The Dangerous Brothers was a stage and TV act by anarchic comedy duo Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, performing respectively as "Richard Dangerous" and "Sir (or occasionally Lady) Adrian Dangerous". They started in roughly 1978 in the comedy club but when Rik and Ade moved to the comic strip with the rest of the Original comic strip and they then became well known and started up their careers. They more or less canceled the dangerous brothers act when Rik write a sitcom named the young ones. They later reappeared after the show ended in 1985 on Saturday live.
The act was, in essence, a prototype of the career which the pair were to forge over the next twenty years in such shows as Mr Jolly Lives Next Door; Filthy, Rich and Catflap; and Bottom- two low-life loser perverts hitting each other in spectacular slapstick ways. It was arguably more hazardous than much of the material which was to follow in later incarnations - stage props in the brief run included a live (and very large, although apparently lethargic) crocodile, blank-firing submachine guns, and Edmondson apparently consuming Vim, a well-known UK brand of powder toilet cleaner. One of the early sketches went wrong when a stunt to set fire to Edmondson's trousers left him with serious burns - although much of this was left on the broadcast version.
Sketches included
- World Of Danger (AKA The Towering Inferno)
- Big Stunt
- Torture - featuring Norman Lovett
- Crocodile Snogging (which featured a live crocodile)
- Flying Zebra
- Exploding Politicians (in which Richard Dangerous attempts to become the 41st President of the United States of America)
- How To Get Off With A Lady - featuring Edmondson's wife Jennifer Saunders
- Babysitting - featuring Morwenna Banks as the wife and John Bird as the husband.
- Dangervision
- Kinky Sex
One sketch guest-starred Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie. When the Dangerous Brothers interrupt their flower arranging routine, Fry & Laurie inform them they have been banned. The Brothers leave, only to return moments later disguised as The Ben Elton Brothers.
One of the final sketches prepared for Saturday Live was entitled 'Kinky Sex'. This fell foul of Channel 4 censors who banned it. The duo responded by apparently hijacking the programme and blowing up the wall on which the show's logo was painted in graffiti art. The sketch, which by modern standards seems fairly tame, was finally released on a compilation video The Dangerous Brothers present: World of Danger.
Several Dangerous Brothers sketches are also included on the DVD compilation Saturday Live: The Best of Series One (2007).