Review of Hippies: The Complete Series

Introduction

Notting Hill, 1969 and Ray (Simon Pegg) is the editor of `Mouth` - an underground magazine, based on the famous `Oz` publication. He produces the magazine with Jill (Sally Phillips) and Alex (Julian Rhind-Tutt); Hugo (Darren Boyd) appears to work there but his creative input is limited to childlike sketches. Ray is a deeply committed hippy but is completely unable to do anything - his idea to stage a giant protest ends in him and Alex campaigning for world peace at a sandpaper exhibition. Alex is laconic, posh, well educated and always seems too well dressed and clean to be a hippy. Jill is a completely confused feminist who has an `open` relationship with Ray (as neither has been able to find someone else).

Despite not sharing the house, they live a `Young Ones` existence there, decorating it with CND logos and posters of Che Guevara - no doubt to inspire them in their important and `life changing` work.

The episodes have to be selected individually as, annoyingly, there is no `play all` function:

1: Protesting Hippies
The World`s Biggest Freak moves in and Ray tries to impress him by staging a protest at a sandpaper exhibition.

2: Hairy Hippies
Everyone, even Jill, decides to grow facial hair and Ray tries to show his prestigious talent by staging a play.

3: Sexy Hippies
Alex invites Ray to a sex party and Jill bans them all from looking at or even thinking about her bum which just makes it worse.

4: Hippy Dippy Hippies
Mouth prepares to publish an anti-police issue only to be burgled and have all the magazines stolen whilst at an anti-police rally.

5: Muddy Hippies
They all discover a new American singer and decide to go to a festival, in Ray`s new £30 car, to try and get an interview.

6: Disgusting Hippies
Ray`s idea of allowing some school children to entirely write the next issue of Mouth lands him in court charged with Gross Indecency.

Video

A very good 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer - I didn`t see this when I was first broadcast so I don`t know if any remastering has gone on. The attention to period detail is pretty good with late `60s style clothing, décor and props.

Audio

A clear Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack with optional English subtitles.

Features

Arthur Mathews provides a commentary on each episode and is joined by different people: Kevin Eldon on episode 1; Simon Pegg on episodes 3 and 4; Dick Lunn on episode 5 and Martin Dennis with Dick Lunn on episode 6. The commentaries are alright, but nothing spectacular, containing too much dead air for my liking.

Hippie Invasion - The first episode begins with Ray and Alex watching TV, where some hippies have entered the studio and are engaging in dialogue with the host - this is taken from a real incident when hippies invaded The David Frost show in 1970. This is very funny, though it`s a shame that the whole incident isn`t included.

There is a photo gallery, which is a 1-minute montage of pictures against a flower-power background, whilst the theme music plays, twice.

Conclusion

I completely missed `Hippies` when it was broadcast and the fact that it was never repeated didn`t help matters. As a big fan of both `Father Ted`, which was written and created by the same people and pretty much everything that Simon Pegg has appeared in, this seemed like my kind of show and I wasn`t disappointed.

Ineffectual hippies are very easy to lampoon because, with the benefit of hindsight, they are so inherently ridiculous. Neil in `The Young Ones` is a hilarious character, but even stock footage of them talking about `changing the system, man` is funny. Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan resisted the temptation simply to mock hippies and this is quite a loving parody of the hippie movement approaching its end.

Sadly this was not received well by critics and a second series was written but never made - fortunately this enabled Simon Pegg to go on and create `Spaced` and, from there, `Shaun of the Dead` and `Hot Fuzz`. Rather than sulk about what might have been, the writers went on to create the brilliant `Black Books`, `Big Train` and `The IT Crowd` and the cast were equally prolific. A second series would have been good, but I wouldn`t swap it for any of the above.

If you can`t get enough of shows like `The Green Wing`, `The IT Crowd` or `Father Ted`, then you`ll enjoy `Hippies` and if you`ve already seen it, then you know how good it is already.