Review for Here Come The Double Deckers

Come on all you people at the northern end of your forties. You know you want to. 1-2-3 - and:

Get on board! Get on board!
Come and join the Double Deckers.
Take a ticket for a journey,
On our double decker London bus.
Ring the bell (ding! ding!),
Toot the horn (honk! honk!),
When you ride with the Double Deckers.
Fun and laughter is what we're after,
On our double double double decker bus.

You're aboard! You're aboard!
You're aboard with the Double Deckers.
Fun and laughter is what we're after,
On our double double double decker bus.
La la la! La la la!
La la la la la la la la.
La la la la la la la la,
On our double decker London bus.


Ah! That's better. Well, well, well. Isn't this fantastic news? All 17 episodes (only 17?!!) of this classic and memorable TV series finally seeing a long over-due release on a double-double DVD. (Sorry - that's 'double singular' but was a side-long reference to that scanning oddity in the lyrics to the title song). For me, this was one of the most memorable series from the early seventies despite never having seen a repeat. I could remember all the central characters as well as one or two of the shows, including the one with the space-men.


I used to love everything about this series. How brilliant to have a disused London bus as a gang (in the innocent sense of the word) HQ? And what about the deliciously politically incorrect stereo-typing of the characters? 'Doughnut' was a fatty plain and simple and 'Brains' was the geek. And everyone got on and made things happen.


The Double Deckers was a gang (Brains, Billie, Doughnut, Sticks, Scooper, Spring and Tiger) who held secret meetings on an abandoned bus in a junkyard, ably abetted by well-meaning street cleaner, Albert (Melvyn Hayes).


It originally aired in 1971, having been produced in 1970, and its mix of mad-cap laughs, adventure and plenty of music was a perfect accompaniment to shows like 'The Banana Splits' back in the day.


The show was actually a joint amalgamation of a venture between US television and the BBC. Every episode was a brilliant self-contained mini-movie, all shot on luscious and highly saturated 16mm film (no 35mm for this lot) and it always had a very 'studio-bound' look, apart from the occasionally foray into the outside world, like the episode with the runaway go-kart. There are some lovely moments for nostalgia freaks too, like the visit to a toy shop with all its late 1960's product clearly on display. Magical! Though the gang are always the key focus, keep your eye out for UK TV stalwarts of the era including Bob Todd, Pat Coombes, Norman Vaughn, Clive Dunn, Hugh Paddick and Sam Kydd.


Anything was possible with brains on board (the geeky inventor) and episodes included a home-made hovercraft, invading "Martians" (seen on a black and white set which Brains was converting to colour - a hot topic at the time!), a haunted house and so on.


Originally titled as a spoof on the 'Magnificent Seven', the series piloted as a Children's Film Foundation production called 'The Magnificent Six-And-A-Half' ('Tiger' was the half being so much younger than the others). It would have been great if that could have been licenced and included here - but it isn't. Never mind. You can't have everything and all 17 episodes of a series that we thought would never make it to DVD is good enough!


Other CFF stories were woven into these episodes. 'Go Kart Go!', a firm favourite with fans of CFF, bears an uncanny resemblance to the episode 'Go-Karters' for example, as does 'Ghosts and Ghoulies' with 'Happy Haunting'.

http://www.thedoubledeckers.com/now.htm gives a fascinating update as to 'Where are they Now? Of course, it's common knowledge that Brinsley Forde went on to become lead singer with soft-reggae group Aswad, and that Peter Firth went on to become a well established TV presenter - though it's fascinating to read about the others. A re-union commentary would have been great!



Picture quality on the DVD is perfectly acceptable (if unremarkable) and there appears to just be one extra available - but this was not accessible on the DVD-R check disc used for this review.

All in all, for anyone nudging their mid to late forties, an absolutely essential purchase.