SERIES 3 - First broadcast 1995

1. Hole

Eddie and Richie embark on a trip to the fairground with three whole pounds to spend. They decide their money would be best invested in a go on Western Europe’s biggest (and oldest) ferris wheel.

It soon becomes very apparent that the reason the ride is taking such a long time is because the wheel has become abandoned and is due for demolition within hours. It takes even less than that for Richie and Eddie to destroy their little compartment, what with Richie burning a giant hole in the floor and being a little on the heavy side. Things are looking decidedly bleak, when help appears from an unlikely source.

First broadcast: 6th Jan 1995

2. Terror

When Eddie is viciously attacked by three small trick or treaters, Richie realizes the economic potential that the Halloween period offers. He sets out, with a reluctant Eddie in tow, to try and squeeze some cash out of the residents of Hammersmith, using an electric cattle prod to ‘soften up’ the more resistant householders.

When this plan unpleasantly backfires, it is decided that an altogether more drastic course of action is needed- to call up the devil. After all, that’s pretty much the only way Richie will actually ever get to have sex.

First broadcast: 13th Jan 1995

3. Dough

Richie is bored. He hasn’t had anyone to talk at for a whole week because Eddie is locked away in his room for no apparent reason. Eventually he resolves to try and find out what his flatmate is up to, even if it does mean being set on fire and having a pencil inserted into his eye.

Eddie has been busy creating the most indecent counterfeit money imaginable, with the idea that by the time any vendor has finished gawping at the filth on offer, they will have scarpered. Unfortunately Skull Crusher Henderson, ‘the master counterfeiter of old London town’, has got wind of this and is not best pleased.

First broadcast: 20th Jan 1995

4. Finger

Richie feels aggrieved when he returns from a cricket match, raging about the treatment he has received at the hands of ‘that Welsh bastard’ Cannonball Taffy O’Jones. So he is rather happy when Eddie reveals he has stolen Taffy’s car keys, not to mention his honeymoon tickets. It is the obvious thing for the pair to do to pose as Taffy and his lovely abattoir-employee bride, although that does mean Eddie has to dress up as a not entirely beautiful woman.

First broadcast: 27th Jan 1995

5. Break

Richie is beside himself with excitement when he and Eddie book an incredibly good value holiday to Doncaster (only four grand), and spends the entire day getting on Eddie’s nerves with his neurotic and fiddly preparations.

One of his ideas is for the two of them to lose some weight to appeal to all the sexy girls of Briddlington, which results in, among other things, Richie attempting to lift the fridge to get a gander at a mysterious pornographic photo of Desmond Lynam.

When Richie has really got past the point of no return, Eddie sets out to punish him in more ways than one.

First broadcast: 3rd Feb 1995

6. Carnival

It is carnival time in Hammersmith, a byword for plentiful burnings, lootings and injuries, and therefore Richie and Eddie are in their element. Among their spoils from the day’s events is a BBC film camera, so they decide to try and create a hilarious home video to squeeze some money out of Jeremy Beadle. Only one problem - after numerous, painful, rehearsals with no tape in the camera, and a year out to set up one of their many stolen video recorders, they discover that the one tape they do have, the one that was in the camera, holds some very compromising footage of the Prime Minister. Desperate to the last, they try to blackmail the Government into paying them for the tape back, but the Government has other, very decisive, ideas.

Cue a bloody end to Bottom’s four-year TV run.

First broadcast: 10th Feb 1995