Drop the Dead Donkey

According to Swedish comedian Kryddan Petersson, the concept originated with the group behind Helt Apropå, who pitched the idea to British colleagues around 1989-90; most were unimpressed but two took it seriously and wrote this show, and the Swedes later created their own version, Döda danskar räknas inte, which aired on SVT in 1994.

The show's storyline about media mogul Sir Roysten Merchant buying GlobeLink was an allusion to either Robert Maxwell or Rupert Murdoch, and the writers noted on the DVDs that it was fortunate for their libel lawyers that both real men shared the same initials, RM.

Early working titles for the series included 'Dead Belgians Don't Count' and, briefly, 'Dead Kuwaitis Don't Count', before the writers settled on 'Drop the Dead Donkey', a phrase they simply invented as something that might be shouted before a news broadcast, despite later claims by journalists that it was a real industry expression.

The character of Gus Hedges is alleged to have been based on Channel 4's controller at the time, Michael Grade, and the series was originally pitched to the BBC, which refused to broadcast it, before Channel 4 picked it up.

The sitcom was unusually topical, being written and filmed in the week before broadcast; scripts based on character plots were handed to the cast on the Monday before recording and then rewritten over the following days to include current news references, with the final scene often filmed the day before or even the day of broadcast.

The most frantic script rewrite reportedly occurred when media mogul Robert Maxwell drowned on the day of filming, prompting the writers to later joke in an episode, 'We don't want to go overboard with the story.'

Actor Jeff Rawle, who played George Dent, is married in real life to actress Nina Marc, who played George's love interest Anna, a Polish migrant seeking a British passport through marriage.

The series' ending, in which GlobeLink News closes down, contradicts the 1994 novel 'Drop the Dead Donkey 2000' by Andy Hamilton and Alistair Beaton, in which the company is almost destroyed by a bomb blast at the turn of the millennium.