It was first broadcast in 1965 and for millions was associated with eating Sunday lunch.
The humour always included sideways references to homosexuality which was not decriminalised until 1967. A couple of ‘camp’ characters, Julian and Sandy would use the insider gay’s language of ‘polari’…
… which the show’s compère would pretend not to understand.
Like the earlier Goon Show (which ran from 1951-1960) the format was to split the funny content into two halves, with a musical interlude. Perhaps this is because there may be an optimum attention span for sparkling verbal comedy - full-length films based on successful half hour shows don’t seem to work so well; the narrative tends to dominate the wit.
Here are the first six episodes; more are easily available on the Net:
