20th Century Coyote was a comedy group famous for first uniting Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. Mayall started the group at Manchester University with friend Lloyd Peters and some others and attempted to gain a lunchtime resiudency at The Band on the Wall club. Their first performance was an improvised affair called "Dead Funny". Rik Mayall Rik Mayall (born in Harlow, Essex, England, March 7th, 1958) is a British comedian and actor. ... Adrian Edmondson Adrian Edmondson (sometimes credited as Ade Edmondson, born 24 January 1957 in Bradford, Yorkshire, Britain) is a British actor, comedian, director, and writer who gained fame as Vyvyan in The Young Ones in the early 1980s. ... University of Manchester Motto: Cognitio Sapientia Hvmanitas Knowledge, wisdom, humanity. ...

Members soon began to drop, so Mayall asked Edmondson if he would be interesting in joining. Mayall recalls "he had a bit of a reputation in our year as the actor". Edmondson's reply was "well, I'll have to have a contract, luv". Mayall wrote out a contract during the seminar which saying "I promise it will be horrible and nothing will ever go right. La de da. Rik Mayall".

Though at this point the group was a five-piece, by the time "20th Century Coyote" began appearing at The Comedy Store in London, it had become a double act with just Mayall and Edmondson (though they would sometimes perform seperately). This double act became something of a blueprint for thier later careers, with slapstick violence, crude humour and eccentric characters. As The Comedy Store and "20th Century Coyote" grew in popularity, Edmondson and Mayall broke away, along with Alexi Sayle, "The Outer Limits", French and Saunders and Arnold Brown to set up their own comedy club, The Comic Strip. Here, working as "20th Century Coyote", Mayall and Edmondson gained the attention of television producers and went on to work on The Comic Strip Presents... and The Young Ones. The Comedy Store is a comedy club located in Soho, London, England that was opened in 1979 by Peter Rosengard. ... The double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic device in which humor is derived from the uneven relation between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin, and profession, but drastically different personalities. ... Alexei David Sayle is a British comedian, actor and author. ... The Outer Limits is a television series from the United States. ... French & Saunders is a British sketch comedy television show starring and written by comedy team Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, and is also the name by which they are known on the rare occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act. ... Arnold Brown is a droll Scottish comedian, one of the main figures in the alternative comedy scene of the early 1980s. ... The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, best known collectively for their television series The Comic Strip Presents. ... This article is about the British comedy group; for the published art form, see comic strip. ... The Young Ones may refer to: The Young Ones (TV series), a 1980s British sitcom about four students living together The Young Ones (film), a film starring Cliff Richard The Young Ones (song), sung by Cliff Richard This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same...

Though Mayall and Edmondson did not really use the title "20th Century Coyote" for their partnership again, it's style was reflected heavily in The Young Ones and Bottom. In the mid-80s they appeared in Saturday Live with a similar act under the title "The Dangerous Brothers". Adrian Edmondson (left) and Rik Mayall (right) as Eddie and Richie in Bottom. ... Saturday Live was an innovative television comedy and music show broadcast in the UK by Channel 4 from 1985 to 1987. ... The Dangerous Brothers was an early stage and TV act by anarchic comedy duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, performing respectively as Richard Dangerous and Sir (or occasionally Lady) Adrian Dangerous. They appeared in a number of brief sketches in the 1980s TV programme Saturday Live. ...

External links

How We Met - Mayall and Edmondson