Samhain Project 5: The Young Ones: Nasty

"Excuse me, do you dig graves?"

"Yeah, yeah, they're all right."

It was sometime in 1984.  I was only about 12 or so the first time I encountered BBC's The Young Ones.  As I watched on MTV, it was a sitcom about British angry college youth, living in their dorm (or flat) and shouting at each other.  But like many of my contemporaries, I loved it.  It aired from my perspective anyways, Sunday Nights, right after Monty Python's Flying Circus, and before another British piece of television, which escapes me at the moment.  And then 120 Minutes.  

I loved the show so much that I eventually passed it on to Aidan decades later. The memories of it were so strong for the two of us, that it led to amazing text conversations like this one.

Anyways, I watched every episode, but the one that really stuck with me was Season 2's Nasty.  It wasn't intended as a Halloween special, as it aired originally in May, but it certainly fits the aesthetic.  From the opening credit's Horror styled graphics to its vampire-related plot. See, the 4 young protagonists have got a video, (Yes, they've got a VIDEO!) that is being used on loan from Harry the Bastard.  Sadly, none of these fuckers know how to work a VCR. 

They're trying to watch a video nasty of course.  For those not in the know, a "video nasty" is a banned videotape in the UK, a case of horrendous censorship pushed upon Britain by the British Film Commission.  Some titles took decades to be freed up.  The whole thing was bollocks.  Anyways, do they get the VCR to work?

It doesn't matter.  A vampire shows up, the boys run, and the first time I saw the episode, it was my first taste of The Damned.  And of course, they perform Nasty, one of their more memorable tracks.  And, natch, it's a song about video nasties.  Perfect.  I fell in love with the band at this point.  They looked bizarre, they were loud, their music was extremely varied, and unlike many of their contemporaries, they could play. 

As a 12 year old, I overthought the shit out of everything.  And as far as things I overthought, The Young Ones was no different.  First of all, they were edgy as fuck.  Way more than any of the sitcoms I was watching that were produced stateside.  Angry British youth in the era of Margaret Thatcher?  Should one be surprised?  But every once in a while I'd see a flicker.  Being an inquisitive young lad, I recorded this episode, found the flicker and guess what?

It was a still image of an outdoor spigot.  Pretty Benign.

But part of me thought that something sinister may be going on, because it didn't seem to make any fucking sense.  Was this some sort of weird attempt at a subliminal imprint?  Who knows, but it weirded me out.  Not enough to stop watching the show, of course.  It was too funny to do that.  If I was going to keep listening to AC/DC despite Night Prowler's presence on Highway to Hell, why interrupt this?

Years later, I'm still throwing my Young Ones DVD in for that 80's flashback.  And I miss the shit out of Rik Mayall despite his lack of American appearances,  

With MTV shuttering this week, it's an end of an era, one that actually ended a long time ago when the channel stopped being Music Television.  But when I remember back to my earliest days of watching cable's musical stalwart, The Young Ones is a healthy chunk of it.