Oil (The Young Ones)

"Oil" was the second episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 16 November 1982.

Characters

As with all episodes of The Young Ones, the main four characters were student flatmates Mike (Christopher Ryan); Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson); Rick (Rik Mayall) and Neil (Nigel Planer). Alexei Sayle appeared as Alexei Balowski, a protest singer and nephew of the students' landlord Jerzei.

Plot

As they settle into their new house and allocate the bedrooms, Vyvyan announces that he has struck oil in the cellar, and instantly forms a coalition with Mike (whom Vyvyan calls "El Presidente") to extract the oil, using Rick and Neil as well-digging slaves following Vyvyan hitting Rick briskly between the legs with a cricket bat (Rick: "Ha! You missed both my legs!"). After Neil unwittingly injures Vyvyan with a pickaxe blow through the head, he and Rick prompt a workers' revolution which is ultimately proved futile by a demanding benefit band and, in a post-credits scene, Vyvyan's admission that it was all a lie. Meanwhile, Mike discovers a man resembling Buddy Holly in his new room, having survived the plane crash by parachuting from the plane on The Day The Music Died, and crashing through the roof. Having survived since the 1950s by eating a steady diet of beetles, he proceeds to sing a song about his diet.

The episode featured a performance from electronic band Radical Posture, with a member of the Balowski family as their singer.

Edited scene

When the episode was originally aired, an extended scene was shown at the basement oil well involved Vyvyan criticising Rick for not working hard enough, and then head butting the ground to speed up the digging (which then leads to Neil accidentally putting the pick axe through Vyvyan's skull). In VHS and DVD releases, this scene has been edited to just show the pickaxe event and aftermath. The scene began with a Beatles song playing on Rick's radio, so the reason for its omission may be a failure by the BBC to secure broadcast rights for the music. A similar problem afflicted the re-release of Cash on DVD.