The BEST episodes of The Comic Strip Presents...

Every episode of The Comic Strip Presents... ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Comic Strip Presents...!

The Comic Strip Presents... debuted on 2 November 1982, the opening night of Channel 4. The first episode was "Five Go Mad in Dorset", a parody of The Famous Five. It was written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens, who wrote most of the early episodes. "Five Go Mad..." drew anger from some viewers for the way it mercilessly satirised a children's classic, although the Enid Blyton estate had given permission for the broadcast. A meeting was called to discuss the group's future with Channel 4, after complaints from viewers.

Last Updated: 10/1/2024Network: Channel 4Status: Ended
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The Yob
star
10.00
1 votes

#1 - The Yob

Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/12/1988

A trendy music video director has his brain crossed with that of a football hooligan in a freak accident resulting when he mistakes a cerebral teleportational machine for a portable toilet. He begins a slow and painful transition from artsy high-fashion connoisseur to violent Neanderthal thug, finding himself physically incapable of suppressing his newfound urges to drink lager and vandalize public lavatories. This episode pays tribute to David Cronenberg's film classic The Fly.

Directors: Ian Emes
Watch Now:Amazon
Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door
star
8.50
4 votes

#2 - Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door

Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/5/1988

Two boozers who run the Dreamytime Escort agency are in for the night of their lives when they accept a job to "take out" popular TV entertainer Nicholas Parsons.

Directors: Stephen Frears
Watch Now:Amazon
Bad News Tour
star
8.16
19 votes

#3 - Bad News Tour

Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/24/1983

Fifth-rate heavy metal band Bad News is the subject of a rock documentary. Band members Vim Fuego, Den Dennis, Colin Grigson, and Spider Webb take to the road in search of lager, gigs, and schoolgirls.

Directors: Sandy Johnson
Watch Now:Amazon
More Bad News
star
8.00
9 votes

#4 - More Bad News

Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/27/1988

Five years after their far-from-amicable break-up, the members of heavy metal band Bad News reunite when they are offered a record deal and a chance to play the festival at Castle Donington.

Directors: Adrian Edmondson
Watch Now:Amazon
Five Go Mad on Mescalin
star
7.85
13 votes

#5 - Five Go Mad on Mescalin

Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 11/2/1983

Child adventurers Julian, Dick, George, Anne, and their dog Timmy return to the countryside for the holidays, only to learn that Uncle Quentin, the well known scientist and homosexual, has escaped from prison. The children set out to unlock the mysteries of Love Island.

Directors: Bob Spiers
Watch Now:Amazon
GLC: The Carnage Continues...
star
7.80
5 votes

#6 - GLC: The Carnage Continues...

Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/15/1990

Charles Bronson (Robbie Coltrane) stars in a big-budget Hollywood film as Ken Livingstone, a man of the people and elected leader of the GLC. After successfully preventing the Tories from flooding South London to turn it into a yacht club, Livingstone makes it his one-man mission to stop ""The Ice Maiden"" Margaret Thatcher from beheading the Prince of Wales and taking over the kingdom.

Directors: Peter Richardson
Watch Now:Amazon
Dirty Movie
star
7.67
9 votes

#7 - Dirty Movie

Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/7/1984

A theater owner waits for the mail to deliver his dirty movie

Directors: Sandy Johnson
Watch Now:Amazon
The Strike
star
7.56
9 votes

#8 - The Strike

Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/20/1988

Al Pacino (Peter Richardson) and Meryl Streep (Jennifer Saunders) star as Arthur Scargill and his wife in an overly-dramatized Hollywood epic about the 1984 miners' strike.

Watch Now:Amazon
Queen of the Wild Frontier
star
7.50
2 votes

#9 - Queen of the Wild Frontier

Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/6/1993

Two escaped convicts hide in a country house owned by two women.

Directors: Peter Richardson
Watch Now:Amazon
Five Go Mad in Dorset
star
7.35
48 votes

#10 - Five Go Mad in Dorset

Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 11/2/1982

Julian, Dick, George, and Anne are four children with a taste for adventure, as well as for lashings of ginger beer. They set out on a bicycle ride through the country, having picnics aplenty and exposing heinous crimes such as homosexuality.

Directors: Bob Spiers
Watch Now:Amazon
Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown
star
7.33
3 votes

#11 - Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown

Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/22/1993

In a sequel to The Bullshitters, Bonehead and Foyle are called in to solve a 70s-style murder. Unfortunately, so are 70s detectives Shouting George of The Weeney and Jason Bentley of Department Z, and 90s Northern detective Dave Spanker.

Watch Now:Amazon
A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques
star
7.27
11 votes

#12 - A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques

Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/21/1984

Carlos and Miguel are Englishmen obsessed with the mystique of the Old West-- would-be gunmen ever in search of a brawl. Traveling the countryside by public rail on a fantasy holiday, in costumes straight out of a Spaghetti Western, they hook up with spunky Australian tourists, a hippie hitchhiker, and a mass-murderer who works in an abattoir but dresses as a matador.

Directors: Bob Spiers
Watch Now:Amazon
Eddie Monsoon - A Life?
star
7.17
6 votes

#13 - Eddie Monsoon - A Life?

Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/4/1984

Relentless alcoholic, drug addict, and fame-obsessed TV personality Eddie Monsoon is the subject of a Channel 4 expose that looks back over his life and loves, while he lies bedridden in a rehab hospital.

Directors: Sandy Johnson
Watch Now:Amazon
South Atlantic Raiders
star
7.00
3 votes

#14 - South Atlantic Raiders

Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/1/1990

A security service driver for a British bank meets and falls in love over the radio with a woman stranded on a bird watching expedition in the South Atlantic. When he is tricked into thinking the Falklands are under attack by an enemy army, he takes drastic measures to finance a rescue mission to save his new girlfriend.

Directors: Peter Richardson
Watch Now:Amazon
Les Dogs
star
7.00
2 votes

#15 - Les Dogs

Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/8/1990

A wedding between feuding upper-class families turns into an all-out war zone. In the midst of the chaos and bloodshed, the wedding photographer becomes enraptured by the bride's beatific beauty, and the story drifts into the surreal realm of his imagination, where the lines between fantasy, dream, and reality become hopelessly blurred.

Directors: Peter Richardson
Watch Now:Amazon
War
star
6.90
41 votes

#16 - War

Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/3/1983

It's 1985 and the Communist Warsaw Pact countries have seized control of England. A young married couple retreats to a countryside cottage, but they soon find themselves hopelessly separated and swept up in the chaos of a war-torn nation

Directors: Bob Spiers
Watch Now:Amazon
Summer School
star
6.84
37 votes

#17 - Summer School

Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/31/1983

Summer school students taking a course on the Iron Age construct a primitive village in the center of a university campus, where they must learn to fend for themselves without modern conveniences.

Directors: Sandy Johnson
Writer: Dawn French
Watch Now:Amazon
The Beat Generation
star
6.82
38 votes

#18 - The Beat Generation

Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/17/1983

A group of Beatnik artists and poets convene for a weekend of debauchery, destructive behavior, and clever conversation at the house of naive young wannabe Desmond while his parents are out of town.

Directors: Bob Spiers
Watch Now:Amazon
Gino - Full Story and Pics
star
6.50
8 votes

#19 - Gino - Full Story and Pics

Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/28/1984

A small-time thief on the run from the law is pursued by over-zealous police officers masquerading as milkmen and postmen, framed for murder by a homicidal housewife, and built up by the media to sound like an infamous criminal mastermind. Every step he takes carries him further into a life of crime, and it looks like there's no way out for Gino, but when he teams up with a gutsy typist on the run from her own unfulfilling life, the two of them may find a way to turn the media attention to their advantage.

Directors: Bob Spiers
Watch Now:Amazon
Gregory: Diary of a Nutcase
star
6.50
2 votes

#20 - Gregory: Diary of a Nutcase

Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/13/1993

In this none-too-subtle parody of the film The Silence of the Lambs, a rookie police cadet falls prey to the sexual allure of imprisoned cannibalistic serial killer Dr Ghengis; meanwhile, aspiring serial killer Gregory Dawson makes a video diary of his botched attempts to stalk and imprison a woman in his homemade torture chamber.

Directors: Peter Richardson
Watch Now:Amazon
Jealousy
star
6.50
2 votes

#21 - Jealousy

Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/27/1993

A jealous husband is consumed to the point of madness with suspicions about his wife's extracurricular activities.

Directors: Robbie Coltrane
Watch Now:Amazon
Susie
star
6.44
9 votes

#22 - Susie

Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/14/1984

A lascivious schoolteacher has grown hopelessly bored with her bland small-town existence. Her world takes a sudden turn, however, when a wealthy, impetuous pop star moves to town to get a taste of country life. Suddenly, she must choose between her tedious but adoring husband, her indifferent but steady lover, and this intriguing, unpredictable new man in her life.

Directors: Bob Spiers
Watch Now:Amazon
South Atlantic Raiders, Part II: 'Argie Bargie!'
star
6.33
6 votes

#23 - South Atlantic Raiders, Part II: 'Argie Bargie!'

Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/8/1990

Having robbed a bank and hijacked a plane to travel to the South Atlantic to protect Frances, the woman he loves, Stan finds himself at the mercy of Argentinian soldiers plotting to recapture the Falkland Islands.

Directors: Peter Richardson
Watch Now:Amazon
Slags
star
6.13
8 votes

#24 - Slags

Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/11/1984

Feared street leaders Passion and Little Sister are released from prison, whereupon they learn that their gang the Slags has disbanded during their incarceration, having been driven out of its territory by rival gang The Hawaiians. Bent on revenge, they reunite the Slags for a rumble with The Hawaiians to reclaim their turf. This grim tale set in a bizarre, apocalyptic world is West Side Story with a gruesome twist.

Directors: Sandy Johnson
Watch Now:Amazon
Oxford
star
6.00
3 votes

#25 - Oxford

Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/22/1990

Hannah is a street-wise American woman with a passion for Lord Byron's poetry who is prepared to do anything it takes to get into a course at Oxford, and she means anything. Also eager to study Byron is Caroline, the quiet-natured girlfriend of narcissistic mega-star comedian Steve ""Zoo Zoo Zoo Off Come My Pants"" Wild. When he disapproves of her aspirations, Caroline must go behind her boyfriend's back to take the course, unaware that she's not the only one doing the deceiving.

Directors: Peter Richardson
Watch Now:Amazon