The first thing I thought when watching The Young Ones was, "Is that Drop Dead Fred??" One of the movies that defined my childhood stars Rik Mayall. So that was entertaining. Anyway, I found the episode extremely funny. My favorite character was probably Neil (or the tall one with long hair if I got his name wrong). I found his comments to be some of the more hilarious. Holland's opening lines to his book, Laughing: A Psychology of Humor, are both very true and very well demonstrated in The Young Ones. The book opens, "We don't understand it and we don't quite trust it. Those are for me the two most immediate and obvious facts about the comic" (15). I think his point about not trusting comedy is extremely truthful. Comedy often makes us uncomfortable, not necessarily due to content, but because we don't always know where a joke is going. I'm thinking of stand-up comedians whose jokes have a long set-up and the audience doesn't exactly know what they're being asked to laugh at until the punchline. It's uncomfortable to not know because the unknown is untrustworthy. A different example of this is toward the beginning of the episode, "Time," Rick calls Neil a hairy elephant, to which Neil replies that a hairy elephant would be a mammoth and that a mammoth isn't really so hairy as it is woolly. This struck me as "distrustful" because Rick is being completely serious, whereas Neil is using his own insult as a way to outwit him.
Later on, Holland says, closely resembling Bergson in part, that, "We distinguish, therefore, laughing at and laughing with someone, because laughter, by withholding pity, can serve as a weapon. We attack individuals, types, institutions, even deities by laughing at them" (17). I thought the incredibly long bit about Rick's virginity pertained to this quote. Vyvyan's constant badgering (although "badgering" is an understatement) is making fun of Rick as an individual and as a type (the type being "virgin"). He is also obviously not feeling or expressing much pity for his friend's "plight." Rather, he is very definitely laughing at Rick and not with him, and it indeed serves as a weapon of humiliation and low self esteem. It makes Rick feel attacked and the urge to defend himself. Against what? The weapon of laughter.
Finally, Holland writes, "We laugh, perhaps, when something is valued and disvalued at the same time, for example, when a person is treated as a thing, as in a slapstick routine at the circus. This brings to mind the light bulb changing scene in The Young Ones. Neil, despite his suggestion to "get a step stool" is instead, inexplicably, being catapulted into the air in order to change a light bulb. This is obviously absurd, especially when Neil asks why they are doing it this way and the reply is that they already have all the mathematics of the situation worked out. I especially loved his joke, "How many roommates does it take to change a light bulb? One, I'm the only one who does anything around here!" (That's a loose quote). Anyway, in the light bulb scene, Neil is being treated as an object- a sort of boulder with Piper Halliwell-esque time freezing capabilities who can change a light bulb whilst flying through the air.
My overall impression of The Young Ones (if you even care) is that I enjoyed watching it, and I would enjoy watching it again if the opportunity arose, but I don't know how likely I am to seek out more episodes on YouTube.
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