There are two actors brought back from the original television cast: Ian Lavender, who played Private Pike in the television series, returns as the character of Brigadier Pritchard; and Frank Williams, who reprised his role as Reverend Timothy Farthing. The Jones' van in this movie is also the same one used in Dad's Army (1968).
The sign above the pawnbrokers' shop reads "Croft and Perry Pawnbrokers" as an in-joke and tribute, as David Croft and Jimmy Perry wrote Dad's Army (1968), on which this movie was based.
Famous catchphrases from the original television and radio programs that are shown in the film: Frazer's "we're doomed!," and Jones's "don't panic" (said repeatedly with increasing panic). Mainwaring's chiding of Pike with "you stupid boy" is started, but Mainwaring cuts himself off with "you stupid..."
Frank Williams (Reverend Timothy Farthing - Vicar) was due to appear in more scenes. He was deleted from the sequence where a paranoid Captain Mainwaring (Toby Jones) sees residents in Nazi uniforms. A scene with the Vicar was also written opposite Mrs. Elizabeth Mainwaring (Felicity Montagu), though Williams' schedule meant he was unavailable to film this scene, as he was on a cruise in Russia. To make up for his lost scene, Director Oliver Parker wrote the scene between the Vicar and Godfrey (Sir Michael Gambon) in the church hall on the morning of filming to make the most of having Williams, who received a standing ovation from the cast and crew on arrival to the church hall.
When other members of the platoon are quoting famous literature, and Mainwaring offers "who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men," he is actually quoting a famous radio program's opening lines. The Shadow was an adventure serial in the 1930s that began every program with that tag line.
Ian Lavender: The actor who played Private Pike on Dad's Army (1968) appears as Brigadier Pritchard.