"Yuppy Love" is an episode of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...

Only Fools and Horses ''Only Fools and Horses'' (titled onscreen as ''Only Fools and Horses....'') is a British television sitcom that was created and written by John Sullivan (writer), John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Ki ...

''. It originally aired on 8 January 1989 and is the first episode of series six, marking the start of the increase in running time from thirty minutes to fifty minutes per episode.

Synopsis

Having seen and been strongly influenced by the film ''

Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

'', especially its lead character, the ruthless corporate high-flyer

Gordon Gekko Gordon Gekko is a composite character in the 1987 film '' Wall Street'' and its 2010 sequel '' Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'', both directed by Oliver Stone. Gekko was portrayed in both films by actor Michael Douglas, who won the Academy A ...

Del Boy Derek Edward Trotter, more commonly known as Del Boy, is a fictional character from the BBC sitcom ''Only Fools and Horses'' and one of the main characters of its spinoff series, '' Rock & Chips''. He was played by David Jason in the original ...

has decided to adopt a new " yuppy" image, donning a striped shirt and red braces, and carrying a

filofax Filofax is a company (law), company based in Scotland that produces a range of personal organiser wallets. The organisers are traditionally leather bound and have a six-ring loose-leaf binder system. The design originated at Lefax, a United Stat ...

and a silver

briefcase A briefcase or an attaché case (/əˈtæʃeɪ/) is a narrow hard-sided box-shaped bag or case used mainly for carrying papers and equipped with a handle. Lawyers commonly use briefcases to carry briefs to present to a court, hence the name. Bu ...

. Rodney in turn has joined an evening computer class in an attempt to earn a diploma and finally get a proper job. His efforts to learn to programme the Amstrad CPC 6128 are mocked by his family. At the computer class Rodney meets and is attracted to Cassandra Parry and meets her again later at a nightclub, where she offers to give him a lift home. She first drives to her house and Rodney feels upstaged by Cassandra's luxurious lifestyle. Embarrassed at the thought of Cassandra seeing their council flat in Nelson Mandela House, Rodney instead leads her to King's Avenue, an expensive and very upmarket road, implying that he lives there and has to stand in the driveway, being seen by the homeowners. Despite soon finding out that he actually does not Cassandra still phones and agrees to meet Rodney again.

Notable scenes

The episode features a scene in which

Del Del, or nabla, is an operator used in mathematics (particularly in vector calculus) as a vector differential operator, usually represented by the nabla symbol ∇. When applied to a function defined on a one-dimensional domain, it denotes ...

, leaning against a bar flap in a local bistro, moves away from it to point some women out to

Trigger Trigger may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Trigger (''Only Fools and Horses''), in the TV sitcom * Trigger Argee, in science fiction short stories by James H. Schmitz * Devil Trigger, a transformation ability of ...

, and then leans back again, unaware that, in that short space of time, the bartender had just lifted it up. He falls straight down, and Trigger does a double-take when he looks around and finds that Del has "disappeared". On 21 December 2006, this scene was nominated in the UKTV Gold Top 40 Greatest Only Fools Moments, and subsequently voted the most popular scene of the entire programme. It was also named the "7th Greatest Television Moment" of all time in a 1999 Channel 4 poll, beating the likes of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the Queen's coronation and Winston Churchill's funeral. In 2008, ''

Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

'' placed ''Only Fools and Horses'' 42nd on their list of "The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time" and cited "Yuppy Love" as the show's best episode.

Episode cast

First appearances

Gwyneth Strong Gwyneth Strong (born 2 December 1959) is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Cassandra, the love interest and, later, wife of Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst), in ''Only Fools and Horses'' (1989-2003), and for playing Geraldine Clo ...

as Cassandra Parry

Notes

* The episode title is a pun on the popular song and saying "

puppy love Puppy love, also known as a crush, is an informal term for feelings of romantic love, often felt during childhood and early adolescence. It is an infatuation usually developed by one's looks and attractiveness at first sight. It is named for its r ...

Episode concept

*The new image for Del Boy was based on

from the movie ''

'' (Rodney mentions that his brother saw the film six times), as part of the yuppy movement that was popular at the time. The episode also introduces Cassandra into the series.Did You Know?
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Music

* The Funky Worm: "The Spell! (Get Down With The Genie)" *

Errol Brown Errol Ainsworth Glenstor Brown MBE (born Lester Errol Brown; 12 November 1943 – 6 May 2015) was a British-Jamaican singer and songwriter, best known as the frontman of the soul and funk band Hot Chocolate. In 2004, Brown received the Ivor N ...

: "Love Goes Up And Down" * The Pasadenas: "Enchanted Lady" *

Chris de Burgh Christopher John Davison (born 15 October 1948), known professionally as Chris de Burgh ( ), is a British-Irish singer-songwriter and musician. He started out as an art rock performer but subsequently started writing more pop-oriented material ...

: " The Lady in Red" *

Al Bowlly Albert Allick Bowlly (7 January 1899 – 17 April 1941) was a South African-British vocalist, crooner, and dance band guitarist who was Britain's most popular singer for most of the 1930s. He recorded upwards of 1,000 songs that were listened ...

Ray Noble Raymond Stanley Noble (17 December 1903 – 3 April 1978) was an English jazz and big band musician, who was a bandleader, composer and arranger, as well as a radio host, television and film comedian and actor; he also performed in the United S ...

: "Makin' Wickey Wackey Down in Waikiki" *

: "Time on My Hands" (plays just before Del falls through the bar). Note: "The Spell! (Get Down With The Genie)" and "Enchanted Lady" are removed on the VHS, DVD and iTunes versions and over-dubbed with library music, leading to some scenes of dialogue being removed.

References

External links

* {{Only Fools and Horses episodes 1989 British television episodes Only Fools and Horses series 6 episodes