After the Young Ones it was high time that Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson (husband of Ab Fab's Jennifer Saunders) and Nigel Planer went off to do something brilliantly innovative and original.
Instead of that they elected to make Filthy, Rich and Catflap. At the time I had anticipated a new show from them with such longing that I think I laughed at every word, every pratfall and every knob gag. I laughed that Eddie was called Eddie and that Richard was called Richard. I laughed at how disgusting Nigel Planer's 'Filthy' character was. How we laughed. But when I saw this show again on video a couple of years ago, oh how I didn't laugh. But perhaps I was watching it out of context - after all, the Young Ones doesn't stand up twenty years later. But at the time it was massively new and funny and brilliant, because there hadn't been anything like it before.
At the beginning of the eighties there was amassive backlash against the old guard of comedy, the comedy establishment if you will - we were presented with 'alternative' comedy, a sort of punk new-wave comedy that was rude and shouty and violent. Ben Elton was young and brash and out there - now his Queen musical is packing them in, in the West End and Las Vegas and on Broadway. Rik Mayall became a household name and made a mint from Nintendo commercials. Alexei Sayle became a motoring correspondent in 'car' magazine.
What was new is now old, and Filthy Rich and Catflap is certainly that.
Still, at least Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson went on to do the brilliant and innovative Bottom - oh yeah, right. Sorry...moreless