The Frog's Legacy

Infobox Only Fools and Horses
episode_name = The Frog's Legacy


Series = Christmas Special
writer = John Sullivan
director = Ray Butt
producer = Ray Butt
Duration = 60 minutes
Airdate = 25 December 1987
Audience = 14.5 million
Cast =

The Frog's Legacy is the sixth Christmas special episode of the BBC sit-com, "Only Fools and Horses". It was first screened on 25 December 1987.

ynopsis

Del Boy, Rodney and Albert attend the wedding of Trigger's niece, Lisa, who had previously appeared in the episode "Tea for Three". Whilst there, Del is informed by Trigger's aunt Renee (Joan Sims), about a known local gentleman thief, Freddie "The Frog" Robdal.

It transpired that Del and Rodney's mother met Freddie Robdal in 1959, and "befriended" him (a euphemism for Del's mother having had a brief affair with him, as was revealed she had done many times with a number of men throughout the series' development). Renee described Freddie Robdal as a very cultured man, very much interested in French wine and paintings (Renee claims that when the Police raided Robdal's holiday home it was full of original Monet's), although as she states it, Robdal was a "bit of a dandy".

As the story goes, Robdal and a small gang of crooks broke into a bank in London in August 1963 and stole £250,000 pounds (pre-decimal currency) in gold bullion; the rest of the gang were apprehended by the Police, but Robdal managed to somehow escape with the gold and hid it. It is on this information that Del embarks on a mission to find the lost gold, having inhereted it from his mother on her death, who in turn, had had it bequeathed to her by Robdal in his will.

Uncle Albert, who knew Robdal vaguely during the war, finishes the tale later in the episode by stating that shortly after stealing the gold, and whilst still on the run from the Police, Robdal and an explosives expert, referred to only as "Jelly" Kelly, attempted to break into a Post Office in Plumstead. With Kelly having set the wires for the explosive and the robbery proceeding apparently well, Robdal inexplicably sat on the detonator, killing both men almost instantly. Albert claims that Robdal's body was found on the roof of a building opposite the Post Office he was intending to rob.

During the course of the story, Del gets Rodney a new job, though he declines to mention that it is working for the local funeral directors as a chief mourner, a fact Rodney does not take kindly to when he does find out. However, through his job there Rodney finds out that Robdal had purchased a coffin from Rodney's employers when they first started business for a "friend" named "Alfred Broderick". Rodney quickly deduces that "Alfred Broderick" was in fact an anagram of "Frederick Robdal", implying that Broderick did not exist, and that Robdal had purchased the coffin to hide the gold in and had arranged a phoney funeral for it to be buried.

The story concludes with it ultimately emerging that Robdal earned the nickname "The Frog" as he was a frogman in the Royal Navy, not due to his love "of all things French", and had buried the gold at sea, making it virtually impossible to find.

Episode cast

tory arc

This is the second occasion in the show's history that Rodney's paternity is called into question, when Renee mentions "the rumours" about Rodney's actual father to Albert. The issue was previously mentioned in "Thicker than Water" and finally answered in "Sleepless in Peckham".

Production

Most of the outside filming took place in Ipswich. [http://www.ofah.net/immediacy-312]

Errors

Del tells Aunt Renee that he doesn't know a thing about Freddie the Frog, but in "Sleepless in Peckham", Del claims that as a child, he knew Freddie as "Uncle Freddie" back in 1960 during the first Jolly Boys' Outing.

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onlyfools/christmas/1987.shtml "The Frog's Legacy" at bbc.co.uk]