"I remember exactly where I was when I came up with the idea for the show," remembers creator Benton Greasy. "I was on a bus in 1970 ogling some schoolgirls in miniskirts and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be fantastic if I could spend every day of my life ogling schoolgirls in miniskirts? I bet it's great working on the buses'. And that was the day The Sex Offenders was born."
The Sex Offenders was a smash hit from the start thanks to a winning combination of schoolgirls in miniskirts, casual sexism, double decker buses, light-hearted sexual assaults and two charismatic elderly actors in the lead roles. Music hall star Reg Vagina played Sid Sleazy, a dirty bus driver, and octogenarian Bob Flange played Jimmy Knickers, an even dirtier bus conductor. Each episode saw the pair traveling around London in a double decker bus looking up skirts and ogling cleavages while making 'phwoooooar' noises.
"We knew we were on to a winner when the BBC received 8,000 complaints after the broadcast of the first episode," laughs Greasy. "They were all from bra-burners and ugly women, so could be safely ignored. The important people - fellas - loved the show, especially when it had loads of girls with big tits in it. Blokes love tits, especially big tits."
Of course, the show wasn't just about two old men trying to get into teenage girls' knickers. The Sex Offenders also had a strong supporting cast. Stephen Drudge played bus depot führer Dr. Cyril Mengele, Stan Spam was Sid's brother-in-law Norbert and Karen Fungus played Sid's revolting sister Eunice.
"The character of Eunice was a warning to all women," says Greasy. "Burn your bra, stop wearing miniskirts, stop taking being wolf-whistled at by elderly bus drivers as anything other than a massive compliment and this is how you will end up - fat, ugly and, crucially, not wife material. In the 1970s, not being able to find a man to marry was worse than being the victim of an acid attack."
After four successful series, the show transferred to the big screen in 1975's The Sex Offenders. The film, which saw Sid and Jimmy travel around London looking up girls' skirts for an hour and twenty minutes instead of the usual half an hour was a smash hit, knocking the latest Bond movie, Fussypussy, off the top spot. The success of the film led to two sequels - The Sex Offenders Go Bananas (1976) and The Sex Offenders Take Manhattan (1978).
"The reaction to the third film - mainly by lesbians and left wing intellectuals - was the moment I knew the writing was on the wall," says Greasy. "By 1978, people were starting to take women seriously for some weird reason and films about dirty bus drivers gawping at the knockers, bums and fannies of teenage girls were seen as outdated and - if you can believe this - sexist. It's a shame because I had a great idea for a fourth film where the Sex Offenders end up driving the Miss World contestants around and there's this bit where Miss Sweden bends over on the top deck of a bus in Blackpool and Jimmy's got this ice lolly and he shoves it right up her ... as I say, the writing was on the wall."
Nowadays, The Sex Offenders is viewed as an unacceptable relic of an era best forgotten and hasn't been repeated on television since the 1990s. Will it ever be seen on TV again?
"You never know," says Greasy. "It depends on whether we have another 1970s like we did in the '90s when all that feminism nonsense got tossed in the bin for a few happy years. I hope it does get another run because I could really do with the repeat fees. I've been on disability benefits since 1998. Do you know how hard it is to pretend to have a bad back for twenty three years?"
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