Mike and Angelo S3E10 (1991) - FULL EPISODE

Mother's Birthday. (Or, possibly, The Goat. Take your pick.) Mike's gran is approaching her 60th, and it's making her feel like an "ancient old biddy". Rita and the others decide to arrange a nice little surprise to cheer her up, but all the secrecy only leads to paranoia - they're not planning to throw her on the scrapheap, are they? Meanwhile, Angelo has a new four-legged friend named Glenda. This episode was originally broadcast on Wednesday, 23rd January, 1991. This is another one with very little Mike and a lot of emphasis on the (much) older generation, but amongst all the comedy, there's definite heart in there. In fact, how many other kids' sitcoms deal with issues related to ageing and the fear of being "put out to grass"? Of course, the concept of one character getting the wrong end of the stick and therefore driving the whole plot isn't new, but this episode features a couple of the funniest mishearings of that sort that I've ever come across. The writers take advantage of the fact that, when Angelo's involved, they can contrive pretty much any scenario imaginable, but my goodness do they deliver with all those old goat jokes. ("...Because she smells, and makes a mess all over the floor..." being my personal favourite.) I loved them, anyway, along with Angelo's Pancake Pitcher and Lemon Liquidiser inventions. All that, and we haven't even mentioned Bill Maynard yet! Bill - who sadly died last year, I'm sorry to say - is great fun in this, and it's always nice when an outside actor comes in as a guest and just clearly gets it, if you know what I mean. The look of puzzlement on his face as it slowly dawns on him he's in a house of loonies is brilliant, but (spoiler alert) his unexpected return after the apparent resolution gives a wonderfully happy ending to an otherwise emotional episode. I know the overarching theme of it all is that you're only as old as you feel - and, to that end, it's a sad day when it dawns on someone who's younger than Mike that he's now older than Rita - but what's the average age of people who appear in this third series? You'd be going some to find another kids' sitcom with a higher figure, I reckon. There's no Children's ITV continuity in this particular recording, but believe it or not I stumbled across it here: https://youtu.be/tixIjsSkGjQ?t=262. Many thanks to Lee providing this recording. (To the best of my knowledge, the contents of this video have never been available commercially anywhere in the world. Please also note that I don't monetise any of my uploads. Nevertheless, if you are a copyright holder and have an objection, please don't hesitate to contact me.)