“The pilot is so bad that human eyes aren’t allowed to see it.”
Ah, fwends were reunited when Jay, Simon, Neil, and Will all gathered together to get knee-deep in nostalgia as The Inbetweeners reminisced on a decade of bus wankers, bumders, and clunge.
Since being released in 2008, the comedy has become something of a cult-classic that spawned three seasons and two very lucrative films.
While some fans were left disappointed because they wanted to see a new episode featuring the gang, it was nice to see Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley, and Blake Harrison all back together again.
In case you missed out, the whole show featured a collection of anecdotes, famous moments, and interviews with various members of the cast – naturally, Mr. Gilbert’s speech was a highlight – but a few interesting tidbits of information also emerged about the show’s origins.
Granted, from the first draft right up until the final product, no show remains the same but The Inbetweeners went through some very big changes.
To begin with, co-creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley originally set the show in the 1980s and the soundtrack was going to feature bands like the Happy Mondays.
In fact, Shaun Ryder even appeared during a video segment on The Inbetweeners reunion special to talk about this and said “you can stick our music on anything, as long as it pays. I don’t give a fuck.”
As for the show’s title, before it became known as The Inbetweeners, the show went through a litany of other names including ‘Baggy Trousers,’ ‘Dickheads,’ ‘Desperados, ‘Legends, and ‘One, Two, Three, Four.’
A pilot episode under the working title of ‘Baggy Trousers’ was even filmed and James Buckley (Jay) was originally cast as Neil.
The special even showed footage of Buckley delivering one of Neil’s famous lines about Will’s mam being so fit that she could be a prostitute.
On this role change, Buckley said: “My Neil would have been better than Blake’s” and that “the pilot is so bad that human eyes aren’t allowed to see it.”
Doctor Who star Matt Smith was also cast in the unaired pilot as Will.
This being said, one good thing did emerge from the ditched pilot of ‘Baggy Trousers’ because James Buckley’s off-camera persona made such an impression on the creators of the show that they crafted the character of Jay specifically for him.
Unlike Jay’s famous bullshit about taking a pedalo out to Africa, or how he jumped JCBs over cement mixers, this story is actually true.
https://twitter.com/RavWilding/status/1080218104570044417
https://twitter.com/picklesthomas/status/1080415710394966016
Reminder of how weird life is, James Buckley after a pilot failure got switched from being Neil to Jay at the second attempt in The Inbetweeners.
Furthering that, Matt Smith got rejected… Not that that halted his acting career. #InbetweenersReunion is definitely worth a watch.— Connor (@ctsmclovinya) January 2, 2019
https://twitter.com/SeanMcRef/status/1080216331193143299
https://twitter.com/midtownmurdock/status/1080217082929782784
ALSO can we just acknowledge that Inbetweeners turned down Matt Smith!!!! #DoctorWho #fwendsreunited
Madness!!!!! pic.twitter.com/09p7xZ8irI
— annie (@annie_rebeccaaa) January 1, 2019
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