On the Buses

On the Buses
Movie poster for ON THE BUSES 1971 theatrical release
Created by	Ronald Wolfe Ronald Chesney
Starring	Reg Varney Bob Grant Cicely Courtneidge (first series) Doris Hare (series 2-7) Michael Robbins (series 1-6) Anna Karen Stephen Lewis
No. of series	7
No. of episodes	74
Production
Producer	London Weekend Television
Running time	30 minutes per episode
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	February 28, 1969 – May 20, 1973

On The Buses was a British situation comedy created by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney. The pair had already had successes with The Rag Trade and Meet the Wife for the BBC. The BBC rejected this offering and so the duo turned to the ITV company London Weekend Television. The show was accepted and although the critics disliked it, the show was a huge hit with the viewers.

Stan Butler (Reg Varney) works as a bus driver for the Luxton & District Traction Company. He lives at home with his bingo-loving, widowed and overbearing mother (Cicely Courtneidge, later Doris Hare), his frumpy sister Olive (Anna Karen) and his lazy brother-in-law Arthur (Michael Robbins). The bane of Stan's life is Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake (Stephen Lewis) who is often checking up on him and his conductor and best friend, the cheerful, bucktoothed Jack Harper (Bob Grant), and threatening them with the sack for lateness and untidiness. Not coincidentally, Blakey sports a toothbrush moustache and general appearance very much in the image of Adolf Hitler. His catchphrase is "I 'ate you Butler!" and "you've made my day" In later years Arthur and then Stan left the series, Olive worked for the bus company and Blakey moved in to board at Mum's house.

Seventy-four half-hour episodes were made. Also popular were the spin-off feature films made by Hammer Film Productions (On The Buses, 1971; Mutiny On The Buses, 1972; Holiday On The Buses, 1973) set on a Pontin's holiday camp. On The Buses was Britain's top box-office film at the time, surpassing even the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Two other 5 minute, christmas special shorts were made by LWT for their comedy carnival. One has been wiped from archive, yet the other - featuring a goose that the cast are chasing for christmas dinner - is still in archive at Fremantle Media.

Like several other London-made ITV sitcoms of the era, the format of On The Buses was sold to American television, where it was remade by NBC as Lotsa Luck, starring Dom DeLuise, running for 24 episodes in 1973–74. The American version failed to succeed and has never been screened in Britain.

The series was originally recorded at London Weekend's studios at Wembley. In late 1972 the show relocated to the company's new facilities on the South Bank of the River Thames; here it was discovered that the outside entrance doors to the main and secondary studios were too small to accommodate the double-decker buses that were used in the series. Therefore single-decker buses were used and a plywood mock-up of a second deck was lowered from a lighting rig onto each bus.

Video taped external shots were also an integral part of the series. LWT came to an arrangement with the former Eastern National bus company to use their buses located at the Wood Green bus garage in north London. (For the purpose of the TV series, they were under the ownership of 'Luxton and District'. 'Luxton' is supposed to be located in Essex, and actual Essex towns such as Southend, Basildon, Braintree and Tilbury are all mentioned in the show) One of the termini for the buses was 'Cemetery Gates' and for this, LWT used the entrance to Lavender Hill Cemetery in Enfield, north London, a stone's throw from Reg Varney's home at the time.

The fourth season was affected by the ITV Colour Strike, with seven of 13 episodes being made in black and white.

On the Buses was the subject of a board game by Denys Fisher games.

After a successful tour of Australia in 1988 in an 'On The Buses' stage play, a planned revival of the television series, entitled 'Back On The Buses' was mooted in 1990, featuring all the original cast; Varney, Lewis, Robbins, Hare, Karen and Grant. Despite some publicity at the time of its announcement, including an appearance by the cast on the BBC TV chat show Wogan, the proposal was not taken up by LWT and the new series was never made. Although scripts were never written, the proposed new series was to feature Stan and Jack running their own bus company in the newly deregulated market, and coming into conflict with Blakey, who was running a rival firm.

References in Popular Culture

• On The Buses is heavily referenced in the comic novel The Garden of Unearthly Delights by Robert Rankin. The novel is set in a far distant future in which On The Buses has become the basis of a religious cult.

• On The Buses was referred to often on the now axed Australian Triple M radio show Get This, featuring Tony Martin, Ed Kavalee and Richard Marsland. Martin would often break into an impersonation of Blakey.

Buses

The actual buses used were Bristol Lodekkas, with bodywork by Eastern Coach Works of Lowestoft.

DVD Release

The series has been released on DVD.

Region 1: "On The Buses- The Ultimate Collection" - 11 DVD set contain all seven series.

Region 2: "On The Buses- The Complete Series" - Released November 2006. Contains all seven series.

Region 4: So far the first five series have been released, with the others to follow.

See also

• THE OFFICIAL ON THE BUSES FORUM
• On The Buses at the Episode Guide From another site.
• On The Buses at the Episode Guide From Another Site.
• On The Buses at the Episode Guide From a TV Site.
• On The Buses Tribute Site at the Episode Guide From another site.