YMMV / The Likely Lads

• Even Better Sequel: Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? is regarded as far superior to the original series in every way, due to the generally much better writing, the more sophisticated production and the two lead actors having honed their craft in the intervening years. The fact that all of the episodes survive doesn't hurt either.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Bob, seeing his friend Terry (played by James Bolam) slumping into aimless unemployed lethargy, warns him that he is turning into Andy Capp. Terry retorts that he is proud to be compared to a working-class Geordie icon like Andy Capp. Scroll forwards fifteen years or so to the live-action TV remake of Andy Capp. Who should be playing Andy but James Bolam!
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Bill Owen played Thelma's father; nowadays, he's best remembered for playing Compo — the scruffy one in Last of the Summer Wine ^note  the first series of Last of the Summer Wine was actually broadcast in 1973, the same year as the first series of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? .
• Ho Yay: At play a few times, especially when Terry moves in with Bob and quickly becomes a surrogate housewife. And when they end up in bed together in The Movie.
• More Popular Spin-Off: Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? — well, more a sequel to The Likely Lads than a spinoff, but kind of a different series anyway.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Podge is played by Geoffrey Hughes, who would later be best known for playing Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances and Twiggy in The Royle Family.
  • Mario is played by George Layton, who would later be best known for playing Paul Collier in Doctor in the House and Bombardier Solomons in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum.
  • Lynn from "Last of the Big Spenders" is played by Wendy Richard, who would later be best known for playing Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? and Pauline Fowler in EastEnders.
  • Mrs. Chambers from the Whatever Happened to... episodes "Count Down" and "End of an Era" is played by Joan Hickson, who would later be best known for playing Miss Marple in Miss Marple (1984).
  • A shop assistant from the Whatever Happened to... episode "Count Down" is played by Robin Parkinson, who would later be best known for playing the third LeClerc in 'Allo 'Allo!.
  • Madelyn from the Whatever Happened to... episode "The Ant and the Grasshopper" is played by Vicki Michelle, who would later be best known for playing Yvette Carte-Blanche in 'Allo 'Allo!.
• Sequel Displacement: The original black and white Likely Lads series isn't all that well-remembered nowadays, mostly because so much of the show's run is missing.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Despite being one of the protagonists, Bob comes across as this when he tries to commit adultery — and comes close to succeeding a couple of times.
• Values Dissonance: While nowhere near as front-and-centre as in then-contemporary sitcoms like Till Death Us Do Part and Love Thy Neighbour, examples of sexism, racism and homophobia do crop up, and they firmly date the show to The '70s just as much as the hair and the clothes. The rather casual attitude shown by both Bob and Terry to drink-driving also counts — although both men do suffer the consequences of this; Bob is at one point arrested for it, and Terry loses his job as a fork-lift truck driver after stealing said truck after a night in the pub and failing to return it by the time the yard opened the following morning.
• Values Resonance: To some, Terry's complaint about Christmas being overly commercialised is as true now as it was in 1974.