The Comic Strip Presents... •
Channel 4 (1982–1988, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2011) •
BBC2 (1990–1993) •
Gold (1990s–2016) •
Paramount Comedy (2000s)}} }}
The Comic Strip Presents... debuted on 2 November 1982, the opening night of Channel 4. Each episode was prefixed by an animated lead-in consisting of the words "The Comic Strip Presents" accompanied by a soundtrack consisting of a
drum machine and a
Farfisa organ rendition of "
Quando quando quando", together with a bomb labelled "Have a nice day", falling towards a map. In the early episodes the map was of a section of north
Dorset and southern
Wiltshire, centred on the town of
Shaftesbury. The first episode was
Five Go Mad in Dorset, a parody of
the Famous Five. It was written by Peter Richardson and
Pete Richens, who wrote most of the early episodes.
Five Go Mad... drew anger from some viewers for the way it mercilessly
satirised a children's classic, although the
Enid Blyton estate had given permission for the broadcast. A meeting was called to discuss the group's future with Channel 4, after complaints from viewers. The final episode of the first series was to have been a
spoof chat show called
Back to Normal with Eddie Monsoon (referred to as
An Evening with Eddie Monsoon by some sources). It was never produced, as it was considered too vulgar even for the "alternative" Channel 4, and contained material that was possibly libellous. The script—which, uniquely for the Comic Strip, was written as a collaboration by the entire cast—was later published, along with the rest of the series, in book form. A second series of seven episodes followed in 1983–84, including
Five Go Mad on Mescalin, a sequel to the first episode, and the newly written
Eddie Monsoon – A Life?, a spoof
documentary on the life and times of the title character, an obscene, drunken television host (played by Adrian Edmondson).
Michael White, the
theatre impresario and
Rocky Horror Show producer who had been brought in by Richardson as
executive producer on the series, appeared in this episode as Monsoon's producer, who had been responsible for axing Eddie's television comeback show—called
Back to Normal with Eddie Monsoon. The reasons given for the cancellation (e.g. "the things you said about
Burt Reynolds") are presumably the same problems that led to the real
Back to Normal... being dropped by Channel 4. (The name Eddie Monsoon—a corruption of "Edmondson"—was later used by Jennifer Saunders, core member and Adrian Edmondson's wife, for her character in
Absolutely Fabulous.) ''A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques
was the first episode to be filmed outside the United Kingdom, being made on location in and around San José, Andalusia, Spain, using some of the same locations as A Fistful of Dollars'' which it spoofs. Two one-off episodes were aired on Channel 4 over Christmas 1985, reflecting the tight schedules of the group.
Consuela was a French and Saunders-led
pastiche of the
Alfred Hitchcock film
Rebecca (1940), with French's eponymous crazed housekeeper taking centre stage. The second episode,
Private Enterprise, was the tale of a music business
rip-off, where Peter Richardson steals a studio
recording session tape and passes the results off as his own work. The group made two feature films—
The Supergrass (1985) and
Eat the Rich (1987) as well as three one-off
Comic Strip Presents... episodes which were the next to be screened on Channel 4. The first of these,
The Bullshitters, was a parody of television
spy and
detective shows such as
The Professionals. It was not broadcast under the Comic Strip name, partly because of the original group only Richardson appears (he is the only performer to appear in every single episode), and partly because co-star and co-writer Keith Allen did not want to be so closely associated with the group. The third series was broadcast in 1988, and some episodes had longer running times, mostly around 50 minutes. Five of the six episodes (all except
Funseekers) were given a limited theatrical release. They included
The Strike, which won the
Golden Rose of Montreux;
More Bad News, a sequel to
Bad News Tour showing the band reforming after five years to play at
Castle Donington; and
Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door, written by Mayall and Edmondson in the violent style of their sitcoms
Filthy Rich & Catflap and
Bottom, which featured
Peter Cook as a psychotic
contract killer (the eponymous Mr. Jolly) and
Nicholas Parsons. Peter Richardson and Pete Richens only contributed one episode to the third series, allowing cast members such as Planer and Sayle to get their ideas on screen. By then, the show had proved a hit, and some big names appeared in later productions, including
Leslie Phillips,
Miranda Richardson,
Lionel Jeffries,
Nicholas Parsons,
Peter Capaldi,
Hugh Cornwell,
Kate Bush,
Richard Vernon,
Ruby Wax,
Graham Crowden,
Paul McCartney,
Ozzy Osbourne,
Lemmy,
Elvis Costello, and
Benjamin Zephaniah (as a
Rastafarian police van driver), and several musical acts, particularly from the
Bad News series which was also aided by
Queen guitarist
Brian May, such as
Def Leppard and
Marillion.
BBC and after In 1990, the series transferred to
BBC2. By now, all the regulars (with the exception of Peter Richardson) had become more famous for their own shows, and more recurring performers such as
Gary Beadle,
Phil Cornwell,
Steve O'Donnell, Mark Caven,
Sara Stockbridge, and
Doon Mackichan were brought in. Rik Mayall was contracted to
ITV's
The New Statesman, and was only able to appear in two of the BBC productions (
GLC, and the
Comic Relief special
Red Nose of Courage). Richardson and Richens took over the bulk of the writing again, and Richardson also took over as
director, having previously directed the two feature films, as well as
The Strike. The six-part 1990 series was followed by three individual specials in 1992, and a final six episodes in 1993.
Return to Channel 4 In 1998, the original team reunited and returned to Channel 4 for the first time since 1988, for a one-off special,
Four Men in a Car. This was followed in 2000 by a sequel,
Four Men in a Plane. After a five-and-a-half-year hiatus, another 60-minute one-off special,
Sex Actually (a parody of the 2003 film
Love Actually), was made in 2005. It starred
Sheridan Smith (
Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps) and
Tamer Hassan (
Layer Cake) alongside several of the regular cast members.
Four Men in a Car was notable for being the first broadcast, on either television or radio, to involve Rik Mayall since his
quad bike accident. Permission was thus given by Mayall's family to show the special. Peter Richardson, who has built his career as a writer-director with the TV series
Stella Street and films such as
Churchill: The Hollywood Years, has not ruled out the possibility of a whole new series of
The Comic Strip Presents... featuring younger cast members. In June 2011, a
casting call went out for a new hour-long episode, starring most of the original team. This was followed by an announcement that the Comic Strip was to produce a one-off special entitled
The Hunt for Tony Blair, starring
Stephen Mangan as Blair and Robbie Coltrane as Inspector Hutton. The one-off show included Jennifer Saunders (as
Margaret Thatcher), as well as
Harry Enfield, Rik Mayall, and a host of others.
The move to Gold As of 2009, the archive of Channel 4 episodes has been broadcast on UKTV's flagship channel,
Gold. In May 2010, it was announced that Gold would broadcast a 30th-anniversary documentary, preceded by the next new scripted episode of the series,
Five Go to Rehab, a sequel to
Five Go Mad in Dorset which featured the entire original cast (Ade Edmondson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Richardson, as well as Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Stephen Mangan and Robbie Coltrane) and was filmed in the first weeks of July 2012, in and around
Totnes; Richardson wrote and directed the film. The film showcased the characters thirty years on trying to recapture their youth. The film broadcast on Gold 7 November 2012. In addition, a documentary broadcast 3 November 2012,
30 Years of Comic Strip, detailed the filming and reception of several Comic Strip episodes including both original
Five Go Mad episodes,
The Strike and its semi-sequel
GLC: The Carnage Continues, ''A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques
, The Bullshitters
/Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown, Bad News Tour
/More Bad News
, and The Hunt for Tony Blair
. For A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques
, a short sequel was made and broadcast in several parts, showing the two main characters reuniting, despite the ending of the original episode; unshown scenes of the original episode were also aired for the first time. For the Bad News aspect of the documentary, Planer and Richardson dressed up as their respective characters Den Dennis and Spider Webb, recalling their time as Bad News. Some of the telling of the Bad News story was real, due to their real-life signing to EMI; and some fictional, such as the scenes from More Bad News'' detailing the recording of their
debut album. A lot of the original cast were interviewed for the documentary, alongside other people involved with the series at some point such as
James Buckley and Stephen Mangan. As Gold, in its current format at least, has never screened the BBC's
GLC,
...Nervous Breakdown, or Channel 4's
The Hunt for Tony Blair, these were the first time clips from these episodes were aired on the channel. In May 2018, a two-hour documentary history produced by Sean Doherty aired on Gold titled
How the Young Ones Changed Comedy. It combined archive footage with revelations from many of the stars involved – such as Planer, Alexei Sayle,
John Lloyd, Paul Jackson, and
Lise Mayer – while later comedians discussed
The Young Ones impact on
British comedy generally. ==Episodes==