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50 free The Young Ones TV Series trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This The Young Ones TV series trivia quiz covers both series of the anarchic BBC2 sitcom that put alternative comedy on television in 1982. It starts with the household — Vyvyan and his hamster, Rick the Cliff Richard fan, Neil the Peace Studies hippie, Mike the Cool Person and Alexei Sayle's Balowski clan — and their address at 15 Credibility Street, Scumbag College. Then it gets into how the show was made: why a band played in almost every episode, the University Challenge parody 'Bambi' with Fry, Laurie and Thompson as Footlights College, the Bristol filming locations, the Kebab and Calculator, the fifth housemate, the flash frames, the number-one 'Living Doll' for Comic Relief and Neil's 'Hole in My Shoe', plus what Mayall, Edmondson, Planer, Ryan and Sayle went on to do. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who watched it; the rest are for people who can quote the University Challenge scores. Our Red Dwarf and Madness pages are natural next stops. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's articles on the show and its cast and the interviews they cite, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
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Q 01Which third writer, then Mayall's girlfriend, co-wrote The Young Ones with him and Ben Elton?
Lise Mayer
Elton had been at Manchester University with Mayall and Edmondson.
Q 02On which channel did The Young Ones air, for two series in 1982 and 1984?
BBC2
The BBC rushed it out a week after Channel 4's launch, on 9 November 1982, partly in response to the new rival.
Q 03How many episodes of The Young Ones were made in total?
12
Two series of six; eleven of the twelve featured a live band performing in the house or street.
Q 04Which character, played by Adrian Edmondson, was the violent punk medical student?
Vyvyan
He owned a talking Glaswegian hamster called Special Patrol Group and a flame-painted Ford Anglia.
Q 05What was the name of the punk housemate's talking Glaswegian hamster?
Special Patrol Group
'SPG' for short, he was regularly subjected to Vyvyan's extreme violence.
Q 06Rik Mayall's character Rick was a self-proclaimed anarchist and devoted fan of which singer?
Cliff Richard
Ben Elton said the character was based on the 'try-hard wanna-be Leftie' found on every campus.
Q 07Neil, played by Nigel Planer, was a morose hippie studying what?
Peace Studies
He ended up doing all the chores while the others ignored him unless something needed blaming on someone.
Q 08Which cast member was the only one of the five who was NOT a stand-up comedian?
Christopher Ryan
He replaced Peter Richardson, who quit after clashing with producer Paul Jackson, and played Mike the Cool Person.
Q 09Where were the four students supposedly enrolled?
Scumbag College
Their squalid house was at 15 Credibility Street.
Q 10What was the students' fictional home address?
15 Credibility Street
Exteriors were actually shot in Bishopston, Bristol, at the top of Codrington Road.
Q 11The fifth regular cast member mostly played the students' landlord. What was the landlord's name?
Jerzei Balowski
He affected a Russian accent to sound more sophisticated; Sayle often broke character to address the audience in his own Liverpool voice.
Q 12Why did the producers include a live band in almost every episode?
To qualify as variety and get a bigger budget
Variety attracted higher fees than comedy; the one band-free episode used a lion tamer instead to keep the classification.
Q 13Which band appeared in two episodes of The Young Ones?
Madness
Q 21Nigel Planer, in character as Neil, reached number 2 in 1984 with a cover of which Traffic song?
Hole in My Shoe
It came from Neil's Heavy Concept Album, produced with Canterbury-scene keyboardist Dave Stewart.
Q 22The Young Ones was the first non-music programme to air on which US channel, in 1985?
MTV
Edited versions ran that summer and made it a cult hit; Conan O'Brien has cited it as an influence.
Q 23Most of the show's exterior scenes were filmed in which English city, despite the north London setting?
Bristol
The student house is on Codrington Road in Bishopston, and the Fascist Pig bank was around the corner on Gloucester Road.
Others included Amazulu, Nine Below Zero, Rip Rig + Panic and John Otway.
Q 14Which band performed 'Ace of Spades' in the living room in the episode 'Bambi'?
Motörhead
The four rush past them, still in dirty clothes, to catch a train to the University Challenge studio.
Q 15The episode 'Bambi' parodies which student quiz show?
University Challenge
Griff Rhys Jones played the host as a spoof of Bamber Gascoigne, with Mel Smith cameoing as a security guard.
Q 16In 'Bambi', which of these did NOT play a member of the Footlights College, Oxbridge team?
Rowan Atkinson
Ben Elton completed the team as Kendal Mintcake; Vyvyan eventually blew them all up with a stick grenade.
Q 17Which comedian played the quiz host 'Bambi', a spoof of Bamber Gascoigne?
Griff Rhys Jones
Alexei Sayle later argued the episode's Oxbridge guest stars had a detrimental effect on alternative comedy.
Q 18The show's title and theme song come from a 1961 hit by whom?
Cliff Richard and The Shadows
The cast sang the theme themselves; the song was the title track of the film of the same name.
Q 19Which 1959 hit did the cast record with its original singer for Comic Relief in 1986?
Living Doll
It topped the UK, Australian and New Zealand charts; Alexei Sayle refused to take part on principle.
Q 20Why did the show's landlord actor refuse to join the 1986 Comic Relief single?
Working with Cliff went against the alternative ethos
He had already had his own hit in 1984 with ''Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?'.
Q 24What was the name of the pub where the punk housemate's mum worked?
The Kebab and Calculator
In real life it was the Cock of the North in Bristol, since renamed the Westbury Park Tavern.
Q 25Who did Adrian Edmondson say played the mysterious 'fifth housemate' in early episodes?
His university friend Mark Dewison
Director Geoff Posner said he and Paul Jackson thought a never-explained ghostly figure would be fun; Ben Elton claimed to have no idea what anyone was talking about.
Q 26According to one of the show's co-writers, how did the fifth housemate come to be there?
He came to a party and never left
She said so in the 2018 documentary How the Young Ones Changed Comedy.
Q 27The second series used 'flash frames' in each episode to mock the public's fear of what?
Subliminal messages
It sat alongside the puppets, cutaways and constant breaking of the fourth wall.
Q 28Rik Mayall joked that the household was a nuclear family. Which character did he say was 'the mother'?
Neil
Mike was the father, Vyvyan the rebellious son and Rick, with his pigtail, the daughter.
Q 29Which London club, founded by the cast with French and Saunders, drew Channel 4's attention?
The Comic Strip
It ran in the Raymond Revuebar in Soho after The Comedy Store got too popular.
Q 30Mayall and Edmondson worked as which double act on the club circuit before the show?
The Dangerous Brothers
They had first performed together as 20th Century Coyote; Nigel Planer's double act with Peter Richardson was The Outer Limits.