The Young Ones are misfit, house-sharing students at Scumbag College - Neil the hippy, Rick the "right-on" leftist anarchist, Vyvyan Basterd the punk medical student, and Mike The-Cool-Person. Only Mike attracts any respect: Vyvyan and Rick loathe each other, and all three look down on Neil, who acts as the unappreciated mother of the house.

Their dysfunctional relationships with each other, lack of money, squalid surroundings, reluctance to attend any lectures and violent landlord Mr Balowski regularly combine to create anarchy in and around the house, even - or perhaps especially - when they're all deathly bored.