Written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, The Young Ones was a sitcom about four mis-matched students sharing a house in London. First broadcast by BBC1 in 1982 it propelled what was then considered alternative comedy, to the mainstream. The four students were Rick [Rik Mayall], the middle-class anarchist who considered himself a poetic genius; Vyvyan [Adrian Edmonson], the punk with an aggressive pet hamster; Mike [Christopher Ryan], the slightly spivvy straight one; and Neil [Nigel Planer], the lentil-loving depressed hippie studying Peace Studies. The series director, Geoff Posner, in putting forward his theory on the show's success commented: ..."suddenly here were four people who were constantly arguing and hitting each other and alhtough there was a lot of criticism about the language and violence, deep down at the root of it all there was a basis of truth. Of course it was all exaggerated but...that is the way that some people behave when they live together." Stephen Fry, who appeared in the Bambi episode, commented "...all rather silly, but very good fun."