- SHORT VERSION -

This site first appeared on the internet in January, 1998. It has the distinction of being the first ever Rik Mayall website.

During the fall of 1997 I received a request to take over Andrew Wong's Rik Mayall FAQ. I was ready to do it, but I also felt strongly that a web format would be more suitable for writing about Rik's career. Details were worked out, and off I went. And here we are!

Not only is this the oldest Rik site, but as far as I know, it's also the largest and most comprehensive one. It's also totally unofficial and originates from New York City, not the UK.

My goals/guidelines are to try and present information as factually as possible (Hardbabes section aside!), keep this site as current as possible, and give fans a place to meet and express themselves. My only "funny" rule is to not post photos of Rik's family. While Rik himself has had no problem allowing photos of them in the press, I feel it would be intrusive to include photos of them on a fan site.
 

 - LONG VERSION -

(originally done for the 5th anniverary of this site)

I'm proud to say that this website was the first Rik Mayall web site on the Internet. And as of January, 2004, it's six years old. It doesn't sound like much, but when you think about it, how many web sites last that long? This site is also based in the US, where Rik is basically unknown. So, this this anniversary is an achievement.

So how did it all begin? Why are we here and not there exactly? Well, it all started a very, very long time ago (er, that would be the 80s). Memory lane time....

During 1987, MTV started broadcasting The Young Ones and The Comic Strip (retitled The British Comic Strip) late on Sunday nights. If memory serves me correctly, the shows began around 11:00pm or midnight. All the "cutting edge" kids were into these shows. To be cutting edge by MTV standards, you simply stayed up past 11:00pm on Sunday nights when you had to go to school the next day. Oh, and watch that New Wave video show they used to play Sunday nights as well. 120 Minutes? 160 Minutes? It was called something like that.

The Comic Strip and The Young Ones were successful, but it was The Young Ones that became a quick cult classic. People LOVED it and thought it was the coolest, strangest thing they'd seen in a long time. In fact, to this day, people who haven't seen The Young Ones since MTV aired it in the 80s still recall it with fondness.

Early in 1988, when I was 15, I had a pen pal who lived in a suburb of Boston. Her name was Mary, and like most suburban kids, she had cable tv. Including MTV. This used to mean something back in the day when cable and satellite tv wasn't the norm. Having MTV was IT. They were still cutting edge, and they actually used to show videos sometimes!!

A great deal of New York City wasn't wired for cable yet, believe it or not. So I, being cable-less, had to rely on Friday Night Videos on NBC for my weekly hip videos dosage. It sucked. I was envious of Mary beyond all means. Especially since Mary kept telling me both in letters and on the phone about this very cool English show that MTV was showing called The Young Ones.

Mary talked about this Young Ones show over and over and over and over and over and...you get the point. She quoted it. She loved Neil the hippy. I had no idea who the hell he was. I pictured a real hippy. She'd describe the episodes to me. I was confused beyond comparison when I'd read her descriptions. But I was dying to see the show. Being 15, I never thought I would.

But then...tada! One day I came home from school and there was a package from Mary. Inside was one of her Young Ones tapes. She was lending it to me! WOW!! HURRAY!! She also wrote several pages describing the episodes to me, as well as the characters, in case I got confused.

I immediately put the tape on and watched for hours. There were a few Comic Strip episodes on there as well. I liked those too, but not as much as The Young Ones. I actually thought The Strip was odd compared to The Young Ones! And, funnily enough, it took me quite a while to figure out that it was the same people appearing in both shows.

I remember that Rick was my favorite character immediately. Mary had talked up this Neil character as being so funny. And another friend who watched the show said the same thing. They loved Neil and said I would too. But I didn't really see what they were talking about. He was okay, but I didn't see what the big deal about the character was. I thought Rick was the coolest guy I'd ever seen.

Before you think I'm insane, I must say that when you're 15, you ARE Rick. Well, you're Rick at that age IF you don't follow what everyone else is doing. Which means that probably one out of every so many kids is a Rick. Rick's have all these ideas and idealogies that are shit in real life, but seem so real and viable at that age...why don't adults SEE, man!!

And he knows what he's talking about, even if he does come across like a retard....just like you feel when you're a teenager. So Rick was cool. The People's Poet RULZ!!!

And while the character was supposed to be ugly, I thought he was cute. I even remember writing that to Mary. Hmmm! Brain damage at a young age! Well, whatever....I figured I'd never see him on tv beyond this show, so I figured this was all I'd ever see of this actor on tv or elsewhere.

I eventually got hold of all The Young Ones episodes and became a full blown disciple. When I was in high school I watched the show constantly. After that I still watched from time to time, but it seemed a little stale as time went by. I think I'd simply watched the episodes too much, or perhaps because I was older, it didn't seem as cool anymore. Maybe you need to be a kid or a student to really get the show?

A few years later in 1991, Drop Dead Fred came out. I remember thinking WOAH!!! when I realized that the guy starring in that film was the same guy I loved in The Young Ones. I meant to go see the film, but never did. I didn't see it until 1995 when it was on TV. I remember the year as it was on the same day as the Microsoft Windows 95 TV special! I wasn't paying much attention to the film while it was on, but I do remember that everytime I'd look up at the TV from what I was doing, I'd think, "HEY!! That's 'Rick'!"

I remember being intrigued at seeing Rik again, but I also felt it was a fluke that Rik popped up in the film at all. He's just not known in the US, and his notable US projects are few and far between.

After getting internet access, I looked him up, and it seemed he had quite a career going -- in England. And his work was available over there, but not here. So I figured I'd never see him again after this. I thought it was a shame, because there was something about him I really liked. I'm not really into films or actors, so I thought it sucked that I couldn't see more of one of the few actors I really liked.

In late 1996, a complete set of Young Ones videos was finally released in the US. I got really excited when I found out about them. I'm not sure why, as I found the show really washed out and boring by that point. Still, I bought them all as soon as I could -- and it was a big production to do so!

I bought the tapes with the money I got from selling my school books back to my school's bookstore. Because of my finals schedule, I could only sell certain books back each day. Which meant that I made several trips that week to buy the Young Ones tapes one or two at a time. I felt compelled to go get them. I don't know why. But I had to have them.

After I got the tapes, I didn't watch them for a while. Strange, when I'd gone through so much to get them! But when I finally did watch, nostalgia took over. I became reobsessed with the show. Then, as quickly I found the show funny again, it faded. But this lasted long enough for me to start searching for Rik on the Internet again. And to also look into what (if any) tapes of his I could order through the mail or through a video store.

I happened to have the huge Movies Unlimited video catalog in my possession, and I went right to searching and digging through it for Rik. I discovered that The New Statesman, The Dangerous Brothers, Kevin Turvey and a few other odds and ends were available in NTSC....mostly as imports from Canada. I ordered whatever I could, whenever I could. From the little taste of Rik's work I got from these NTSC tapes, I wanted to see more. I especially wanted to see the more cult oriented shows I kept reading about like Bottom. I ordered the Bottom audio tapes, and that fed my desire to see the show even more.

I started ordering PAL tapes over the Internet very soon after this. I don't know why...I couldn't play them on my vcr! But I couldn't help myself! I decided I'd look into getting them converted. But the price of conversions was insane, and I didn't feel like being ripped off for dubs of my own tapes. So I thought why not buy a multisystem vcr? It'll eventually pay for itself, right?

Well, in 1997, cheap multisystems were about $700 (now they're about $400 or less). I waited a few months, and then I couldn't control it anymore......AGH!!!!!!!!!! I spent $700 on a fucking vcr. A vcr. Dear god, I was obsessed. What the fuck was I doing?? A multisystem vcr to watch one actor's tapes? Oh god, lock me away.

I was digging wherever I could at this point, trying to find tapes and whatever information I could on Rik. I had come across Andrew Wong's Rik Mayall FAQ during this "Rik discovery" time, and I sent him updates and photos for it whenever I came across new info. He probably thought I was a big pest, as I always e-mailing him with new information. Most of it probably overwhelmed him, as I think the FAQ wasn't something he meant to update that often or be that completist about. I also corresponded with one fellow Rik fan I'd come across online, but she disappeared after a while because she lost her 'net access and wasnt a very regular letter writer. She seemed to be the only Rik fan around, which I found frustrating. Where were the other Rik fans? They had to be somewhere, but where? How to round them up in one place?

I also remember being frustrated that there were no Rik websites out there. I didn't count Young Ones or Bottom sites as being Rik sites. They only focused on the characters, not Rik himself. I was looking for one that featured Rik and only Rik. I especially wanted to know more about his more obscure works, but information was hard to find.

I thought about doing a website myself, but I didn't feel I had enough time for it. I also didn't want to step on Andrew Wong's toes in case he felt territorial about his FAQ (since there was a version of it on the web). The web was still fairly new to most people at this time, so being weary of stepping on the toes of someone else's "turf" was a big consideration. Still, I really wanted to do a site. I felt I had enough resources to pull it together. And I could figure out where to find the time later on. But...not wanting to step on toes, I didn't bother.

As it turned out, towards the end of 1997, Andrew wrote me and asked if I'd like to take over his Rik FAQ. He said he had no time for it anymore. I'd been wanting more and more and more to do a website by this time, so this e-mail from him was a god send.

I asked him what he thought of my taking the FAQ over, but turning it into a webpage instead. He said that'd be fine. We worked out transition details, and off I went.

The initial web site was created during December, 1997, and was published on the web during the first or second week of January, 1998. It started to get hits the same day it went up, which was promising. Looking back, it was smally and cruddy looking. But it was the first ever Rik site, and it was on it's way. As is the way of the web, the site was/is a work in progress.

Within a year of the site being created, a few other Rik sites suddenly started to appear. It seemed as if the idea of a Rik web site never entered anyone's mind before they saw mine. A few of the sites blatantly stole from this one (content and formatting), which sucked. But supposedly that's a form of flattery?? GRRR!!! One or two of the sites also tried to insinuate they came before mine. It felt a bit soap opery at times. Still, all in all, the site was growing and things were going pretty well. It was on its way.

In early April 1998, I looked forward to a week off for spring break. I didn't have many projects to do for school, so I figured I'd have a nice week to myself to catch up on personal stuff. But on Saturday, April 11th, I logged on to get my e-mail and got a shock. I didn't expect much except the usual from friends (and spam). But instead, my in box was stuffed with messages....mostly from people I didn't know. I soon learned that Rik had been in his quad bike accident.

What followed was me spending my entire week off doing updates on the computer for hours each day. It continued after I went back to school as well. I'd run home and turn on the computer immediately to see how Rik was doing, and then to post about it. That, ironically, may be when this here web site really came into it's own. Nowhere else on the Internet or elsewhere had the amount of information that this site did. I updated the accident news several times a day, and people posted about it both on the message board and on a special get well message board that a fan had set up. If you wanted to know how Rik was doing, we had the news right here. The accident archive is still up in the Library section. It used to be on the front page of the site, of course.

Things did look bleak for Rik for a while, and I wondered if I'd soon be turning the site into a "Tribute to Rik" page. I did the updates every day with a sick feeling, and I honestly didn't think he would make it based on the reports coming in. I think many of us who were around then were thinking the same thing. But as we all know, Rik had a second coming and surprised us all.

With the quad bike accident thankfully becoming a distant memory, and Rik getting back to his old self, things started to feel normal again in the world of Rikdom. The site continuted to grow as time went on, and the message board in particular had taken on a life of it's own. Where were the Rik fans I'd wondered about? Well, they finally got rounded up! They had a place to find other Rik fans. Later on, they had a place to chat as well. In October, 2000 we had an "official" fans get together in London. This was followed by "unofficial" get togethers pretty much every year since. What made the first one official was the amount of blind planning involved!

We've also had a few loonies float to the surface because of this website. But they've been few and far between, luckily. Compared to some other sites I've visited, or mailing lists I've been on, I'd say this site attracts fairly decent, normal people. We do seem to have a disproportionate number of female to male fans, though perhaps the famale fans are just more vocal. Or perhaps they scare all the guys off! I duly apologize to any men who are scared by the amount of pervy girl power eminating from the Rik Mayall fans message board and chat room!!

The most surprising thing to me is the amount of young people visiting the site who who lust after Rik. Even I'm shocked by the amount of teenagers who are just in love with Rik, despite his, er, age. Usually the younger fans disappear after a year or so, and Rik seems to be a bit of a teen idol to them for a while until they go on to other interests. I'd love to know how these kids get interested in Rik in the first place and what attracts them. I guess it's repeats of the Young Ones or Bottom that lures them in for the most part?

There have been some not so nice moments that came out of this site's existing, but I think I'll skip those. Partially because if I started on anyone who's pissed me off, I wouldn't stop!