SHOW: Only fools and horses
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| newagecarny Was Here Two Weeks Ago  Age: 33 Gender: Female Posts: 42495  | Only Fools and Horses is a hugely popular British sitcom, created and written by John Sullivan, and made and broadcast by the BBC. Seven series were broadcast between 1981 and 1991, with sporadic Christmas specials until 2003. The show was selected as 'Britain's Best Sitcom' in a 2004 BBC poll. The programme title is based on an old saying: "Only fools and horses work (for a living)", a reference to the protagonist's tax- and work-evading lifestyle. The theme song is written and sung by Sullivan. In the first series a different theme was used: this was changed to help viewers understand the meaning of the programme's title. Derek "Del Boy" Trotter (played by David Jason) and his younger brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) share a flat with their elderly Grandad (Lennard Pearce) several floors up Nelson Mandela House in a high-rise estate in Peckham, South London (although the actual high-rise shown in the show was in Acton, West London). Del Boy runs Trotter's Independent Traders — he's a fast-talking Cockney market trader, a wheeler-dealer, a wide boy, always looking to try to make a quick buck, cash in hand, no questions asked. At the start of the first series Rodney joins Del in the business. Their mother died when Rodney was young, and their father disappeared long ago. Del's been Rodney's surrogate father for most of his life. Del will do any deal to make money: "This time next year we'll be millionaires", he says. But most of the deals are too dodgy to succeed. Their flat is often piled high with dodgy gear they can't sell, from briefcases with the unlocking code locked inside them to sun tan lotion in the middle of winter. The brothers' friends include a nouveau riche used car dealer, Boycie, and his wife Marlene; a slow-on-the-uptake road sweeper, Trigger, who always calls Rodney "Dave"; lorry driver Denzil; Mike, the barman at their local pub the Nag's Head; and Del-wannabe Mickey Pearce. The show's one constant is the bond between the brothers. Unafraid of mixing comedy with tragedy, over the years we see their successes and failures, their loves and their losses. Grandad dies, and they're joined by their Uncle Albert; Del and Rodney both find long term love; Del and his "significant other" Raquel have a child, Damien; Rodney and his wife Cassandra split up and get back together; Uncle Albert dies; Cassandra miscarries, but finally she and Rodney have a child too. The Trotters strike it rich but lose it all again. It was revealed in the final Christmas special that Rodney’s father was in fact Freddie Robdal, or "Freddie the frog", a man with whom Del Boy's mother had an affair. This was suggested in an episode years before, when Rodney hears of a tall man who was an artist (similar characteristics to Rodney himself), and a man who had a son by a woman on the estate who for some unknown reason left everything he owned to Del and Rodney’s mum. Rodney immediately begins to suspect that this man is his biological father, but doesn’t say a word to Del. At the end of the episode when Rodney and Uncle Albert are alone together, Rodney out of the blue asks “ do I looks like him…?” and Albert replies "A little",It is finally confirmed in the final Christmas episode when Rodney finds a photo of Freddie Robdal. The two men bear a striking resemblance and at this point the viewers know who Rodney's biological father was. It turns out that Del had known this since the beginning, although neither Del nor Rodney are aware that the other one knows and swear never to tell each other, each for fear that it would break the other's heart. Only Fools and Horses was relatively unpopular when it began, but the BBC persevered, audiences grew steadily and episodes like A Touch of Glass (in which Del, Rodney and Grandad try and spectacularly fail to clean a chandelier) contained scenes that became instant classics. Series four in 1985 saw the death of Grandad. This was hastily written into the series after the death of the actor Lennard Pearce some way into filming. The programme showed Grandad's funeral – uncommon territory for a sitcom – and quickly introduced a replacement character, Del and Rodney's Uncle Albert (Buster Merryfield). Although the programme ran from 1981 to 2003, there were only seven series. The final series in 1991 ended with the birth of Del and Raquel's son, Damien. Ten special episodes were shown between 1991 and 2003, around Christmas time. The three specials shown at Christmas 1996 culminated in Del and Rodney and their families achieving their ambition to become millionaires; it currently holds the record for the highest-rated episode of a sitcom on British television, with 24.3 million viewers. A further, short ten-minute insert was shown in 1997 as part of the Comic Relief telethon. Set just before their windfall, Del and Rodney (primarily, although Uncle Albert, Racquel and Damien also feature) discuss world hunger and poverty, whilst making clever references to each other's television characters (David Jason as Inspector Frost in the detective series A Touch of Frost; Nicholas Lyndhurst as time-travelling Gary Sparrow in another sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart). The sketch ends with the brothers making a direct appeal from the flat for the Comic Relief charity. The Christmas 1996 trilogy was intended to end the series, but three further episodes shown at Christmas 2001, 2002 and 2003 carried on the story. Actor Buster Merryfield had died in 1999, and so Uncle Albert died too. Kenneth MacDonald, who played Mike the landlord of the Nag's Head pub, had also passed away in 2001, and Sullivan wrote around this by keeping his character in prison for fraud. The Trotters had lost their millions in the stock market crash, but Rodney and Cassandra finally had a baby. These three episodes were neither as successful nor as acclaimed as the earlier trilogy, and no further episodes are expected. A spin-off show, The Green Green Grass, centred on the characters of Boycie and Marlene and their plans to move out of Peckham and into the countryside, began filming in June 2005. Sullivan has reportedly also been developing a second spin-off, Once Upon A Time In Peckham, which would show Del and Rodney as youngsters in the 1960s. One of the major examples of discontinuity in the show is the corridor outside the Trotter's flat. Every time it is shown, its appearance is dramatically different.  |
| I Heart Bunney Falling In Love With The Board  Age: 33 Gender: Female Posts: 5929 | I love it. So funny!  |
| !nsomn!ac punk Jackass Age: - Gender: - Posts: 1483 | I love them they are so great i still watch them now |
| newagecarny Was Here Two Weeks Ago Age: 33 Gender: Female Posts: 42495 | Finally, someone replied  |
| Rage&Love King For A Couple Of Days Age: 34 Gender: Female Posts: 2462 | Amazing british comedy...hands down my favourite british comedy ever! I was brought up watching that show, it rocks and Del Boy reminds me soo much of my grandad, the stories ive heard bout what he used to get up to  but yeah i love that show! I'm just sad that Uncle Albert and Mike died  not the same when they try and remake it now for like one off episodes at christmas...we need Uncle Alberts war stories! "During the war...."  dammit i wanna watch it now! |
| dr cunningham This Board Is My Home  Age: 32 Gender: Female Posts: 32485  | oh yeh i remember Only Fools..!! i used to wach it every night with my dad.I prefer the new ones with Uncle Albert more than the ones with Grandad,but my most faveourite one with Grandad has to be the chandilear (sp?)episode where they have to fix a chandilear and end up smashing it to pieces. it rox |
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| Amy. Falling In Love With The Board  Age: 35 Gender: Female Posts: 5239 | Aaah, you gotta love it |
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| newagecarny Was Here Two Weeks Ago Age: 33 Gender: Female Posts: 42495 | |
| The Artist Must Be True Idiot Age: 39 Gender: Female Posts: 748 | I love how Trigger always calls Rodney Dave |
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| dr cunningham This Board Is My Home Age: 32 Gender: Female Posts: 32485 | |
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