Very sad to hear of the passing of Rik Mayall.

 

I grew up loving The Young Ones, Bottom and Drop Dead Fred. 

 

"Why are all the kids crying ... he's dead .....the peoples poet is dead"

I cannot quite believe it one of my teenage heros

RIP Rik

Ahhhh I loved Rik Mayall, R.I.P he was a classic

WOOF! 

 

 

Who can forget the classic gas man episode.

I also grew up watching Bottom and The Young Ones and have probably watched both of those series more than any other. I also heard there was the possibility of a Bottom reunion some time soon which, apart from the fact he was too young and leaves a wife and kids, makes it all the sadder.

Edited June 9, 201412 yr by bluedave

Any man who titled their biography "Bigger Than Hitler, Better Than Christ" was always going to be hugely missed. 

Young ones, Kevin turvey, filthy rich and catflap, bad news, the dangerous brothers, bottom, black adder, new statesman. Loved him in every single one of them. Rip one of my favourite comedians.

Was just thinking about watching the Bottom Live videos on Youtube again yesterday.

Tragic

I posted this earlier in another thread but I'm gutted. Rik was a hero of mine and I grew up watching Bottom, one of my favourite shows. Not only was there Bottom but Lord Flashheart as well. A brilliant, funny man.

damn, DROP DEAD FRED was one of my favourites as a child...RIP RIK!

Even though the bus went off the cliff at the end of The Young Ones, I always thought one day they'd bring them back, somehow, for a reunion.

I'm absolutely gutted, I find as I'm getting older, all my childhood heroes are starting to pass.

IF there is a God, then he better keep his hands off these guys:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VQ8U88uF5DY/UJVIjfIhM2I/AAAAAAAAFF0/aaAheCCLb6A/s1600/Star+Wars+cast+1977.jpg

Gutted. Loved him in Bottom, and his appearances as Lord Flashheart in Blackadder were awesome.

So shocked, he was so far off the wall he was just hanging in mid air.

So many iconic characters.

RIP

RIP Rik a great comic talent. My favourite character was as the outrageous MP Alan Bstard in thr New Statesman.

Actor and long-time friend Adrian Edmondson said of Rik Mayall: "There were times when Rik and I were writing together when we almost died laughing. They were some of the most carefree stupid days I ever had, and I feel privileged to have shared them with him.

"And now he's died for real. Without me. Selfish b*****d."

Another comedy genius leaves us too soon...he was great in everything, but captured the sleaze of politics brilliantly in the new statesman....thanks rik for what you did to entertain us all...you will never be forgotten

Edited June 9, 201412 yr by The Brit

Apparently they have announced that "foul play is not suspected"  which often tends to mean that they suspect suicide. I do hope not.  That would be doubly tragic.

I don't think it was suicide. Talking to a friend about this just now, he told me he'd found info online about an accident on a Quad-bike some time ago. I can't know for sure, but this mate of mine seems to think there's a strong possibility of there being a connection between this accident and his tragic death.

 

What else can I say? Immense talent, tragic loss. The Young Ones and Bottom are the obvious ones, but I also loved his performance as Alan B'Stard in The New Statesman.

 

RIP

RIP

Loved The Young Ones, really funny bloke, RIP.

You're right Tommmy.  I remembered that he had a quad bike accident a few years back which left him in a coma for four days and left him with epilepsy.  So there may well be a connection.

 

Watching footage of him last night on the news was very sad - it was the clips of him as "himself" rather than when playing his characters that got to me.  I guess partly as he was a similar age to me and I "grew up" with him, it feels like I have lost a friend.  And I always had a thing for him, he was such a good actor you didn't realise when he was in the Young Ones just how good looking and charming he actually was.  A very sad loss.

His wife has said she doesn't think it was a heart attack because he had a strong heart... She thinks he may have suffered a fit of some kind.

 

Quite possibly linked to his quad bike accident a few years back.

 

On his accident Mayall said he was better than Jesus because he was dead for 3 days and still came back. 

From the BBC Website. Some fine quotes. The last one is very apt given the coaltion government in the U.K.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27772259

 

Rik Mayall: His best lines

The Young Ones ran for two series between 1982 and 1985

Here is a selection of some of the funniest lines from the late Rik Mayall's comedy career.

The Young Ones

Mayall played obnoxious, poetry-writing anarchist Rick in The Young Ones, a man obsessed with Cliff Richard, starring alongside his friend and comedy partner Adrian Edmondson as Vyvyan. Their slapstick comedy and schoolboy humour achieved cult status.

Rick (Ode to Cliff Richard): Oh Cliff / Sometimes it must be difficult not to feel as if / You really are a cliff / when fascists keep trying to push you over it! / Are they the lemmings / Or are you, Cliff? / Or are you, Cliff?

Neil: Wow... that was really pretty bad, Rick

Rick: Bad for society when the kids start to get into it!

Rick (to Madness who are performing in the pub): Do you lot know Summer Holiday by Cliff Richard?

Suggs: You hum it... I'll smash your face in.

Rick: I'll go sit over there.

Rick: God, I'm bored. Might as well be listening to Genesis.

Rick: What are you doing, Vyvyan?

Vyvyan: I'm entering a contest to win a Ford Tippex. You have to say what Cornflakes mean to you in 10 words. So I said: Cornflakes. Cornflakes. Cornflakes. Cornflakes. Cornflakes. Cornflakes. Cornflakes. Cornflakes. Cornflakes.

Rick: Pathetic! You'll never win, Vyvyan.

Vyvyan: Why not?

Rick: It's only nine words.

Vyvyan (writing): Corn... flakes!

Bottom

Mayall and Edmondson played Richie and Eddie, two flatmates who lived on the dole in Hammersmith, London. As well as three TV series and five tours, it spawned the film Guest House Paradiso. The violent slapstick often involved fires, explosions and hefty blows to the head with a frying pan.

Richie: What about pin the tail on the donkey?

Eddie: We haven't got a donkey.

Richie: Well, pin the tail on the chicken.

Eddie: We haven't got a tail.

Richie: Oh. Well, pin the sausage on the chicken?

Eddie: We haven't got a chicken.

Richie: Well, pin the sausage on the fridge.

Eddie: Or a pin.

Richie: Sellotape a sausage to the fridge!

Eddie: We haven't got a sausage!

Richie: Put a bit of sellotape on the fridge!

Eddie: It's not much of a game, is it?

Eddie: Why are you putting mayonnaise on your face?

Richie: It's not mayonnaise, it's sun tan lotion.

Eddie (examining bottle): Never heard of low calorie sun tan lotion.

Richie: What? Oh no, blast! Oh God! Oh! Argh-rrgh! Phuh! Well where's the sun tan lotion then?

Eddie: You squirted that into your cheese roll.

Richie: But I ate that!

Eddie: Yeah, I know.

Richie: Well why didn't you tell me?

Eddie: Because I don't like you very much.

Richie: "Eddie, have you strained your vegetables?"

Eddie: "No it's just these hired trousers are a bit tight!"

Richie: This is just my London pomme-de-terre. My main castles are scattered all over the place, you know, 'cause I never know where I'm going to be... Bloody fox hunts go on for ever these days, don't you find? Never know where you're going to end up. Start off in Burke-shire, end up in... ah, eh, eh - Twat-shire!

Blackadder II

Lord Flashheart only appeared in two episodes of Blackadder, written by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis. But Mayall managed to make the sex-obsessed, daring action hero one of the show's most memorable characters.

Flashheart: It's me, Flash! Flash by name, Flash by nature. Hurrah!

Blackadder: Where have you been?

Flashheart: Where haven't I been! Woof!

To Baldrick (dressed as a bridesmaid): Thanks, bridesmaid. Like the beard. Gives me something to hang on to!

To Lord Melchett: Hey Melchie! Still worshipping God? Last thing I heard He started worshipping ME...

To Nursie: Ah Nursie, I like it firm and fruity. Am I pleased to see you or did I just put a canoe in my pocket?

Blackadder IV

Flashheart: Hi, Flashheart here. Yeah, cancel the state funeral, tell the King to stop blubbing. Flash is not dead. I simply ran out of juice! Yeah, and before all the girls start saying "Oh, what's the point of living anymore", I'm talking about petrol! Woof, woof!

Flashheart: Enter the man who has no underwear. Ask me why.

Others: Why do you have no underwear, Lord Flash?

Flashheart: Because the pants haven't been built yet that'll take the job on.

Flashheart: Just because I can give multiple orgasms to the furniture just by sitting on it, doesn't mean that I'm not sick of this damn war: The blood, the noise, the endless poetry.

The New Statesman

Mayall played the corrupt, sleazy and utterly odious Conservative MP Alan B'Stard in the uproarious political satire The New Statesman, written by Loz Marks and Maurice Gran, which ran from 1987 to 1992 as well as returning for a number of specials.

Alan B'Stard: I suppose life's just too easy for me. I mean, I'm incredibly rich, I've got the largest majority on the House of Commons and, if I was any better looking, I think people would suspect I was an android.

Alan B'Stard: We hear an awful lot of leftie whingeing about NHS waiting lists. Well the answer's simple. Shut down the health service. Result? No more waiting lists. You see, in the good old days, you were poor, you got ill and you died. And yet these days people seem to think they've got some sort of God-given right to be cured. And what is the result of this sloppy socialist thinking? More poor people. In contrast, my policies would eradicate poor people, thereby eliminating poverty. And they say that we Conservatives have no heart.

Alan B'Stard: Who in this country was not moved when that great Englishman, Gazza, wept bitter tears at the World Cup last year? People thought that he was crying because he had been booked by the umpire and so would miss the final. But that was not the reason. He was crying at the thought that the Conservative government, the only government this young hero had ever known, was behind in the opinion polls.

Alan B'Stard: Why should we, the country that produced Shakespeare, Christopher Wren - and those are just the people on our banknotes for Christ's sake - cower down to the countries that produced Hitler, Napoleon, the Mafia, and the... the... The Smurfs!

Alan B'Stard: You know the really great thing about a fudged coalition is that neither of us need to carry out a single promise of our election manifestos.