 On The Buses
1 9 6 9 - 1 9 7 3 (UK)
74 x 30 minute episodes
2 x short specials
Within six months of its launch, London Weekend Television was
the grateful recipient of a new sitcom from seasoned writers,
Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney.
The cheerfully lowbrow workplace sitcom which aired on Saturday
nights was originally rejected by the BBC and was set in the
(fictitious) Home Counties-based Luxton and District Bus Company,
ruled over by the petty minded Hitler-esque Inspector Blake.
"Blakey" was the constant tormentor of Stan Butler -
the Driver of the green Number 11 bus to the cemetery gates - and
his conductor, faithful sidekick and partner in crime, Jack. Most
episodes centred on Stan and Jack's battles with the dim-witted
Blakey, who would usually retort "I 'ate you Butler",
and/or the lads' attempt to woo the conductresses (or
"clippies").
 Stan
was a bachelor and lived with his bingo-loving, widowed,
super-smothering mum. Also in the house were his plain sister
Olive (Anna Karen - a former stripper) and his perpetually
unemployed layabout sponger brother-in-law, Arthur (Michael
Robbins) who spent all of his time reading the paper and avoiding
having sex with Olive.
On The Buses was primarily a vehicle (no pun intended)
for Reg Varney, aged 47 when the series began, and previously best
known for his role in The Rag Trade (also written by Wolfe
and Chesney). Here he drew upon his working class background to
portray the wily bus driver.
Varney failed to see the series out, leaving after seven
episodes of the final 13. Reputedly Stan went to the Midlands to
work in a bus making factory.
At this point, Blakey moved into the Butler household as a
lodger and was promoted from bit-part player to the show's primary
character.
When the show finally came to an end in 1973, Blakey's
character was spun-off into a new Wolfe and Chesney sitcom, Don't
Drink The Water, while plain Olive's character, once again
played by (the actually far from plain) Anna Karen, resurfaced in
the writers' 1977 - 78 LWT revival of The Rag Trade.
 Yes,
On The Buses was vulgar; yes, it scored easy, cheap and
cheerful laughs; Yes, all the characters shouted their lines
instead of talking them; yes, Stan said "Cor Blimey" at
least a dozen times in every episode; and yes, of course, the
critics dislike it - but the viewers absolutely loved it!
No fewer than three full-length On The Buses movies were
released to British Cinemas: On the Buses (1971), Mutiny
on the Buses (1972) and Holiday on the Buses (1973),
all written and produced by Wolfe and Chesney.
The huge popularity of the series can be gauged from the fact
that the first of these movies was the top British box-office film
in 1971, surpassing even the James Bond movie, Diamonds Are
Forever!.
The format of On The Buses was sold to American
television, where it was remade by NBC as Lotsa Luck,
running for 24 episodes in 1973 - 1974.
This series starred Dom DeLuise as Stan Belmont, a lost
property clerk for the New York bus department, living at home
with mum (Kathleen Freeman), sister Olive (Beverly Sanders) and
her good-for-nothing Arthur (Wynn Irwin).
 The
show was not a success and has never been screened in Britain.
Another fizzer was an early 1990s plan to revive the Stan
Butler character for another series, with Reg Varney reprising his
role but in an elevated position - that of a businessman operating
his own fleet of buses in the newly deregulated market.
The exterior shots for On The Buses were filmed at a bus
depot in Wood Green, London.
Historical Note:
Reg Varney opened the world's first ATM cash dispenser, which
was installed on 27 June 1967 at Barclay's Bank in Church Street,
Enfield in England.
London Weekend Television's comedy series 'On The Buses',
starring Reg Varney and Cicely Courtneidge, each week has in the
middle of its studio set a genuine green Bristol Lodekka bus,
registration number AEV 811F built at Brislington.
Hired from the Eastern National Bus Company, this vehicle, on
its arrival, created something of a problem.
Each week a live studio audience sees the series recorded and
during some of the scenes Reg Varney. as the bus driver Stan
Butler. has to actually start the engine.
'In the confined studio space, we suddenly realised that 'if we
weren't careful we would gas the audience in a way we didn't want
to' says Reg.
So the ever-ingenious technicians at London Weekend
Television's studios devised a way of boxing-in the bus's exhaust
and piping the exhaust fumes straight out of the studios and away
from the audience of 250.
The Eastern National Company's chief driving instructor gave
Reg Varney a try-out in the cab of AV 811 F and quickly formed the
impression that he would be very suitable material for training as
a bus driver. During the period of the filming, when the Eastern
National fleet name was covered up by the 'Luxton & District'
name board, several members of the public actually went into the
office and enquired whether the company had been taken over.
At one stage during the filming an Eastern National saloon came
into the depot and got in on the act. When the Film Director
realised that it was displaying 'Eastern National' he had a 'Luxton
& District' slip stuck over the fleet name on the rear and
while this solved the immediate problem, all concerned forgot the
slip was there and when the vehicle went off down the road with
the 'Luxton & District' slip on the back it was chased by a
horrified depot inspector, who fortunately caught it up at the
traffic lights.
Pictures from London Weekend Television show scenes from 'On
the buses' featuring Reg Varney, Cicely Courtneidge, later Doris
Hare, Anna Karen, Stephen Lewis and Bob Grant.
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 Lots a Luck, starring Dom DeLuise, running
for 24 episodes in 1973–74. The American version failed to
succeed and has never been screened in Britain.
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