she is somehow preserved like a mummy. Eddy lampshaded it in-show, too.

*** The 2011 Christmas episode established that Patsy is well over 60 as she has thousands in back payments on her pension.

It featured large amounts of crude humor, slapstick, alcoholism and drug abuse. The plots generally centered around Edina's attempts to jump onto the latest trend or to have a good time, Patsy egging her on and encouraging her bad behavior, and Saffron's futile efforts to reign in the insanity and keep her mother on the straight and narrow.

* BumblingSidekick - Bubble, who takes this to new heights of incompetence. Edina keeps her around only because Bubble makes her look good.

** The context by the way, was the fact that Roseanne had (at the time the episode aired) acquired the rights to produce an American version of the show.

* DeadBabyComedy: Edina's treatment of Saffron constitutes full-on abuse at times and it's always PlayedForLaughs.

British comedy series about the misadventures of Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone, two alcoholic [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist party girls]] who are so far over the hill they've crossed the valley and started up the next hill. Other major characters include Edina's elderly scatter-brained mother, her level-headed and long-suffering daughter Saffron, and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} secretary Bubble.

** Also High Society, another attempt to adapt the show for US audience with Mary McDonald as a Edina-Expy and Jean Smart as a Pasty-Expy.

* GetAHoldOfYourself: Subverted in the 2011 Christmas episode with Sarah, having established she had been unable to visit Saffron in prison due to being sectioned (held for psychiatric care against her will) apparently due to schizophrenia, she makes jokes about prison sex causing Saffron to slap her. Sarah then runs away screaming "The voices have come back!"

*** "By the time you attended kindergarten you were bigger than the teacher!"

->''"Wheels on fire, rolling down the road...''
->''Let's notify my next of kin, this wheel shall explode..."''

The series aired from 1992-1996, and then again from 2001-2005. It has won both Emmy and BAFTA awards.

Came 17th in ''BritainsBestSitcom''.

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* {{Americanitis}} - The sitcom {{Cybill}} was sort of an unofficial Americanized variation; an official remake never got past the pilot stage.

* CrossOver: Eddy and Patsy appeared in a Halloween-themed episode of {{Roseanne}} that first aired in 1996. Eddy and Patsy meet Roseanne and Jackie at a high-profile cocktail party in New York. Upon hearing about Roseanne's multi-million dollar lottery winnings, Eddy wastes no time in becoming Roseanne's PR agent and talking her into funding a plan to clone Jackie Kennedy using the method from Jurassic Park. ItMakesSenseInContext...