Trivia / The Comic Strip Presents

• Acting for Two: Several episodes required the cast to play multiple roles.
• Approval of God:
  • The estate of Enid Blyton loved Five Go Mad in Dorset.
  • Martin Shaw enjoyed The Bullshitters: Roll Out the Gunbarrel.
  • Peter Wyngarde, interviewed on BBC TV when Detectives on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was originally transmitted, was flattered by the parody but insisted that Jason King would never wear crushed velvet.
• Channel Hop: In 1990, the series moved from Channel 4 to BBC 2. In 1998, the original team reunited and returned to Channel 4 for the first time since 1988, for a one-off special, Four Men in a Car. This was followed in 2000 by a sequel, Four Men in a Plane.
• Creator Backlash: Peter Richardson didn't care for North Atlantic Raiders and cut five minutes for the DVD release.
• Creator Couple: Dawn French's then-husband Lenny Henry guest-starred in Oxford.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Nigel Planer's favourite episodes were The Beat Generation and Spaghetti Hoops.
• The Danza: Parodied in Funseekers, Keith and Kevin Allen play characters with reversed names.
• Directed By Castmember:
  • Peter Richardson directed several episodes.
  • Adrian Edmondson directed Private Enterprise and More Bad News.
  • Robbie Coltrane directed Sabotage.
  • Keith Allen co-directed The Crying Game, Detectives on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Space Virgins from Planet Sex with Richardson.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Nigel Planer cut his hair for Spaghetti Hoops so he'd look like he was balding.
• Enforced Method Acting: Queen of the Wild Frontier has a scene where two convicts escape across a river. Gary Beadle wasn't a natural swimmer and was dragged underwater by the currents, momentarily making him fearful for his life.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Keith Allen didn't get on with many of his colleagues, as they found him a bit difficult. He was a bit of a maverick who wasn't keen on being associated with the group. He and Peter Richardson had a choppy working relationship. Richardson said that they would typically have one blazing row per film, and even assemble rival edits during post-production when they couldn't agree on the final cut.
  • Richardson came to blows with Dawn French during the filming of Susie to such a degree that they ended up physically wrestling.
• In Memoriam: Redtop ends with a dedication to Rik Mayall, as it was the first film made after his death.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Bad News are the worst metal band in the world, but Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer were both skilled muscicians.
  • In The Bullshitters: Roll Out the Gunbarrel, Fiona Hendley, who appeared in musical theatre, plays a hostage who can't sing.
• No Budget: According to Nigel Planer, Spagetti Hoops was made with no money, because a previous episode had eaten up most of season four's budget. As a result, many scenes were shot guerilla-style.
• Playing Their Own Twin: In Didn't You Kill My Brother?, Alexei Sayle plays both Carl and Sterling Moss, gangster twins loosely modelled on the Kray twins.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Brothers Keith and Kevin Allen appear in several episodes. Keith's children Lily Allen and Alfie Allen appear in the music video segment in The Yob.
  • Peter Richardson's daughter Alice is the baby in Slags. She and her brother Jack played two of the children in GLC - The Carnage Continues and Jealousy.
  • Fiona's baby in the final scene of Queen of the Wild Frontier was Julie T. Wallace's real daughter.
• Romance on the Set: Adrian Edmondson and Jennifer Saunders met through the comedy scene and are still married to this day.
• Uncredited Role: Andrée Bernard as Barbie in "The Crying Game".
• Unfinished Episode:
  • Peter Richardsen planned another The Famous Five parody entitled Five Go to Hell.
  • The final episode of the first series was to have been a spoof chat show called Back to Normal with Eddie Monsoon (referred to as An Evening with Eddie Monsoon by some sources). It was never produced, as it was considered too vulgar even for the "alternative" Channel 4, and contained material that was possibly libellous. The script—which, uniquely for the Comic Strip, was written as a collaboration by the entire cast—was later published, along with the rest of the series, in book form.
  • Nigel Planer wrote a script for the second season about a music festival that wasn't used.
• Wag the Director: On Four Men in a Plane Adrian Edmondson argued with Peter Richardson over his speech in the plane, as Edmondson thought his way was funnier than the original version. Ultimately, he did the scene as scripted.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Rik Mayall was eager to appear in The Supergrass, but wasn't available.
  • Michael Sheen was offered the role of Tony Blair in The Hunt for Tony Blair, but he turned it down. This would have been the fourth time he'd played the former PM.
• Write What You Know: Adrian Edmondson wrote Bad News Tour based on his experiences in schoolboy rock bands.
• Written By Castmember:
  • Peter Richardson co-wrote several episodes.
  • Adrian Edmondson wrote Bad News Tour, Eddie Monsoon - A Life?, Private Enterprise and More Bad News. He co-wrote Dirty Movie and Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door with Rik Mayall.
  • Mayall co-wrote A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques.
  • Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders wrote Counsuela (or The New Mrs. Saunders). French wrote Summer School and Saunders wrote Slags.
  • Nigel Planer co-wrote Funseekers with Doug Lucie.
  • Alexei Sayle co-wrote Didn't You Kill My Brother? with Pauline Melville and David Stafford.
  • Keith Allen co-wrote The Bullshitters: Roll Out the Gunbarrel, The Crying Game, Detectives on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown with Richardson and The Yob with Daniel Peacock.
  • Robbie Coltrane co-wrote Jealousy.
• Write Who You Know: Peter Richardson based Queen of the Wild Frontier's Fiona Farringdon-Cock on a woman he knew from his childhood who'd been a racing driver and a racing driver. He took Julie T. Wallace to meet her shortly before she died and she revealed that she had a pilot friend who took her on helicopter rides. She couldn't walk anymore, so she crawled to the helicopter.

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