Despite the writers' previous successes with The Rag Trade and Meet the Wife with the BBC, the corporation rejected On the Buses, not seeing much comedy potential in a bus depot as a setting.

The comedy partnership turned to Frank Muir, head of entertainment at London Weekend Television (LWT), who loved the idea; the show was accepted, and despite a poor critical reception became a hit with viewers.

The series is centred on the working-class life of Stan Butler and Jack Harper, who are the crew of the Number 11 bus at the Luxton and District Motor Traction Company.

LWT arranged with the now defunct Eastern National Omnibus Company to use its buses at Wood Green bus garage in North London.

A spin-off, Don't Drink the Water (1974–75), ran for 13 episodes, featuring Blake retiring to Spain with his sister Dorothy (Pat Coombs - who also played one of the female bus drivers in the first On The Buses film).

Anna Karen reprised her role as Olive in LWT's revival of The Rag Trade, which ran for two series in 1977–78.

The green Luxton & District buses were Bristol Lodekkas with bodywork by Eastern Coach Works of Lowestoft.

Stan's usual buses, AVW 399F and AEV 811F, are both still extant; one is in Lille, France, the other in Los Angeles, California.

[6] Despite the popularity of On the Buses with sections of the public, TV reviewers and historians have generally held the show in lower regard.

[10] On The Buses is sometimes used as an example of the sort of sexism that was rife in society in the 1960s and 1970s, occurring after the freedoms of sexual liberation, but before the rise of feminism; in particular, the derision towards one of the main female characters (Olive Rudge) for being unattractive, and the fact that younger attractive bus staff would be regularly looking to have sex with the two main middle-aged male characters (Varney and Grant, who by the time of the release of the first film in 1971, were 55 and 39 respectively).

Some episodes of the show also featured a black character humorously referred to as Chalky, which would be construed as racist by modern standards.

The format of On the Buses was sold to America, where it was remade by NBC as Lotsa Luck, starring Dom DeLuise as Stanley Belmont with Kathleen Freeman as Iris Belmont, his mum, Wynn Irwin as Arthur Swann, Beverly Sanders as Olive Swann and Jack Knight as Bummy Pfitzer, his best friend.

Inspector Blake did not have a counterpart in the American version; and, in another significant change to the storyline, Stan worked at the lost property office at the bus depot rather than being a driver.

[citation needed] Look-in, a UK children's magazine, serialised On the Buses in comic strips from August 1971 to May 1974.

They were drawn by cartoonist Harry North and the TV series' often bawdy humour was diluted for a younger audience.

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse did several sketches using the characters of On the Buses to lampoon the humour of the show.

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton created a fake episode titled "Hold On Tight!

The British recording artist Morrissey used the character Blakey as the theme of his October 1990 single Oh Phoney from the Kill Uncle sessions.