The Young Ones (TV series) opening night on 2 November 1982, with "The Young Ones" following a week later on BBC2. The series was written by Mayall, his then-girlfriend Lise Mayer, and Ben Elton (who had attended the University of Manchester with Mayall and Edmondson). Richardson was originally set to play Mike, but clashed with Jackson. He was replaced by Christopher Ryan, the only member of the group who was not a stand-up comedian. The show was voted number 31 in the BBC's Best Sitcom poll in 2004. The main characters were four undergraduate students who were sharing a house: aggressive punk medical student, Vyvyan
Oil (The Young Ones) appeared as Alexei Balowski, a protest singer and nephew of the students' landlord Jerzei. When the episode was originally aired, an extended scene was shown at the basement oil well involving 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 head). In VHS and DVD releases, this scene has been edited to just show the pickaxe event and aftermath. The scene began with an obscure Roy 'C' song from 1973 called "I'm Bustin' My Rocks (Working On The