"Only Fools and Horses" (1981) TV series 1981-2003

User Rating:

9.4/10   

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Release Date:

8 September 1981 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Classic comedy following the misadventures of two Wheeler Dealer brothers Del Boy and Rodney Trotter who scrape their living by selling dodgy goods believing that next year they will be millionaires.

Plot Keywords:

Brother | Market | Black Market | Wheeler Dealer | Uncle

Awards:

17 wins & 15 nominations

Cast

David Jason	...	Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter / ... (65 episodes, 1981-2003)
Nicholas Lyndhurst	...	Rodney Trotter (65 episodes, 1981-2003)
Roger Lloyd-Pack	...	Trigger (39 episodes, 1981-2003)
Buster Merryfield	...	Uncle Albert Trotter (37 episodes, 1985-1996)
John Challis	...	Boycie (33 episodes, 1981-2003)
Kenneth MacDonald	...	Mike Fisher (30 episodes, 1983-1996)

Also Known As:

"Readies" (UK) (working title)

Runtime:

30 min (35 episodes) | 35 min (1 episode) | 50 min (13 episodes) | 60 min (4 episodes) | 65 min (1 episode) | 70 min (1 episode) | 75 min (4 episodes) | 80 min (1 episode) | 85 min (2 episodes) | 90 min (1 episode) | 95 min (1 episode)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Sound Mix:

Mono | Stereo (later episodes)

Certification:

UK:PG | Australia:M (some episodes) | Australia:PG (some episodes) | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

John Sullivan wrote every episode.

Goofs:

Continuity: During "May the Force Be with You", when Del is proposing Slater a deal, Slater says, "I don't like deals" and shoves Del's hand off the phone hook (Del was trying to stop Slater keeping him in custody overnight). But in the next shot Del's hand is still on the hook.

Quotes:

Del Boy: [Rodney is looking for crimes to report at the tenants' meeting] Well, why don't you tell them what happened to poor Rita Alldridge then?
Rodney: Yes! Good idea! What happened to Rita Alldridge then?
Del Boy: Last Friday night she was indecently assaulted over by the adventure playground.
Rodney: No! Did she report it?
Del Boy: Yeah, I saw her this morning, she'd just been down the police station.
Rodney: Right. There you are, you see; that's exactly the sort of thing... hang on a minute, if this happened on Friday night, how come it's taken her 'til Wednesday to report it?
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Comedy Connections: Just Good Friends (#5.7)" (2007)

"You Know It Makes Sense"

"Only Fools and Horses" is definitely one of the funniest shows ever written. David Jason plays Derrick (Del Boy) Trotter, a likable rip-off merchant who runs Trotters Independent Traders. Although Del Boy's cockney speech is riddled with malapropisms (such as saying goodbye with words like "bonjour"), he manages to con the public into buying (stolen) goods they don't really want, pay for services they don't really need, or basically give up large sums of money for whatever doomed enterprise he happens to be peddling that week.

Del Boy's gift of the gab comes in handy whenever he has to placate his gauche brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst), who, unlike Del Boy, happens to have principles. Rodney allows himself to be talked into the most ridiculous, humiliating situations, thanks to Del Boy's twisted logic and specious arguments.

Grandad is the third member of the team; often the butt of Del Boy's pranks, his cookery skills leave a lot to be desired. He spends most of the time taking care of the flat (filled with all kinds of gaudy junk) and watching two televisions. Grandad was later replaced by Uncle Albert, whose experiences in the Navy have provided him with a limitless store of anecdotes that invariably begin with "During the war..."

Among my favourite episodes are "The Yellow Peril", where Rodney has to paint the grotty kitchen of a Chinese takeaway. "The Russians Are Coming" is (or was) a timely episode where the Trotters spend time in their own nuclear fallout shelter and Del Boy ponders the idea of procreation with mutants. "A Touch of Glass" has the team cleaning 17th Century chandeliers. That episode also proves that the best solution to a problem is to run away from it.

John Sullivan was originally going to call this show "Big Brother". But then he decided that people take more notice of long titles. Sullivan also sings the catchy theme song. Each episode of "Only Fools and Horses" is laughter guaranteed.