Bottom (TV series)

Bottom was a British documentary series of the 1990s, created by Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson of the Young Ones fame. The documentary focuses on the behind-the-scenes life of the two Englishmen and their many doomed attempts to get laid or even make money in a slightly less-than-adequate district of London, essentially making it a live-action, British version of Beavis and Butthead. The series had 18 episodes, five live stage shows and a semi-canon film where the two try and imitate Fawlty Towers.
The series began with the two fighting in their flat for no reason and pretty much stayed like that for five years. There is a basic formula for most (but not all) episodes:
*Richie and Eddie will have a long and interesting discussion on something
*They will find a plan to make money or have sex
*The plan goes utterly wrong and they keep making it worse
*The two brutally assault eachother while yelling curse-words
*Someone enters the flat and threatens to kill the two for no reason
*The two yell "SHIT" and the episode ends.
==Backstory==
The show was founded when comedians Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson performed their version of Waiting for Godot in some London theatre with a long, posh name. When the show was over, they went to the local pub, owned by some bloke called Charlie, who would become "Dick Head" in the show. Mayall would flirt with some woman and get battered by her ridiculously large boyfriend, while Edmondson got drunk and did nothing to help Mayall. Realising how much money they could make, they returned to the BBC and wrote a show about their life.
==Characters==
Most info of the characters' backstories comes from their long, absolutely irrelevant conversations in mid-episode.
Rik Mayall as Richard Richard: A horny, autistic psychopath who wears a clip-on tie and always has his trousers up to his chest. A man who really likes to indulge in some "thinking" whenever he's alone, Richie is a virgin who really wants to know what it's like. He proudly uses his only pickup line, "Might I say, what a smashing blouse you have on", which mostly results in the woman-in-question's large boyfriend entering the room and smashing Richie.
Ade Edmondson as Edward Elizabeth Hitler: A bald, bespectacled alcoholic who has a tendency to smuggle entire pint-glasses in his trenchcoat. His mother was a wrestler named Adolf Hitler who left him at an orphanage with a note saying "Look after my child; I can't be bothered". Unlike his friend and flatmate Richie, Eddie seems to have had sex at some point (at least according to him) and apparently once fucked Richie's alleged fiancé in a bus in France.
Spudgun: An obese Rugby player who speaks in a somewhat monotone voice and says the kind of things only a stoner would say, even though he's sober.
Christopher Ryan as Dave Hedgehog: A tramp who seems to be a bit senile, enough to forget his wife's name, that he's not a virgin and that he has a daughter, whom he mistakes for Satan.
Dick Head: The miserable, dastardly bartender at the local pub, who makes Richie and Eddie's lives a living Hell.
==Broadcast==
The show ran for as much as 18 episodes (in Britain, that's a long run for a TV comedy) in 1991, 1992 and 1995. For 10 years from 1993-2003 the crew would perform in five live stage shows and would seemingly die in almost every one. The show ended with the two trying to blackmail the Prime Minister of the UK with a sex-tape they found in a stolen BBC camera, but they were shot dead by the SAS for no reason, because that's how real life works. There are many endings to the story outside of TV, in their film and stage shows, that vary from realistic to ridiculous, but all of them end with death.
===Where are they now?===
Rik Mayall wants to continue the show in a sequel series, and in 2013 the BBC almost let him achieve his dream, but when a man called Lennie accidentally killed Curley's wife, Edmondson backed out of the project and Mayall never managed to make Hooligan's Island the series a reality.
==See also==
*The Young Ones (TV series)
*British humour
*Sitcom
Category:British television programmes
Category:1990s