Bastard Squad

They’re dubbing that sound on. That’s never real.

I naturally assumed that ‘Bastard Squad’ (Vyvyan’s favourite television programme) was a play on the A-Team, but I’ve checked the dates. The Young Ones: first broadcast in 1982. The A-Team: first broadcast in 1983. Rik Mayall (as Kevin Turvey) also toured accompanied by the Bastard Squad in 1983 and Vyvyan’s surname is ‘Basterd’. So who knows? There were plenty of terrible US action TV shows in the early 1980s to choose from, let’s be honest.

So the font here is based on the A-Team logo. The rest of it is based on Vyv’s own car. Which is a yellow Ford Anglia with flames up the side, as *not* featured on the live siege coverage from Dan Prick. Apparently said coverage is from North London, despite everyone being aware that the Young Ones was filmed in Bristol.

On revision, the Young Ones can get a but wince-y at times. There are frequent uses of language that absolutely would not make it to television today. In this segment alone, Mr. Prick refers to the terrorist responsible for the siege as both a ‘greaseball’ and a slur beginning with the letter C that I will absolutely not be repeating. Later on in the same episode, a policeman uses the same word, another beginning with S and, well, one beginning with N. You know the one.

The things is, The Young Ones – despite the slapstick, anti-narrative insanity that goes on – was always a very ‘right on’ show. You only have to look at the writers to know this and the context of the slurs were always applied to send up the people using them rather than anything nefarious.

Nowadays, even using any of these words in any broadcast media would get you hanged, drawn and quartered. Rightly, figuratively.