On the Buses

1969-02-28 | en

Reg Varney Bob Grant Stephen Lewis

Comedy

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Seasons & Episodes

EP1 Olive's Divorce

Feb. 02,1973

It's six months since Arthur walked out on her so Olive,armed with a list of grievances prepared by Mum and Stan,goes to court and is granted her divorce.With Mum going to stay with Aunt Maud Olive is very much the gooseberry as she accompanies Stan and his girl-friend Sandra to the pictures - to see a sexy film about a recently divorced woman - where Olive sits next to a groper. Stan gets Blakey to see Olive home whilst he goes to Sandra's for some rumpy-pumpy but Olive turns up to interrupt him as she has forgotten her house key.

EP2 The Perfect Clippie

Mar. 04,1973

With money tight as ever in the Butler home Stan asks Blakey to employ Olive on the buses and eventually he relents. Olive's last excursion into being a conductress was a disaster but now she is completely in charge,super-efficient to the point of annoying, particularly as she has learnt the rule book off by heart and takes Stan to task for his rule-bending.It can't last..

EP3 The Ticket Machine

Mar. 11,1973

Mum and Olive run up debts of fifty pounds when they buy things to sell on from a catalogue firm only for Olive to break them. When Blakey refuses to give him his bonus Stan warms to Jack's idea of using a stolen ticket machine to charge for fares that will not be recorded so they can pocket the profits. After Blakey has come to the house and almost sat on the machine Stan decides to confess about the machine but Blakey gives him his bonus.However he has found out about the ticket machine and makes Stan donate the money to the bus crews' charity organization.

EP4 The Poster

Mar. 18,1973

A poster of a faceless driver appears at the depot. It is a plan to boost falling passenger figures and advertises a competition with a prize of a hundred pounds to be ... The perfect driver.Jack secretly enters Stan though the other finalists are hunky sportsmen and Stan's family take him to the chemist to buy him a rejuvenating face pack to give him a chance. Will he beat off the well-toned opposition to get his face - and - name on the poster? Of course he will.

EP5 The Football Match

Mar. 25,1973

The bus crews are encouraged to form their own staff football team,to take on the Basildon Bashers. Jack and Stan are not enthusiastic but there is a five pound bonus on offer. The depot only has one star player,young Bob,and Stan injures him in training,so he asks Blakey if he can field a substitute - Olive. Blakey feels that women and football do not mix - until he sees the Basildon Bashers. They are an all-female team and they contrive by fair means and foul to give Stan's team a good pasting.

EP6 On The Omnibuses

Apr. 01,1973

t's a hundred years since the Luxton Bus Company came into being and fifty years since they got their first motor bus. To celebrate the good old days Blakey organizes an exhibition and,after showing Mum and Olive around some of the museum pieces, Stan falls asleep at the wheel of a bus from the turn of the century,imagining his present-day family and colleagues in previous incarnations. Olive is a militant suffragette,Mum a washerwoman and Blakey is still Blakey,except his nickname is the Kaiser.

EP7 Goodbye Stan

Apr. 08,1973

Stan decides he can make more money if he heads North and gets work in a car factory but,rather than hand in his resignation, he gets Blakey to sack him so that he can get a week's wages. He celebrates his last night at home and is unable to eat the fry-up his Mum has cooked him so he sticks it in his uniform pocket,a fact that Blakey discovers when he comes around to collect the uniform. However,as he has been evicted from his own lodgings,he takes Stan's room and becomes the Butlers' new lodger

EP8 Hot Water

Apr. 15,1973

Jack and the inspector attempt to fix a water heater.

EP9 The Visit

Apr. 22,1973

Blakey invites his mum over to the Butler home now that he is living there. Mrs. Butler is none to happy.

EP10 What The Stars Foretell

Apr. 29,1973

The Stars make good reading for Mum and Olive. It says romance is in the air. Who will be the unlucky victims?

EP11 The Allowance

May. 06,1973

There's a new clippie at the depot, the militant Jessie. Outraged that the female clippies have to pay to use the public conveniences, while the male staff don't, she lobbies the management for an allowance to cover the cost.

EP12 Friends In High Places

May. 13,1973

When Mrs. Butler goes for a job at the depot's canteen, she is interviewed by an old boyfriend, Mr. Simpson who is one of the managers. After she gets the job, Jack and Olive try to use Mum's influence with Mr. Simpson to try and get one over on Blakey.

EP13 Gardening Time

May. 20,1973

Blakey and Jack have entered into the depot flower and vegtable competition. The rivalry is fierce as they both try to create the best garden.

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On the Buses is a British comedy series created by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, broadcast in the United Kingdom from 1969 to 1973. The writers' previous successes with The Rag Trade and Meet the Wife were for the BBC, but the corporation rejected On the Buses, not seeing much comedy potential in a bus depot as a setting. The comedy partnership turned to a friend, Frank Muir, Head of Entertainment at London Weekend Television, who loved the idea; the show was accepted and despite a poor critical reception became a hit with viewers.

On the Buses Audience Reviews

Btexxamar I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

caledoniancraig-1 In my book On The Buses is the greatest sit-com of all time.It has all the ingredients to make superb viewing such as:- wonderful cast,great acting,superb scripts,memorable moments,one-liners and double entendres.If you are a member of the politically correct society then this classic is not for you.This series ran for 74 episodes and three spin-off films and quite superbly hits all the right notes.Written by the great comedy writing duo Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe it stars Reg Varney (bus driver Stan),the late Bob Grant (bus conductor Jack Harper),Stephen Lewis (Inspector Blake),the late Doris Hare (Stan's mum),Anna Karen (Stan's sister) and Michael Robbins (Stan's brother-in-law) all of whom excel.

ShadeGrenade British working class sitcoms were in vogue in the late '60's and early '70's, such as 'Steptoe & Son', 'Till Death Us Do Part', and, of course, this. Incredibly, the B.B.C. turned 'On The Buses' down even though the writers had devised the highly popular 'The Rag Trade'. London Weekend Television profited by their mistake.'On The Buses' boasted a terrific cast and ( for the most part ) very funny scripts. Viewers cheered as driver Stan Butler and conductor Jack Harper frequently got one over the pompous Inspector 'Blakey' Blake. All over the country, his catchphrase "I 'ate you, Butler" could be heard in workplaces and playgrounds. And as for the sexy 'clippies'...sorry, feminists, but they really did exist, I'm afraid. My favourite characters were the dowdy Olive and her grumpy husband Arthur. Even when the punchlines could be seen coming a mile off, they were usually delivered with panache and immaculate comic timing. Three movies were made, none as funny as the original, and a stage version in Canada in the late '80's. Its impossible to explain the show's appeal to young people, but it struck a chord with millions of viewers, and should not be dismissed lightly.

Graham Watson A huge cult like following way back then. In the days when there was only three TV channels "on the buses" was a gimmie when up against "Songs with praise" and some 1940's movie on BBC 2. Despite it being over 30 years old the last time I saw it a couple of years back I still found it reasonably amusing , although very dated and obviously politically incorrect. If you love political incorrectness this is the stuff for you! Let's just add it all up.The flirting and groping of mini skirted female staff, (who for what ever reason were labeled as 'clippy's), the endless helpings of cholesterol laden food in the form of chips, eggs, bacon, meat pies and sausages in the canteen. Smoking cigarettes, no female bus drivers, a west Indian employee called 'Chalky' .( I cringe when you think that people were still laughing at the gag "I hope your head get's better" to an Indian employee wearing a turban). Lastly, Butlers tormentor Inspector Blakey who they insulted all the time, whose image was obviously based on Adolf Hitler with his mustache. I tell you it does not get any better than this.It's hard to imagine today a comedy series being made about bus conductors in general let alone two homely looking middle aged men flirting with young women. In addition the average age of the cast in this series was probably 45 you would never get that nowadays! Yet it has to be said that there have been a number of comedy duffers that have long since come and gone that in no way can stand up to this one.Memorable episodes, well, Stans new uniform getting ruined, getting radios for the buses that interfered with the airlines, Stan getting drunk on his home brew and Jack and Stan trying to impress the birds with their snazzy new uniforms claiming they were airline pilots. It's a credit to the writers that it is still watchable today!

BritishFilms1 This is classic sitcom at it's finest. It follows the adventures of a London bus driver [Reg Varney] and his conductor [Bob Grant] on the No. 13 route to the Cemetery Gates. Inspector "Blakey" brought fame to Stephen Lewis who later became a famous face as Smiler in Last of the Summer Wine, but here he is in his most famous role ["Get that bus out"].Three feature films [On the Buses, Mutiny on the Buses, Holiday on the Buses] did the TV series no favours I recently read of Grant's death from suicide [aged 71]. It came as a great shock, as he always appeared to be such a happy person on the programme.