On the Buses
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| On the Buses | |
|---|---|
 Poster for the 1971 On the Buses film |
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| Format | Comedy |
| Created by | Ronald Wolfe Ronald Chesney |
| Starring | Reg Varney Bob Grant Cicely Courtneidge (series 1) Doris Hare (series 2-7) Anna Karen Stephen Lewis Michael Robbins (series 1-6) |
| No. of series | 7 |
| No. of episodes | 74 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | London Weekend Television |
| Running time | 30 minutes per episode |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ITV |
| Original run | 28 February 1969 – 20 May 1973 |
On the Buses is a British situation comedy created by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney that was broadcast in the UK from 1969 to 1973. The writers had enjoyed successes with The Rag Trade and Meet the Wife for the BBC. The BBC rejected On the Buses, not seeing much comedy potential in a bus depot as a setting, and the duo turned to a friend, Frank Muir, Head of Entertainment at London Weekend Television. He loved the idea, the show was accepted and despite a poor critical reception became a hit with viewers. [1]
Contents |
[edit] Situation
Stan Butler (Reg Varney) works as a bus driver for the Luxton & District Traction Company. He lives with his smothering, fatuously sentimental widowed mother (Cicely Courtneidge, later Doris Hare), his frumpy and whiny sister, Olive (Anna Karen), and his lazy, hypocritical brother-in-law, Arthur (Michael Robbins). The bane of Stan's life is Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake (Stephen Lewis), who is often checking up on him and his conductor and friend, the cheerful, bucktoothed Jack Harper (Bob Grant). Blakey threatens them with the sack for lateness and untidiness; he sports a toothbrush moustache and general appearance in the image of Adolf Hitler. His catchphrases are "I 'ate you Butler!" and "That's made my day, that 'as." In later years Arthur and then Stan left the series, Olive worked for the bus company and Blakey moved in to board at Mum's house.
[edit] Background
Seventy-four half-hour episodes were made. Also popular were the spin-off films by Hammer Film Productions: On the Buses, 1971; Mutiny on the Buses, 1972; and Holiday on the Buses, 1973, set on a Pontin's holiday camp). On the Buses became Britain's top box-office film at the time, surpassing the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever (1971).
The films were somewhat non-canonical to the series - in the films, Arthur and Olive manage to have two children (she's pregnant with their second child at the end of Mutiny On The Buses) and Stan is working for "The Town & District Bus Company" instead of "The Luxton & District Bus Company. The buses in the films are red (not counting the Windsor Safari Park tour bus in Mutiny On The Buses).
Towards the end of the series, Arthur has left Olive - they have no children, they get divorced and Stan takes a job in the Midlands. The buses are green (though, in the black and white episodes, it's hard to tell).
In addition, two five-minute Christmas specials were made by LWT. One has been wiped but the other — featuring a goose that the cast are chasing for Christmas dinner — exists at Fremantle Media.
A spin-off series, Don't Drink the Water, ran for 13 episodes from 1974 to 1975. This featured Blake retiring to Spain with his sister, Dorothy (Pat Coombs).
The format of On the Buses was sold to American television, where it was remade by NBC as Lotsa Luck, starring Dom DeLuise, running for 24 episodes in 1973–74. The American version was unsuccessful and has never been screened in Britain.
The series was recorded at London Weekend Television's studios at Wembley. In late 1972 the show relocated to the company's new South Bank of the River Thames; here the outside doors to the main and secondary studios were too small to accommodate the double-decker buses used in the series. Therefore single-decker buses were used and a plywood mock-up of a second deck was lowered from a lighting rig.
Filmed external shots were part of the series. LWT arranged with Eastern National bus company to use their buses at the Wood Green bus garage in north London. For the series, they were under the ownership of 'Luxton and District'. 'Luxton' is supposed to be in Essex, and actual Essex towns such as Southend, Basildon, Braintree and Tilbury are all mentioned. One of the termini for the buses was 'Cemetery Gates' and for this, LWT used the entrance to Lavender Hill Cemetery in Enfield, Middlesex, near Reg Varney's home.
The fourth season was affected by the ITV Colour Strike, with seven of 13 episodes being made in black and white.
On the Buses was the subject of a board game by Denys Fisher games.
After a tour of Australia in 1988 in an On the Buses stage play, a revival of the television series, Back on the Buses was mooted in 1990, featuring Varney, Lewis, Robbins, Hare, Karen and Grant. Despite publicity, including an appearance by the cast on the BBC TV chat show Wogan, the idea never came to fruition though and the series was never made. Although scripts were never written, the proposed series was to feature Stan and Jack running their own bus company and coming into conflict with Blakey, who was running a rival firm.
[edit] Episodes
[edit] References in popular culture
- On the Buses is referenced in the comic novel The Garden of Unearthly Delights by Robert Rankin. The novel is set in a far distant future in which the show has become the basis of a religious cult.
- On the Buses was referred to on the Australian Triple M radio show Get This, featuring Tony Martin, Ed Kavalee and Richard Marsland. Martin would often break into an impersonation of Blakey.
- An episode of Harry and Paul, broadcast 3 October 2008, features a parody called "Omni-Busses".
- In an episode of dinnerladies, Tony rebukes Jean for flirting with the decorators, telling her to 'stop frightening poor lads like something from "On the Buses"!'
[edit] Buses
The red "Town & District" buses were Bristol KSWs with Eastern Coachworks bodies. These were ex Eastern National. Stan and Jack's "regular" bus appeared to be VNO 857.
The Green "Luxton & District" buses were Bristol Lodekkas with bodywork by Eastern Coach Works of Lowestoft. In reality these were Eastern National buses (in some episodes buses could be seen with Eastern National on the side), although as mentioned earlier, some of those in the interior depot shots were in fact "dummy" buses. Some "dummy" buses were real single deck buses with a wooden frame on top, such as in the episode Series 3 Episode Radio Control, when the bus has crashed into the bridge. The most commonly used bus in the series was AVW 399F.
The open top bus in 'Holiday on the Buses was XFM 229, a Bristol LD new to Crosville Motor Services.
The bus at the safari park in 'Mutiny on the Buses' was NRN 607, a Leyland Atlantean/Metro Cammell, new to Ribble Motor Services.
[edit] DVD releases
[edit] Region 1
Visual Entertainment released On the Buses: The Ultimate Collection, an 11-disc box set featuring all 74 episodes of the series on DVD on September 12, 2006.
[edit] Region 2
Network DVD released On the Buses: The Complete Series, an 11-disc box set featuring all 74 episodes of the series on DVD on November 13, 2006 for the very first time. On May 25, 2008, the box set was re-released in a new repackaged version.
[edit] Region 4
Beyond Home Entertainment released the entire series on DVD in 7 seasons sets between July 2, 2007 - April 8, 2009.
[edit] Book
"On the Buses: The Complete Story" by Craig Walker was launched on October 3rd 2009, at the London Transport Museum, Covent Garden. The book includes: brief synopses of all the episodes and films, crew details, filming locations, and a complete list of the supporting cast. The forewords are written by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney. The book was published by Apex Publishing LTD. [2]
[edit] References
- ^ Comedy Classics ITV 1, narrated by Ronni Ancona, broadcast 2008
- ^ "Apex Publishing Ltd: Independent International Book Publisher". Apexpublishing.co.uk. http://www.apexpublishing.co.uk/pubdetails.asp?Num=206. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
- Léon Hunt, "British low culture: from safari suits to sexploitation" (Routledge, 1998) ISBN 0415151821. Pp.40-44
- Carl Rhodes, Robert Ian Westwood, "Critical representations of work and organization in popular culture", Routledge advances in management and business studies 37 (Routledge, 2008) ISBN 0415359899. Pp.100-103
