The Yellow Peril Episode Review
Brief: Del’s got a job painting Mr Chin’s Chinese restaurant – but is he wise to get some help from Rodney ‘Leonardo’ Trotter? While their at it Del remembers the gravestone of his mother is looking a bit dull as well.
Transmitted: 18.11.1982
Duration: 30 minutes
Viewing Figures:8.2 million
When Del arranges a job redecorating a Chinese Restaurant, he unwisely decides to employ the services of Rodney ‘Leonardo’ Trotter and buys some paint from Trigger.
It’s also nearing the anniversary of their mother’s death, and in an attempt to save a bit of cash, Del and Rodders swipe a bit of spare paint to spruce up her tombstone.
While Del leaves Grandad and Rodney to paint the grease-filled Chinese kitchen with ‘gold’ paint, he heads off to decorate the tombstone. It’s only when they’ve finished painting and get a call from the owner of the Chinese restaurant that they realise the paint was actually luminous yellow.
Fine for the walls of a Chinese restaurant kitchen, and it certainly makes a gravestone stand out on a dark night!
Episode Observations
- In Yellow Peril, when they go and decorate ‘The Golden Locus’, Del puts Rodney in charge of painting and tells Grandad just sweep up and hold the ladder for Rodney, but in ‘Whos a pretty boy then’ Rodney says none of us know anything about decorating and then Del says that Grandad used to work for the council as a painter and decorator.
- In Yellow Peril, at their Mother’s grave site Del says to Rodney that everything he has got half of it is his, it looks like he kept his word in ‘Time on our Hands’.
- In Yellow Peril, why on earth do Rodney and Grandad not notice that the paint is illuminous when they’re painting?!! Even if the paint isn’t “luminous” when it’s wet, there’s no way they could have painted the whole kitchen without any of it drying!.
- In Yellow Peril, at the graveyard scene, right at the beginning the suns rays is shining from the east side of where Del and Rodney are sitting. Yet only a minute later the suns rays is shining from the right hand side of the bench. Strange how the sun moved so fast.
- In Yellow Peril, When Del explains to Mr Chin that he chosen gold paint because of the name of his restaurant – The Golden Lotus – listen carefully and you’ll hear Del actually say “The Golden Locust”!
- In Yellow Peril, It’s a continuity error, which happens at the beginning when Del and Rodney are about to enter the Golden Lotus. Before they enter check out the sign in the door.The next scene is them inside the Lotus, but as it is a STUDIO scene there is nothing in the door.
- In Yellow Peril, the Golden Lotus is clearly no.119 in the high street in the outside shop, but inside for some reason the studio has it as no.116.
- In Yellow Peril, Del and Rodney go to there Mums graveyard. Take a look at the bench they sit on, it’s one step away from the elaborate gravestone, also directly behind the bench are other gravestones, whereas in “As one Door Closes” at the scene when they go to there Mums gravestone the bench is several footsteps away and the ground directly behind the bench is clear, clearly a different cemetery.
- In Yellow Peril, While Del & Rodney sat at there mothers grave you see a shot fo the head stone that says there mum died in 1965 but in other episodes it says mum died in 1963?.
The Yellow Peril Script
The script will be downloadable from here
When Del Boy paints his mum’s headstone yellow and Del Boy, Rodney and Grandad discover this outside the cemetery, Grandad says he’s worried that if the Gravestone is seen from the air “It’s on the main pathway flight to Heathrow”, funny how Peckham in South London is on the main pathway flight to Heathrow when Heathrow is in West London!
A great episode, because it plays like a brilliantly told joke. (With a fantastic punchline.) However, I’ve never thought the scene where Granddad encounters Corrine when he leaves the pet shop worked. Corrine is not stupid, I think. She would have put two and two together. (Especially when the cage is so badly hidden…)
just after del and rodney enter the chinese place while they are talking about chinese restaurants just after Del checks the till drawer look in top left corner of screen-you see the overhead mic move which is also yellow!
Listen closely to Rodney explaining to Del that his deep-sea divers watch doesn’t work properly – he comments that it’s “nearly chucking out time in Peking” ( presumably it’s just approaching 11:00 pm over there ) and that he’s “low on oxygen”. China is 8 hours ahead of Britain, which means it’s obviously just coming up 3:00 pm in London. Just a few minutes later in the same scene, when the Trotters make their way to the graveyard to inspect Joan’s headstone, it’s pitch black ! Must get dark early in the capital…
Rodney: Say you had 2 Rolls Royce’s…
Del: Well I’d give you one wouldn’t I
A great little twist that 14 years later Rodney bought a Rolls for Del.
Have you noticed that in Sleeples in Peckham episode, Rodney is in the nags head with Del and Triger and he go’s on about a science thing. Del say, “when is this going to happen?” and rodney says “Well, they cant be accurate can they! they cant justsay March 12th at half past four!” Funny how he uses the date of his mums death!
I have an Only Fools connection!!
March 12th is my birthday but I wasn’t born in 1964
They probably changed the dates of death on the tombstone for continuity for other episodes.