Happy Families

I remember Happy Families from first time round. A six episode series following the lives of the Fuddle family, the majority of which played by Jennifer Saunders. Most of the Comic Strip played small to medium roles, but Saunders shone through this. The series follows Guy (Adrian Edmonson)on his search around the world for his 4 sisters (Saunders). From an American soap queen to a hard case convict, Guy tracks them all down and takes them home to Granny (Saunders). Whenever I ask anyone if they have seen this programme, I always get a no for an answer. Am I the only one in the world who remembers it? Thank god for UK Gold, who repeated it in the early 90s, thanks to whom I now have a copy. if anyone out there remembers it, or even has a copy, think yourself VERY lucky. This was an example of 80s English comedy at it`s best, and I find it very sad that with regards to video sales, or future screenings, it may be gone for good.

Happy Families follows Guy Fuddle (Ade Edmondson) in a search for his four sisters. The first episode is an introduction, then each episode is dedicated to one sister and in the last episode they reunite with the grandmother. Every episode has it's good moments. The episode with Joyce and the people fleeing from hospital to avoid her singing reminded me of Hyacinth from Keeping up Appearances. And Roxanne was great, especially the part when Guy is getting her out of jail. I also liked Cassie, a satirical view of the world of soap-opera stars.

This series shows how versatile Jennifer Saunders is. She plays five different characters and she is believable as each one of them. The conclusion is a little silly but that doesn't hurt the appeal of this show. Ade is wonderful as goodhearted, naive Guy. Dawn French (cook) and Helen Lederer (maid) are very good in their respective parts. I especially liked Flossie's (Helen's) accent. Also, Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry add a little charm to the overall impression. Rik Mayall has a small part in the episode about Madeline. His portrayal of a neurotic French priest is magnificent.

I remember watching this series in the 80s too and found it really funny. The episode I remember best was the one with Madelaine, the dippy, romantic sister who lived in France, believing herself to be an artist, or an artist's model and who actually turned out to be a nude model for the slimey French guy. I also remember Rik Mayall was in that episode as the priest. I enjoyed the series, but have never seen any re-runs of it, sadly. Oh yeah, didn't Dawn French as 'cook', turn blue in the last episode?!!!

Ahhhhhhhh. I was about 11 in 1985 when I saw this and still at Primary School, at the time I was mourning the end of The Young Ones - this gave me my fix until Filthy Rich and Catflap came along the following year. Reading some of these IMDb reviews has been very nostalgic and has helped to bring back some of the memories from it. I remember Stephen Fry as the doctor, he was playing a doctor in an advert as well at the time so I think he got a bit type casted that year and this was the first thing I'd seen him in. I remember the French artist model character after reading her mentioned on here. I can still remember the theme music which I loved at the time and the tapestry title sequence. This was being shown roughly around the time of "Girls On Top" the ITV sitcom with French and Saunders in and I was a fan of both. This was very much advertised as a Jennifer Saunders vehicle (although French was in it) and it displayed her talents well. French and Saunders got their own series about a year later and it wouldn't be until Absolutely Fabulous that she went off and did something this individual again. I remember Happy Families had me in hysterics and there was some very close to the bone humour. As I said I was 11 at the time but my sense of humour has been fairly unchanged by time (I'm now 30!) I would really love to see this get repeated. Lets hope it does.

I was at the school that was used for some of the filming (I added the school name to the filming locations). They filmed during the term time so we saw the cast around campus. The headmasters garage being used (and exploded if I remember correctly?); the one side of the school converted to look like a French village street (and desperate attempts by students to get some souvenirs); a bedsit in the same corridor as mine being painted green for a scene (a nasty colour green as well but I don't remember which scene) and Ade Edmonson giving autographs on cigarette packets of students who were not allowed to smoke :) Happy days....