A spin-off from Not the Nine O'Clock News, the show had a brief run in the United States on A&E and PBS in the late 1980s, as well as on CBS in the early 1990s during their late-night block.
Rowan Atkinson and Pamela Stephenson pursued their solo careers, while Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones decide to formed a double act.
The 1987 Christmas special, The Homemade Xmas Video, was one of the first shows to be produced for the BBC by an independent production company – TalkBack – of which Smith and Jones were founding directors.
Written by many of the regular writers from the duo's previous series, this was a mock-historical documentary show, hosted by the duo from behind standard presenter's desks (somewhat in the style of the closing sequence of The Two Ronnies) and attempting to study specific periods of history via clips from old (and preferably obscure) black-and-white films.
[10] Despite the criticism (and the apparently ambivalent opinion of its stars towards the programme), The World According to Smith and Jones returned for a second six-part series in 1988, with the mock-historical format altered in favour of each episode concentrating on a single topic (medicine, war, law, education, arts and science).
[10] Smith and Jones in Small Doses was a series of four comedy playlets[11] shown on BBC2 from 19 October 1989 to 9 November 1989, each written by a different comedian or screenwriter.
The series was repeated a year later on BBC2 from 25 October 1990 to 15 November 1990, albeit in a completely different order (The Boat People, The Whole Hog, The Waiting Room, Second Thoughts).
The six-part series consisted primarily of Smith and Jones introducing highlights from the show's original run from 1984 to 1998.
Tie-in books included The Smith and Jones World Atlas (a humorous gazetteer of the world's countries), Janet Lives With Mel and Griff, and The Lavishly Tooled Smith and Jones Instant Coffee Table Book (co-written with Clive Anderson), which was designed to look as if it could be made into a coffee table.