The Comic Strip Presents

"The Comic Strip presents . . ." introduced a new crowd of "'varsity comics" (Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Ade Edondson, Rick Mayall, Robbie Coltrane) to British commercial television, and a fresh approach to the half-hour comedy format. Led (as performer, writer, and director) by Peter Richardson, the Channel 4 series broke away from the crazy-sketch format which had dominated the years since the debut of Monty Python, instead focusing each episode on a playful exploration of a particular film or TV genre, some quintessentially British ("Five Go Mad in Dorset," with its deadpan tweaking of Enid Blyton's wartime children's adventure books) to presciently contemporary ("Bad News Tour," which beat "Spinal Tap" to the screen by almost two years). Richardson's penchant for genre critique above all sometimes led to stylishly inert outings like "Beat Generation," but also to wildly idiosyncratic and memorable excursions like "Summer School," "Bullsh*tters," and "A Fistful of Traveler's Cheques." Unfortunately only available on DVD as a nine-count'em nine disc set in PAL format, The Comic Strip deserves a two or three disc compilation of its most marvelous episodes: After 25 years, many play better than most contemporary comedy today.

unique, hilarious parodies of cliche-ridden entertainment by a semiregular group of brits. I particularly remember their spoofs of spaghetti westerns ('a fistful of travelers checks') and post-apocalyptic flicks ('the slags'), as well as shots at kids shows, Rebecca, back-to-the-wilderness retreats, and a pre-Spinal Tap metal band's misfortunes. the Slags featured a young Anthony Stewart Head (Giles on Buffy tVS) as the leader of a gang called the Hawaiians ('that's not...nice!'). my personal favorite is the 'Travelers Checks' episode; the music and scenery and camera work would have made a perfectly good movie of the genre (especially the guitar-and-whistle music); and who could forget 'Billy Balfour, the Man with No Name'?! some of the regulars (Ade Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer) played in the bizzare 'Young Ones' series.

I remember catching The Comic Strip back when it was first aired stateside. I waited with anticipation every week to see what the next show would conjure up. My favorite of the series was definitely "Bad News Tour", "More Bad News", and "The Supregrass" flick. These scamps were also responsible for aiding with the development of the phenomenal "Eat The Rich" film. Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan and Rik Mayall would go on to fame as "The Young Ones." Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French would go on to "French and Saunders" and eventually part ways for "Absolutely Fabulous" and "The Vicar of Dibley." Basic comparison as far as career launching would be comparative of "SCTV" or the original "Saturday Night Live" TV series here in the states. The shows and skits were very well written. Ade Edmondson and Rik Mayall would go on to do "The Dangerous Brothers," "Filthy, Madcap and Laughing" and "Bottom." Excellent stuff that is all well overdue for a region DVD reissue.

Fun, but a lot of the humor is going to go over a lot of heads if you're not actually English.

It was great seeing the origins of three of the four / five Young Ones, and I was pretty well impressed by Nigel's breadth of character, and later Abe and Rik as Bottom (fart jokes and random violence are universal,) but yeah, I'm pretty sure I missed a lot as an American. You had Thatcher and the Falklands, we had Reagan and pretty much all of Central America. Also a great introduction to French and Saunders.

I only caught the odd episode of this show on it's initial run (and I was a little disappointed by what I saw), but years later a friend showed me the episode, "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door" featuring Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson as a couple of seedy alcoholic losers. About 8 years on from that first viewing I still rate it as one of the funniest things I've ever seen... TV show or movie. Although it's a fairly close comedic relative of this particular episode, I've never been a fan of Bottom. The characters are sleazy but too far removed from reality to be anything more than cartoonish, but in 'Mr. Jolly' their frightening alcohol consumption and heroically antisocial behaviour make for brilliant entertainment. Granted, they may not appeal to everyone. You could say it's a one-joke show but it works for me.

The story revolves around these two losers mistakenly accepting a job intended for the eponymous Jolly (Peter Cooke), a hit-man charged with 'taking out' Nicholas Parsons. Misunderstanding, they take Parsons (playing himself) out for the night. I don't want to bang on about it endlessly, I'm only writing this in the hope of bringing it to the attention of someone, hopefully spreading the word on it's originality and brilliance, even just a little!

Any fans of Rik Mayall, The Young Ones, Bottom etc. simply must track this priceless gem down (I eventually found an official VHS so it has been released at some point). Like I say I'm not even a particular fan of their previous work so anyone who is must go nuts for this.

Trust me, you have to love it!