The first-ever episode. First broadcast 8 September 1981.
South London market trader Derek "Del Boy" Trotter employs younger brother Rodney as a member of Trotters' Independent Traders, despite warnings from his business colleagues. When Rodney decides to become the Trotters' financial adviser — monitoring the accounts and keeping Del's dodgy dealings in check — Del has second thoughts about their partnership.
Cracks soon show when Rodney inadvertently bungles a deal with Trigger. But despite Del's anger, it turns out that Rodney's advice would have prevented the purchase of 25 briefcases that turn out to be defective due to the combination numbers being on the inside. Del and Rodney argue, following which the latter plans a career change. Desperate to make his mark on the world, Rodney decides to leave for Hong Kong — a great plan, if only he'd remembered his passport.
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Grandad thinks Sidney Poitier is called Sidney Potter (although it turns out it's Harry Belafonte he's watching anyway).
- As You Know: Del delivers a lot of information about his and Rodney's childhood — including his mother's death and then their father's abandoning the family — in this manner, clearly as a way of getting the audience up to speed with the Trotter family's backstory. While not too uncommon for the pilot of episode of a sitcom (or TV show in general) from this era, subsequent episodes also depict Del going on lengthy (and often false) speeches about their childhood and mother when he's trying to guilt-trip Rodney into doing something, making it an actual character trait for Del instead of just a clumsy way of delivering a one-off Info Dump.
- Deadpan Snarker: Rodney, as evidenced by the following exchange:Del: The French have a word for people like me.Rodney: Yeah, and the English have got a couple of good 'uns an' all!
- Didn't Think This Through: Rodney plans to leave for Hong Kong, but neglects to take his passport with him.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: A few examples, this being the first episode:
- Trigger is shown here as a small-time thief who supplies Del with dodgy goods, rather than the idiot he later became. His habit of calling Rodney "Dave" is present from the start, though.
- Rodney talks as though Del does most of the cooking, and has no skill when it comes to doing anything but reheating convenience foods. In later episodes it's Grandad (later Uncle Albert, and eventually Raquel) who generally does the cooking, with Del being shown as actually the most competent of the initial three regulars when it comes to preparing meals (with him letting Grandad do the cooking despite being a terrible cook, purely so that the old man feels he has something to do).
- A less obvious example is the original instrumental theme tune by Ronnie Hazlehurst — the BBC's Light Entertainment Musical Director who composed the theme music for many British sitcoms of the 1970s and 1980s. The reason for it being less obvious is because while it was used for the initial TV broadcast, it was replaced for almost all home video (VHS, DVD) releases and later repeats with the more familiar John Sullivan theme song which was initially used for the second series onwards note . However, it plays during the montage in this episode, leaving it the only place it can still be heard.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When negotiating a price for the briefcases, Del rigs the calculator to read '175'. Rodney immediately counters that it should say '200', costing Del an additional £25.
- Recognition Failure: Not only does Grandad mis-pronounce Sidney Poitier's name, but he mistakes him for Harry Belafonte.
- Shout-Out: Trigger's nickname is explained.Rodney: Del, Del, why they call him Trigger? Does he carry a gun?Del: No, it's because he looks like a horse.
