Film / On the Buses

It's the wildest, funniest joyride ever!

Vera: Spiders in my cab!

Blakey: Spiders? I don't 'alf care if you've got ants in your pants! You get in that cab and pull away quick!

— Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake ordering new driver Vera Hughes to do her job before the two of them are caught by a policeman they've just knocked down.

On the Buses is a 1971 film and the first film spin-off of On the Buses. It stars Reg Varney, Doris Hare, Michael Robbins, Anna Karen, Stephen Lewis, and Bob Grant.

Stan Butler (Varney) and Jack Harper (Grant), a bus driver and conductor for the Town & District bus company, lose their overtime when the bus company allows women to work as bus drivers. Because Stan's mum, Mabel (Hare), has made so many expensive purchases, the Butler family is tight on money.

Stan's sister, Oliver Rudge (Karen) takes up a job for the bus company's canteen to earn some extra cash, but she cannot continue working once she and her lazy husband, Arthur (Robbins), discover that she is pregnant. Stan is strapped for cash and desperate to get his overtime back, so he and Jack go behind the back of their Inspector, the officious Cyril "Blakey" Blake (Lewis) to get the women drivers sacked as Hilarity Ensues.

The film was followed by Mutiny on the Buses in 1972 and Holiday on the Buses in 1973.

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Tropes on the Buses:

• Accidental Pervert: Stan accidentally takes a housewife's laundry bag from the laundrette, only for it to be confiscated by Blakey as evidence Stan has been shirking his responsibilities at work. Unfortunately for Blakey, the housewife sees him with the bag, and he is assumed to be a knicker-snatcher.
• All There in the Script: Several characters' names are only given in the end credits:
  • Out of the women bus drivers, the one who has spiders hidden in her cab by Stan and Jack is called "Vera", the one who gets caught Nature Tinkling by a parson is called "Peggy", the one who is tricked into driving down the motorway is called "Ada", and another is called "Gladys".
  • Stan's new clippie is called "Sandra".
  • The clippie who gets help adjusting her ticket machine from Stan and Jack is called "Eileen".
  • The woman whose friend gets her washing accidentally taken by Stan is called "Mavis".
  • The clippie getting her legs admired by Stan and Jack in the opening scene is called "Katy".
• Bedroom Adultery Scene: Betty tries seducing Stan once he's in her bedroom but doesn't get very far until her old man comes home and Stan has to flee for his life.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Big Vera and little Ruby, the first two female bus drivers to turn up at the depot.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Stan uses Blakey's "This 'as made my day" when seeing him get accused of being a knicker-snatcher.
• Brief Accent Imitation: Stan puts on a camp voice when mocking Blakey for getting mistaken for a knicker-snatcher.
• Brits Love Tea: All the bus drivers drink tea with their lunch, which makes it perfect for Stan and Jack to use to slip the woman drivers Olive's diuretic pills.
• Buxom Beauty Standard:
  • Eileen has rather large breasts, which Stan and Jack take the chance to ogle when they help her adjust her ticket machine:
    Eileen: I can't adjust me ticket machine, can you give me a hand?
    Jack: Hehe, not 'alf. Ha, ha! Oh, blimey, I can see your trouble - it stands out a mile.
  • Stan doesn't care if Bridget (the new canteen's new cook) is good at her job or not for one reason:
    Jack: I wonder if she can make a decent stew.
    Stan: I don't know, but there's nuffin' wrong with 'er dumplin's.
• Closet Shuffle: When Betty's husband tears though their bedroom looking for her lover, one of the places he checks is in a small dress closet.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: When Stan parks too close to Vera's bus, she can't open the door and has to climb out through the cab window. This causes Stan and Jack to laugh when they catch sight of her pink knickers, which Jack calls a "right pair of passion killers".
• Copycat Mockery: Stan copies Blakey's voice when mocking him for getting mistaken for a knicker-snatcher.
• Covers Always Lie: The cover of the Studio Canal DVD depicts Stan as a clippie rather than a bus driver.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Betty's husband. When he (correctly) assumes she's cheating on him, his first thought is to find the man and beat him with a monkey wrench.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Mavis assumes Blakey is wearing frilly pants and a black suspender belt under his mac when she believes he has tried to steal her friend's knickers.
• Distracted by the Sexy: While driving his bus, Stan sees a girl washing her car with her knickers visible and honks his horn at her. While doing so, he unknowingly drives through a puddle and soaks Blakey.
• Double Entendre:
  • When discussing Arthur's job giving him overtime:
    Arthur: Anyway, at my job, I 'ardly get any overtime. I only do it about once a year.
    Olive: You only ever do anything about once a year.
  • Stan flirting with Bridget in the canteen:
    Bridget: Well, you'll have my steak and kidney pie, and like it.
    Stan: 'Ere, er, 'ow about meetin' me afterwards an' givin' me a bit of your ol' roly poly?
• Drives Like Crazy: When trying to make a quick getaway from Betty's house after her husband comes home early, Stan starts the bus off and plows into an out-of-order telephone box. After doing so, he panics and reverses, only to take down a bus stop in the process.
• Fat and Skinny: Fat Ruby and skinny Vera, the first two female bus drivers to turn up at the depot.
• Fingore:
  • When trying to help Olive in the canteen, Stan grabs a metal saucepan and immediately lets go after burning his fingers on the metal handle,
  • When Stan is pouring himself a cup of hot milk, he gets distracted by Olive screaming over a spider and the milk overflows, burning his fingers.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Olive gets her first pay packet, Stan tells her they still can't afford for her to get in the club. The next night, less than five minutes after this scene, Arthur announces that Olive is four months pregnant.
• Gilligan Cut: After Stan tells Blakey how much of a good cook Olive is, it cuts back to him at home eating a terrible stew of hers.
• Groin Attack: After Stan traps Vera in her cab, she and some of the other female bus drivers get back at him by sticking an air hose up his trouser leg and turning it on several times, causing lots of pain to his privates. Then when Jack tries to take it out, he ends up setting off himself!
  Jack: That's blown away a few cobwebs.
  Stan: Oh, let's hope that's all it 'as blown away.
• Handbag of Hurt: Mavis hits Blakey with her handbag after he is believed to have stolen her friend's laundry.
• Have a Gay Old Time: The film's opening theme includes the lyrics "There's always gay life on the buses, make sure you leave your bird at home". Nothing out of the ordinary in 1971, unintentionally hilarious in the modern day.
• Home-Early Surprise: When Betty tries to seduce Stan when he comes into her house doing a favour for Jack, her old man comes home early, knowing she's been seeing someone on the side.
• Hysterical Woman:
  • Ruby breaks down in tears after the manager calls her a stupid woman for following the wrong bus route.
  • Vera freaks out after seeing spiders crawling on her legs, which causes her to rear-end a lorry with her bus.
• Inconvenient Itch: Spiders hidden in Vera's cab crawl on her legs during her bus route, which causes her to try and scratch one leg with the other as she tries to drive the bus.
• Interrupted Intimacy:
  • Jack and Betty are in bed together, and plan to have it off again, until Jack sees Blakey is outside her house and he has to cut their tryst short as he is running late to return to work.
  • Stan and Bridget's night of passion on the sofa is cut short by Olive coming downstairs for her knitting, which makes Bridget think that a pregnant woman interrupting her was a message from the Lord Himself to get her to stop her sinning.
  • When Betty tries to seduce Stan, she doesn't get very far as he has to make a quick escape when her husband comes home.
  • Stan's night with Sally is ended by the other bus drivers who don't approve of fraternising with the female bus drivers who are taking away their overtime money.
• Introductory Opening Credits: The film's opening titles list the main characters, but also their relation to Stan, e.g. Olive is his sister, Jack is his conductor, etc.
• Lethal Chef: Olive can't cook to save her life - Stan and Arthur enjoy the Cornish pasties that they think Mrs. Butler has made for them, but once they learn they were made by Olive, they are hesitant to finish them, while Stan later hopes that he'll get some more overtime when she becomes the canteen cook as he claims half the bus crews will come down with food poisoning:
  Olive: Anyway, if it makes them ill, it'll make you ill too.
  Stan: Not me, love. I've been eatin' your grub for years.
  Arthur: 'Ere, it's like snake charmers. After they've been bitten a few times, they become immune.
• Marshmallow Hell: Invoked by Stan and Jack; Stan brings Bridget over to his table just as Jack tries to leave, causing her and him to get wedged between a table with her bust in Stan's face:
  Jack: Gor blimey, what a lovely bit of Irish countryside, eh? You got lost in the Mountains of Mourne.
  Stan: I didn't get lost in the mountains, mate. I got trapped in the valley.
• Match Cut: When Jack is in bed with Betty, the film cuts from him sucking on her neck to Stan back in the bus sucking on an orange.
• Maternity Crisis: Olive begins going into labour on the way to the hospital for a checkup but runs into trouble when the sidecar she's riding in detaches from Arthur's motorbike. Luckily a bus is passing by and as the driver is a mate of Stan's, Olive is able to safely give birth at St. Luke's Maternity Hospital.
• Mistaken for Thief: Blakey confiscates a bag of laundry from Stan, who isn't supposed to be doing errands while driving his bus. However, Stan picked up the wrong bag of washing by accident, and the housewife who owns said bag catches Blakey with it and he is assumed to be a knicker-snatcher.
• Mistaken Identity: Mavis mistakes Blakey for a criminal in the Sunday paper after she believes he is a knicker-snatcher.
• The Movie: This was the first film spin-off of On the Buses.
• Naïve Newcomer: Sandra, Stan's new clippie. The fact that she is so eager to learn is a great thrill to Stan, who fancies her.
• Nature Tinkling:
  • When Ruby sees a man watering some plants, the way the hose is positioned makes it look as if he's having a leak, which once more makes her need to use the bathroom.
  • Peggy can't hold in her urine after drinking diuretic pill-laced tea, and so pulls over her bus so she can squat behind a bush and relieve herself, getting her written up for indecent exposure.
• No Full Name Given:
  • We don't get to know Betty, Bridget, Sally, Suzy, or Harry's last names.
  • The same can be said for Mr. Brooks' first name.
• Non-Serial Movie: This film (and its two sequels) isn't canon to the TV series, as Olive and Arthur's son, Little Arthur, only appears in the films.
• Not-So-Innocent Whistle:
  • After Stan destroys a telephone box and bus stop, he tries whistling to seem innocent the next day. Blakey doesn't buy it for a second and takes him to the manager's office straight away.
  • Stan and Jack whistle as they walk away from Vera's bus after dumping spiders in the cab.
• Parking Problems: Stan parks his bus too close to Vera's in the depot to trap her in the cab:
  Vera: You stupid nit! I can't get out!
  Stan: Can'tcha? Try driving the bus sideways.
• Plot Hole:
  • When Blakey sees Jack outside Betty's house, he somehow knows that a woman lives there as soon as he arrives despite seeing no one else inside the house.
  • The policeman on the motorway tells Ada to drive to the next intersection which is 20 miles away. However, the next intersection from their location is only four miles away in real life.
  • Olive somehow tips the sidecar on Arthur's motorbike, despite that being impossible with the number of wheels it has.
• Potty Emergency: Blakey and the women bus drivers all desperately need to urinate during their bus routes after drinking tea laced with Olive's diuretic pills.
• Rank Up: After the management decide that women are no longer allowed to be bus drivers, the women drivers aren't sacked, but rather become inspectors, while Blakey is upgraded to Chief Inspector.
• Really Gets Around: Part of the reason Blakey hates Stan and Jack so much is because they're always ogling the clippies and trying to have it off with them:
  Blakey: You're like a couple o' sex maniacs, you are.
  Jack: Wha's a mat'er? Jealous?
  Blakey: I had a dog like yous two. I had to take it to the vets.
• Roadside Wave: Stan, while distracted by the knickers of a girl washing her car, drives through a puddle and soaks Blakey.
• Screaming Birth: Olive hollers in pain as she is lifted into St. Luke's Maternity Hospital while in labour.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Stan and Jack's initial reaction to discovering that the women drivers have now been promoted to inspectors, only for it to be almost instantly averted when Stan meets Sandra, his pretty new clippie.
• Sexless Marriage: Olive and Arthur only have it off once a year, a fact that deeply annoys Olive:
  Olive: Oh, Arthur, it's hardly worth me going to bed.
  Arthur: How right you are.
• Share the Male Pain: After seeing Stan get a Groin Attack via air hose courtesy of some of the new female bus drivers, Jack can only cross his eyes in discomfort.
• Shirtless Scene: Jack has one when Stan catches him about to have it off with Sally.
• Shout-Out: Upon seeing Vera and Ruby, the depot's first two frumpy female bus drivers, Stan calls them Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
• Spiders Are Scary: After seeing how terrified a spider makes Olive, Stan decides to use spiders in his plot to get rid of the women bus drivers. He dumps a few in Vera's cab, which terrifies her when she discovers them, causing her to collide with a lorry.
• Staircase Tumble: Stan falls down the stairs at Betty's house when trying to get dressed as he rushes out before her husband catches him.
• Stuff Blowing Up:
  • When trying to remove bits of melted saucepan from the canteen's stovetop, Blakey sticks a metal scraper down the side and causes the fuse box to explode.
  • When blaming Olive's pregnancy on Stan, Arthur mentions a night four months ago when Stan blew up the telly trying to fix the plug which left Arthur and Olive with nothing else to do.
• Talking in Bed:
  • Arthur wakes up Olive at three in the morning to discuss the idea of her taking a job in the bus company's canteen.
  • Olive then wakes up Arthur a few weeks later to let him know she's got a craving for pickled onions.
• Tagline: "From telly laughs to belly laughs".
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Stan and Jack spike the female bus drivers' cups of tea with Olive's diuretic pills to make them seem unreliable. Blakey ends up drinking a cup of tea meant for Vera and suffers the same effects.
• Time Skip:
  • After Stan and Jack play their first prank on Vera, the film cuts ahead by three weeks to when Bridget has been hired as the new canteen cook.
  • After Stan takes Bridget home to have it off, the film cuts ahead by another three weeks.
• Tempting Fate: Before trying to remove bits of melted saucepan from the canteen's stovetop, Blakey berates Stan that he needs to do it properly and carefully, just before causing the fuse box to explode.
• Undercrank: Played for laughs when the policeman is knocked to the ground by a lorry's cab flicking up.
• The Vicar: A young parson sees Peggy urinating behind a bus from the top of her bus and reacts in shock.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: Stan jokes that if Blakey messes with the wrong straps when trying to help Eileen with her ticket machine, he might take her bra off:
  Stan: Watch it, Blakey. If you undo the wrong straps, the ticket machine won't be the only thing tha's loose an' danglin'.
• With Friends Like These...: Jack ruins Stan's chances at having it off with Sally, only to swoop in and take her for himself once she's available.
• Women Drivers: Everyone at the depot barring Blakey believes in this trope, which is defied as the female bus drivers are better at their jobs than the men and only lose their positions due to Stan and Jack's sabotage.

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