Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door

Mr Jolly Lives Next Door is a 1987 Comedy film made for British television as part of the Comic Strip Presents series.

Warning: Spoilers or plot details follow.

It features Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson as Richie and Eddie, two characters very much like the actors' previous depictions of the Dangerous Brothers - Richie calculating and stupid, Eddie just very, very stupid. Together they run 'Dreamytime Escorts', which, rather than being suppplying prostitutes to businessmen, involves the pair swooping on unsuspecting foreigners who call them and forcing them on a drinking binge at the customer's expense. The two are alcohol-obsessed; when the home-brewed beer (which takes all of two days to brew and has a head made from washing-up liquid) isn't available, they steal from the delivery lorries pulling up at the off-licence downstairs. This involves Eddie diving out of the window into a large builders' bucket and being hauled back up with his booty by Richie. Their next-door neighbour, the eponymous Mr Jolly, is a psychotic contract killer, played by the veteran British comedian Peter Cook. Jolly's modus operandi involves hacking his victims to death with a meat cleaver while playing Tom Jones' song What's New Pussycat? to drown the cries.

Meanwhile, Hymie Henderson, their downstairs neighbour who owns the off-licence, is being blackmailed for protection money by the thugs of Mr Lovebucket, an effete gangster played by Peter Richardson.

Due to a mix-up Richie and Eddie receive a request intended for Mr Jolly to "take out" the radio presenter and game show host Nicholas Parsons, who appears as himself. Parsons is opening Henderson's off-licence and Lovebucket wants to put a stop to it. Interpreting "take out" in their own way, they manage to spend an evening with Parsons, only to be confronted by Lovebucket the following morning, who wants to know what they've done with the money enclosed with the contract (they've drunken it). Lovebucket then insists that they complete the contract.

Mr Jolly Lives Next Door was released on VHS in the late '80s, and became available on DVD when the entire Comic Strip Presents series was released as a box set in the UK in June 2005.