Each episode had a different setting and characters, looking at a different aspect of British culture and parodying pre-World War II literature aimed at schoolboys.

[2] The nine episodes and their original airdates are: Tomkinson's Schooldays was shot on videotape in front of a studio audience, with filmed exterior scenes.

[3] Bell used Michael Radford, who later became noted for the films Nineteen Eighty-Four, White Mischief and Il Postino, as cinematographer.

[3] Each episode featured several guest character actors including Ian Ogilvy, Kenneth Colley, Isabel Dean, Liz Smith, Roy Kinnear, Frank Middlemass, Iain Cuthbertson, John Le Mesurier, Jan Francis, Denholm Elliott, Gwen Taylor, Harold Innocent, Richard Vernon, Gwen Watford, Barbara New, Gerald Sim, Gilly Flower, Joan Sanderson, Roger Sloman and David Griffin.

Across the Andes by Frog originally appeared in Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls, co-authored by Palin and Jones.

This two-disc Region 2 DVD set included commentaries on all nine episodes by Palin and Jones and a deleted scene (without soundtrack) from Murder at Moorstones Manor.

Not linked in the menu are scans of the first drafts of the scripts for six episodes (Tomkinson's Schooldays, The Testing of Eric Olthwaite, Murder at Moorstone Manor, Across the Andes by Frog, The Curse of the Claw and Whinfrey's Last Case), type-written with Palin's handwritten comments and changes in the margin.