Trivia

As the comedian was very sensitive about his baldness, BBC hairdressers had to put Lurcio's Roman hairpiece over Frankie Howerd's own toupée, much to the bemusement of producer David Croft.

The show was inspired by Frankie Howerd's performance in the original London stage production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum".

The character of Lurcio is based on a the character of the elusive 'Clever slave', a character who appeared in Plautus' plays as a driving force to the plots.

While guest starring on an episode, Valerie Leon met Michael Mills, the BBC head of comedy. They ended up getting married in 1974, though he was 25 years her senior. She admitted in an 1991 interview that she was looking for a father figure to look after her, saying, "I was quite neurotic at the time and he used to keep me calm."

The show implements a running joke wherein the character of Nauseus, a born-romantic but generally naive poet, will pen an ode to a beautiful maiden: the resulting ode will always fail in the last line despite an obvious set up to a rude finale.