It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced.

The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either because of age (hence the title Dad's Army), medical reasons or by being in professions exempt from conscription.

Other regular cast members included Frank Williams as the vicar, Edward Sinclair as the verger, and Bill Pertwee as the chief ARP warden.

[11] Perry wrote the first script and sent it to David Croft while working as a minor actor in the Croft-produced sitcom Hugh and I, originally intending the role of the spiv, later called Walker, to be his own.

Jimmy Perry had produced the original idea, but needed a more experienced partner to see it through, so Mills suggested David Croft and this launched the beginning of their professional association.

The first episode, "The Man and the Hour", begins with a scene set in the then-present day of 1968, in which Mainwaring addresses his old platoon as part of the contemporary '"I'm Backing Britain" campaign.

[34] The closing credits feature an instrumental march version of the song played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards conducted by Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Trevor L. Sharpe, ending with the air-raid warning siren sounding all-clear.

Even so, one episode in series three, "Room at the Bottom", formerly survived only as a 16mm black-and-white film telerecording, made for overseas sales to countries not yet broadcasting in colour; and remains on the official DVD releases in this form.

The newly restored colour version of "Room at the Bottom" was eventually made commercially available in 2023, when it appeared as an extra on the DVD release Dad's Army: The Missing Episodes, with a specially filmed introduction by Ian Lavender.

Mercury Productions, the company responsible for Saluting Dad's Army, Gold's 50th anniversary tribute series, produced the episodes, which were directed by Ben Kellett.

[37] Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst were the initial casting announcements as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson,[6] with Bernard Cribbins portraying Private Godfrey.

[38] The full cast was announced in January 2019, with McNally, Bathurst and Cribbins joined by Kevin Eldon, Mathew Horne, David Hayman and Tom Rosenthal.

[8] Backers Columbia Pictures imposed arbitrary changes, such as recasting Liz Fraser as Mavis Pike[8] and filming locations in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, rather than Thetford in Norfolk, which made the cast unhappy.

Clive Dunn was replaced for half the tour by Jack Haig (David Croft's original first choice for the role of Corporal Jones on television).

In April 2007, a new stage show was announced with cast members including Leslie Grantham as Private Walker and Emmerdale actor Peter Martin as Captain Mainwaring.

In August 2017, a new two-man stage show titled, Dad's Army Radio Hour, opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe It starred David Benson and Jack Lane.

[49] Knowles and Snoad developed a radio series, It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which followed Sergeant Wilson, Private Pike and Warden Hodges's attempts to renovate a pier in the fictional town of Frambourne-on-Sea following the end of the war.

[8] Set in Long Island, the pilot starred Cliff Norton as Captain Rosatti, Lou Jacobi as Sergeant Raskin and Eddie Foy Jr. as Lance Corporal Wagner.

[29][58] Later that year, Lowe, Le Mesurier, Dunn, Lavender and Pertwee, along with Jones's van, appeared in character at the finish of the 1974 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.

[60][61] Lowe and Le Mesurier made a final appearance as their Dad's Army characters for a 1982 television commercial advertising Wispa chocolate bars.

[62] Clive Dunn made occasional appearances as Lance Corporal Jones at 1940s themed events in the 1980s and 1990s and on television on the BBC Saturday night entertainment show Noel's House Party on 27 November 1993.

The statue is mounted at the end of a winding brick pathway with a Union Flag patterned arrowhead to reflect the opening credits of the TV series and the sculpture has been designed so that members of the public can sit beside Captain Mainwaring and have their photograph taken.

In a 1995 episode of Bottom, titled "Hole", Richie shouts Lance Corporal Jones's catchphrase while stuck up a Ferris wheel set to be demolished the following day.

[71] In addition, a brief visual tribute to Dad's Army is made at the start of the episode "Rag Week" from Ben Elton's 1990s sitcom The Thin Blue Line: a shopfront bears the name "Mainwaring's".

[73] In 2020, Niles Schilder, for the Dad's Army Appreciation Society, wrote four short scripts which detailed how the characters from the series would have, in the author's opinion, dealt with the events of that year.

Jimmy Perry recalls that before writing the sitcom, the Home Guard was a largely forgotten aspect of Britain's defence in the Second World War, something which the series rectified.

[41]: 12  In a 1972 Radio Times interview, Arthur Lowe expressed surprise at the programme's success: We expected the show to have limited appeal, to the age group that lived through the war and the Home Guard.

[76]By focusing on the comic aspects of the Home Guard in a cosy south coast setting, the television series distorted the popular perception of the organisation.

", "My Brother and I" and "The Love of Three Oranges", were released, along with Dad's Army: The Passing Years documentary, several Christmas Night with the Stars sketches, and excerpts from the 1975–76 stage show.

[82] From the third series DVD, We Are the Boys..., a short individual biographical documentary about the main actors and the characters they portrayed on the programme, was included as a special feature.