The Frogs Legacy Episode Review
Brief: Freddie the Frog dated Del & Rodneys’ mum, leaving a legacy of stolen gold when he died – after accidentally sitting on Jelly Kelly’s detonator. If only somebody knew its whereabouts, the boys would be millionaires. Still Aunt Renee will tell all.
Transmitted: 25.12.1987
Duration: 60 minutes
Viewing Figures: 14.5 million
Trotters Independent Trading is causing mayhem with their faulty RAJAH computers.
Rodders gets a new job at a funeral directors, while Albert and Del hit the health market with their miracle cure body massagers.
At the wedding of Trigger’s niece, the Trotters hear the tale of Freddy the Frog, a bank robber and close friend of the boys’ mother. He left everything in his will to their mum, including missing gold bullion.
While Del hunts for treasure, Rodney puzzles over Freddy and his mother’s ‘friendship’ – and a son who would by now be his own age.
Episode Observations
- In The Frogs Legacy, When Del offers Mr Jahan a drink. Mr Jahan replies by insisting on a non- alcoholic because of his religion presumely a Muslim. Later in the scene Mr Jahan is seen drinking beer ( a alcoholic drink ). The drink brought by Del.
- In The Frogs Legacy, when Renee approaches Boycie, he says “Who the bloody hell is this woman?”, but later on he says he remembers her from years back.
- In The Frogs Legacy, At Triggers niece’s wedding, you can see that Mike is standing with a tea towel drying glasses. Surely as he has been asked a guest he wouldn’t be doing the serving or washing up!
- In The Frogs Legacy, In the frogs legacy they are talking to mike trying to get him to by a computer that dont work. The leaflet they are holding doesn’t have any writing on it.
- In The Frogs Legacy, when Del asks Mr Jahan to take a seat to discuss the computer, look carefully at Del’s cigar. You will notice David Jason accidentally drop some ash on to his coat. Watch the actor playing Mr Jahan gently smile when this happens.
- In The Frogs Legacy, when Del and Rodney are at the bar trying to sell a computer to Mike, Del is telling Mike that it ‘processes all your data’ while reading from the back of the leaflet he is holding, but when the camera moves you clearly see the leaflet is blank.
- In The Frogs Legacy, When Boycie arrives in the market he says to Del and Trigger “Another fine day in Gotham City”. Maybe he knew Del and Rodders led a secret double life as No VATman and the Boy Plonker (as revealed in Heroes & Villians)!
- In The Frogs Legacy, when they walk through the graveyard near the end of the episode, notice that the angle of the sun casts a shadow in the total opposite direction to the scene when Rodney joins Del on the beach. Clearly the shots show the sun in totally different areas of the sky.
- In The Frogs Legacy, Albert is meant to be smoking a pipe while in the van, just before Del reveals the whereabouts of the lost bullion, but the pipe doesn’t seem to be there. There’s no smoke in the van, only on the close-ups of Rodney show smoke.One reason may be Buster Merryfield doesn’t smoke in real life.
- In The Frogs Legacy, While Del and Mr Jahan chat in the pub about a job for Rodney, one scene he has a glass then it disappears and then reappears again.
The Frogs Legacy Script
The script will be downloadable from here
The Frogs Legacy Location secrets
Did You Know?
Freddie Robdal is introduced to us in this episode which acts as a loose end until Sleepless in Peckham
Apparently Chris Baker was paid £200 for the use of his Ford Cortina Mark II in this episode. Despite two days filming he was only featured in the show for ‘a few seconds’.
Most of the outside filming took place in Ipswich.
On Location
David Jason during filming of the market scene.
Crowd watching the market filming.
I appeared in The Frog’s Legacy in the wedding scene. A walk through with the bride’s mother. It took three days to film the wedding set.
I provided all the tableware props for the Wedding scenes
This special marked the end of an era for the series, both in front of and behind the cameras.
Ray Butt, who had been the series’ producer since it started in 1981, decided to leave the BBC shortly after filming was complete.
The day before he left, Butt told John Sullivan that he should seriously consider letting Only Fools and Horses end with “The Frog’s Legacy”; Butt felt that the series had run its course, and pointed to the disastrous reception of the previous year’s Christmas special, “A Royal Flush”, as proof of his point.
Sullivan gave thought to Butt’s words, but after this special received a much more positive reception than the previous one had done, he decided to continue the series.
However, Sullivan shared Butt’s concerns that the series’ format was starting to become stale, and so starting with the next Christmas special, “Dates”, the series would maintain a balance between Del’s get-rich-quick schemes and the personal lives of the Trotter Family.
Just watched this episode again, one of my favourites
I AM DEL BOY – THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE EPISODES – RODNEY BOYYY!!
Sorry to be a pain…
Which Christmas special do Del, Rodney, Raquel and Cassandra go to Brighton?
It’s just that I know Brighton very well.
It’s OK, I realise it was ”Mother Nature’s Son” where the Trotter-Turner Family go to Brighton.
does any one know there the church in the last 10-15 minutes of this episode is? my grandad has always loved this episode and thought the view where they were looking out to sea was stunning and he would love to go.any help on the location would mean a great deal!
Hi Donna
I’m not too sure where the church is (possibly near Ipswich where it was filmed)
but I do know that the view out at see was filmed at a different location to the church
you can tell this by the angle of the sun
Its Helmingham church just north of Ipswich, i bike past it every day, the market scene with the back massager was filmed in ipswich not far from the train station, only just round the corner from my house.
At the end of the episode it looks like the church is right next to the sea when in fact its about 20 miles in land.
The scenes where they are looking out towards the sea were filmed another time and edited together.
Yes it’s definitely Helmingham church. See photos at http://www.achurchnearyou.com/helmingham. The coast doesn’t even look like Suffolk, which is mostly shingle beaches.
Having just seen the episode again recently, for about the tenth time , i noticed a joke i had never noticed before.
When Del is in the market talking to trigger he says about boycie –
“Boycie is the sort of man who buys baked beans on tuesday so he can have a bubble bath on wednesday”
i couldn’t believe i had not noticed it before over the many years which i have seen the episode.
Thats a real classic line – they used it when advertising it before it premiered on BBC1
Back at the flat, when Del wonder’s why did Freddie Robdal leave the gold to his and Rodney’s Mum, the reaction on Uncle Albert’s face suggests that he knows. I wonder how he would have know considering he would have been at sea most of the time.
There are many inconsistency’s regarding Albert’s Naval career. In the episode “Hole In One” after Albert falls through the cellar doors of The Nags Head, the barrister questioning him pulls out a document that states that Albert spent much of the war at some depot on the the Isle of Wight, something which seems to get lost in countless episodes after as Albert recalls his tales from “during the war”
Isle of Wight, hardly overseas…you wanna trying walking it son!
The reason for the inconsistency over Albert’s naval career in this episode is simply because the part in this script was written for Grandad. John Sullivan obviously hadn’t time to think up all of Albert’s past by the time of filming so just left this part in the script. Another example in this episode is when the barrister says Albert had parachute training despite being a ships engineer.
I don’t seem to be able to view the script – Is there anyway I can view it ? Many thanks
I will take a look at it