MovieChat Forums > On the Buses (1969) Discussion > Opinions on the first series

Opinions on the first series

posted 14 years ago by matwsussx
5 replies | jump to latest

I bought the entire dvd box set the other day. Over the years I'd seen a lot of series 3 onwards on tv (i guess because they were in colour for the most part) whereas i'd never seen any of the first and second series. I found series 1 pretty unfunny. The second episode "The New Conductor" is brilliant but the rest very low key and some of the characters seem a bit ill defined at this early stage ie Jack seems a bit more stern and serious towards Stan. Anyone got any opinions about series 1? Did you like it or find it not very funny?

[–] mr360 14 years ago

I too bought the box-set a couple of years ago, I tried to get into the first series but I wasn't that impressed and had no inspiration to watch any of the other series.
This was a shame as I loved the films and watched them over and over again.
A few months ago, I literally forced myself to watch the whole series one and thereafter.
I found that series two was slightly better up until around series five, it felt that the writers were running out of ideas and gags pretty fast, maybe this is why they introduced Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis on to the writing team as well as George Layton and Jonathan Lynn.
I'm currently on series six and enjoying watching it.
One thing I'm a little miffed about is the borrowing of plots from the series in the films, for instance I'm sure that the toilet disaster, the sidecar incident and Olive leaving handprints on the freshly decorated walls in the dark were all taken from the series and put in Holiday on the buses.

[–] laurence01 14 years ago

One thing I'm a little miffed about is the borrowing of plots from the series in the films, for instance I'm sure that the toilet disaster, the sidecar incident and Olive leaving handprints on the freshly decorated walls in the dark were all taken from the series and put in Holiday on the buses.

This is quite common in films of TV shows. For instance the film version of 'Are You Being Served' uses the 'Dear Sexy Knickers' letter idea from Episode 1.

[–] Future_Games 13 years ago

Mr. Lucas' line about Mrs Slocombe and the American Air Force was also used in the episode "German Week" and later in the film.

ROCK STARS HAVE KIDNAPPED MY SON

[–] offramp_tavanipupu 13 years ago

..And what about that old Irish woman who was Stan's Mum? I quite liked her.

[–] TwittingOnTrender 12 years ago

I think the makers used to believe that the people who would fetch up at the cinema on a Friday night were possibly people who hadn't seen the series, and so they used the movies as a sort of "sampler", a best-of, to tempt them in.

No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.