Men Behaving Badly

Men Behaving Badly is a British comedy that was created and written by Simon Nye. It follows the lives of Gary Strang (Martin Clunes) and his flatmates, Dermot Povey (Harry Enfield) (season 1 only) and Tony Smart (Neil Morrissey) (season 2 onwards). It was first broadcast on ITV in 1992. A total of six series were made along with a Christmas special and three final episodes that make up the feature-length "last orders".

The series was filmed in and around Ealing in West London and the final scene of series six was filmed at the Cerne Abbas giant. The setting however is implied to be South London and many references are made to Surrey.

It was produced by Hartswood Films, and Thames Television co-produced the first two series for ITV. They also assisted with production of the third series onwards that aired on the BBC.

After being moved to a post-watershed slot on BBC1, Men Behaving Badly became highly successful. It was voted the best sitcom in the BBC's history at BBC Television's 60th anniversary celebrations in 1996. It also came sixteenth in the Britain's Best Sitcom poll commissioned in 2004 on BBC2. It has also won the Comedy Awards' best ITV comedy, and the first National Television Award for Situation Comedy.

In a BBC article, it is suggested Gary and Tony were "a reaction against the onset of the caring, sharing 'new man'. It appeared to revel in a politically incorrect world of booze, burps and boobs". Nevertheless, critics Jon Lewis and Penny Stempel have stated the show "allowed male viewers to indulge in vicarious laddism, whilst allowing female viewers to ridicule the bad but lovable Tony and Gary". They also commented that "it was also a genuine sitcom in that the humour came from the characters and their context". Simon Nye remarked: "I don't do mad, plot-driven farragoes. You have to allow your characters time to talk."

The show has been repeated on BBC One and G.O.L.D., and all six series are available on DVD.