A Comedy On This Day: On The Buses - Bon Voyage (4 July 1969)

 On The Buses rarely seemed to have much interest in plotting or telling stories... The impression it gives is usually a succession of five-minute segments in which it is optimistically hoped that the regulars might do some of their funny stuff in, rather than properly connected scenes.

 For a programme that really isn't interested in exploring contemporary living, it’s instructive to note what modern aspects still leak through. The lone mention of anything present day and external is - when a passing tramp steals Stan's trousers - Blakey calling him "the Maharishi Butler".

 The idea of a package holiday is still a tremendous novelty - only Stan and Jack have been on one before. Aside from the expectation of greasy foreign food and opportunities for lechery, comedy is also derived from how the experience of flying and customs is still unfamiliar and a source of anxiety. One will-this-do? scene milks Stan's worries about limiting his baggage to under 33 lbs. as much as is possible, with him packing and repacking his case, and planning to wear all of his clothes on the plane to avoid excess charges. When Stan and Jack depart for the holiday at the end of the episode all the comic emphasis is on Stan wearing multiple coats and jumpers, but the really strange costume is the unsettling sight of Jack wearing a cravat...

 Another scene has Jack showing off his new-fangled gadget of an Instamatic camera. A dolly bird clippie passes by, and he offers to take her picture. Very conveniently, she then immediately gets called away after the shot is taken, and says that she'll come back to see how its turned out. When the picture comes out, it transpires that - what a card! - Jack has just taken a close-up of her tits... This is perhaps the single most irritating incident of the episode, not so much for the egregious sexism but more for how it then goes on to flunk what would be a rare moment of dramatic interest, by not having the young woman return asking to see her picture.

A Comedy On This Day: On The Buses - The Ticket Machine (11 March 1973)

 The LWT studio audience are certainly up for enjoying themselves on this episode. Laughter is much louder than is customary in a sitcom, especially in one sequence of Stan and Jack attempting to hide a stolen ticket machine from Blakey and a Police Constable, when it reaches a pitch that rather drowns out the dialogue. In particular, there's one woman in the audience who finds the idea of somebody hiding something in their trousers, or sitting on something uncomfortable quite hysterically funny. So every thirty seconds the sight of Reg Varney (or occasionally Stephen Lewis) pulling a pained face is accompanied by the soundtrack of a crone-like call of "AAARH-HAAARGH!" It has a nightmarish quality.

 The plot initially revolves around Olive and Mum becoming (hopeless) catalogue saleswomen. The of-its-time social history aspect of this (in the same sort of way that Green Shield Stamps occasionally come into comedy plots at this period) is perhaps the greatest source of interest from this episode.