Broadcast 1991-95. This was originally a low-key affair with plenty of nods to Samuel Beckett (most obviously ‘Contest’, which looks like it was written as the pilot, not to mention an adult audience), but it quickly descended into pleb-friendly mugging as the kids caught on. The second series is still pretty watchable (if you can put up with the cackling of the audience) but the third series stinks. The film spin-off Guest House Paradiso (1999) ‘stars’ Simon Pegg.
1.
Most of the fight sequences in the series were pre-recorded and shown to the studio audience on monitors. The jump from live performance to VT is usually perceptible to the viewer - in ‘Culture’ (8/10/92), for example, the switch to pre-recorded material occurs after Edmondson’s line ‘Check mate!’.
2.
In 1996, the BBC released Bottom Fluff (BBCV 5941), an excellent and generous out-takes collection (pointing to the existence of rushes from all three series), together with full-length extra scenes hitherto cut from the shows for reasons of time. Most of the clips are mistakes which are merely amusing in their own right, but some have a bearing on the points discussed below.
3.
The episode ‘Digger’ (1/10/92) originally began with a 6-minute dialogue between Richie and Eddie in the waiting room of the dating agency. This was a very funny sequence, and seemed gentler and more playful than the rather more audience-pleasing material elsewhere in the episode, but its lack of relevance to the plot meant that it was considered losable.
4.
The ‘Digger’ episode was pulled from a repeat transmission on 5/9/97 following Princess Diana’s death. The BBC evidently felt that a plot about an unscrupulous, materialistic, gold-digging harlot (Helen Lederer) marrying into the aristocracy for sexual and financial gain was somewhat insensitive.
5.
On the 1998 BBC video The Very Best Of Bottom, the episode ‘Holy’ (29/10/92) is presented as a 35-minute edit, featuring reinstated scenes hitherto issued on Bottom Fluff.
6.
The episode ‘’S Out’ (aka ‘Bottom’s Out’, featuring the characters camping on Wimbledon Common) was the final episode of the second series, destined for transmission on 5/11/92 but pulled following a murder investigation in the area. It was again pulled from the 1993 repeats (which co-incided with the resulting trial), and eventually surfaced, following the third series, on 10/4/95. [Note: The show had been available in the Bottom scriptbook and on the BBC videotape of the series, both released in 1993.]
7.
In ‘Hole’(6/1/95), Richie and Eddie’s mild profanities following the collapse of their Ferris-wheel car is followed by this exchange:
RICHIE
Hey, Eddie?
EDDIE What?
RICHIE We really know how to swear, us two, don’t we?
EDDIE You’ve (Bleep)ing well hit the (Bleep) right on the rail there, you (Bleep)ing (Bleep)!!
The uncensored line (‘You’ve fucking well hit the clit right on the nail there, you cunting bastard’) was included on Bottom Fluff, and passed off as an unscripted rant from Edmondson.
