The television versions were less directly based on the Gordon books than was the film series, but were instead half-hour sitcoms chronicling the misadventures of a group of medical students, and their later checkered careers as doctors.
Other characters in the early episodes, some of whom later reappeared for single episodes in subsequent series, include: Notable guest stars throughout the run of the series and its sequels included: Hattie Jacques, Mollie Sugden, Roy Kinnear, Maureen Lipman, Patricia Routledge, Graeme Garden, David Jason, John Le Mesurier, Arthur Lowe, Angela Scoular, Tessa Wyatt and John Bluthal.
One script by Cleese called for Michael Upton to rip away a woman's dress in a single movement (she was hiding a key he needed in her cleavage).
A script by Garden and Oddie included a scene played out using cartoon drawings of the performers, in the style of a teenage romance magazine, while the actors voiced their lines.
Before becoming a hospital it was an orphanage for children whose parents were lost at sea, and the architecture of the building depicts images of boats carved into the intricate stone.
A number of celebrities are rumoured to have lived there over the years including the actor Gary Lucy (The Bill), and Heart FM radio DJ Paul Hollins.
Ernest Clark, who played the part of Professor Loftus in the television series, also appeared in the original film version of Doctor in the House.