You won't get it unless your from Yorkshire....
... I don't wanna sound like some whiny chip-on-my-shoulder yorkshireman here but you really won't understand this program unless you live in the area.
Let me explain, this program has been an appalling sitcom for about the last 20 years. The jokes aren't funny, the situations aren't funny, its basically pensioner slapstick with yorkshire accents and pretty countryside in it. If your not from the area I can't understand why you'd want to watch some old man ride a bike down a hill and crash into a dry stone wall every week for 20 years. In fairness although nearly every episode since about 1980 has been like this, the original series was much less daft.
I love the old series though, the very first, because its actually VERY close to a particular generation of men and what they do when they retire. The lifestyle really involves just finding places to go and sit together and talk crap, like in the library for instance. Infact thats a really significant piece of cultural observation that the guy who made the program (originally going to be called "the Library Mob") must've see somewhere, because in the days before Thatcher and the pit closures and the destruction of the whole fabric of yorkshrie society that it entailed, old men really WOULD spend all day in the public library's because thats the only place they could go to escape the cold! They'd buy a pint and spend 2 hours drinking it just so they could stay in the warmth of the pub, they'd buy a cup of tea in a café and spend as much time there as possible.
There are numerous little jokes and phrases that would fly right over the heads a lot of the people who watch this, especially the earlier episode. Puns and word-games in the dialect that only those steeped in it could really get. The name "Compo" for example is a commmon nickname for old men who were injured and who lived off the National Workmen's Compensation scheme, there are dozens of Compo's even in my little village!
The second childhood angle is true enough. These old men are like carefree children, frolicking on the moors and in streams, getting into trouble and talking to one another, philosophizing in a way down-to-earth unpretentious way that only old yorkshire folk and philosophise in. When I wer a lad, I used to just go randomly walking with my friends, talk about stuff, then when we were tired we'd find a patch of grass, lie down and relax for a few hours before coming home. THATS EXACTLY WHAT THESE OLD MEN IN THIS PROGRAM DO!! And we didn't used to jump into bathtubs on wheels and go rolling down hills, thats just rubbish, the things we did were much less stupid and that side of the program has really let it down.
Its hard to explain, but the joy of this program lies in the fact that its a depiction of a very local and unique way of life, and with the greatest of sincerity I can't imagine how anyone how doesn't have an innate understand of that culture could be in on that joke. Its hard to condense 2 decades of cultural experience into a user-friendly few paragraphs that could do LOTSW justice, and I've not done a very good job at it, but take my word for it this is an incredibly localized brand of humour.
Besides everyone just watches it for the countryside, which in all fairness even though I grew up in the area and am obviously bias, in achingly beautiful. If you want to experience it don't go on a silly bus tour, just go to Holmfirth Bus Station and catch a few bus's around the area and see for yourself, and whilst your there try to over-hear what the people are saying to each other, then you might get a clearer impression of what this show is about.