It was Idle's first television project after Monty Python's Flying Circus, which had ended the previous year, and was the catalyst for The Rutles.

This framework allowed for a range of sketches and material to be presented, all as part of the fictional network's hosted programming.

Nevertheless, even this very loose concept was frequently ignored, and material was presented with a more stream-of-consciousness approach, with no particular tie-in to the RWT framework.

Typically, in addition to sketch material, each episode also featured two music videos (a term not yet coined in 1975) of Neil Innes songs, which were woven into the flow of the show.

Indeed, the last show of the first series featured Idle and Innes, stripped and shivering in blankets under a bare bulb, singing about how the power was about to be cut off.

Idle spoke bitterly about these conditions years later but his attempts to overcome them formed the basis of a lot of the show's jokes.

Innes recalled that the cheaper-looking sets added to the show; "It was sometimes a problem but that was in fact the whole raison d'etre of the programme.

Plugged rabbit emulsion, zinc custard without sustenance in kipling-duff geriatric scenery, maximises press insulating government grunting sapphire-clubs incidentally.

This scene was shown in the United States on Saturday Night Live and was later remade in the spinoff film, All You Need Is Cash, featuring Idle, Innes, Ricky Fataar and John Halsey (who also appeared in many of the musical items in the series) as the "Pre-Fab Four".

This 30-second piece was later expanded into a full Rutles song, "Good Times Roll", for the All You Need Is Cash film and album.

Another scene features Gwen Taylor visiting the doctor to complain of her constantly changing costume and surroundings and being diagnosed with "bad continuity".

The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book by Eric Idle, 1976 A dense and lavishly illustrated parody of the Television, films and print media of the mid-1970s.

Despite many requests, none of the episodes have been released on DVD – the show has complicated rights issues, belonging in principle both to the BBC and Idle.