Name: Only Fools and Horses
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1981-09-08
Cast: David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Buster Merryfield, Gwyneth Strong, Tessa Peake-Jones

Synopsis

Only Fools and Horses.... Is a British sitcom created and written by John Sullivan. Seven series were originally transmitted on BBC One from 1981 to 1991, with sixteen sporadic Christmas specials aired until 2003. In working-class Peckham in south-east London, ambitious market trader Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter and his younger half-brother Rodney, explore their highs and lows in life, in particular… their attempts to get rich. Initially not an immediate hit and receiving little promotion early on, it later achieved consistently high ratings, and the 1996 episode "Time on Our Hands" (originally billed as the series finale) holds the record for the biggest UK audience for a sitcom episode, attracting 24.3 million viewers. The series bears a significant influence on British culture, contributing several words and phrases to the English language.

For the actual title he intended to use, as a reference to the protagonist's tax- and work-evading lifestyle, Only Fools and Horses.

That name was based on a genuine, though very obscure, saying, "only fools and horses work for a living", which had its origins in 19th-century American vaudeville.

thumb|left|200 px|The original Only Fools and Horses line-up of (left to right) Grandad (Lennard Pearce), Del Boy (David Jason) and Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) lasted from 1981 to 1984.

In 1980, John Sullivan, a scriptwriter under contract at the BBC, was already well known as the writer of the sitcom Citizen Smith.

Through Ray Butt, a BBC producer and director whom Sullivan had met and become friends with when they were working on Citizen Smith, a draft script was shown to the BBC's Head of Comedy, John Howard Davies.

Sullivan had initially given the show the working title Readies.