The radio producer Charles Maxwell had contracted Edwards, together with Joy Nichols and Dick Bentley, for the final series in 1947 of the radio show Navy Mixture for which Muir had provided some scripts, and after this show ended Maxwell received a commission for a new weekly comedy series to star Edwards, Nichols and Bentley.
Muir and Norden were to continue collaborating for nearly 50 years, writing such comic masterpieces as Peter Sellers' sketch Balham, Gateway to the South, and appearing together on radio panel games My Word!
Finally, after another song from Nichols or Bentley, there was a situation comedy sketch worked up from the clichés of a literary or cinematic genre; for example, later TIFH programmes included a sketch about restoration England, with Charles II, Nell Gwyn and the Puritan keeper of the Privy Purse ("anything TV can do, we can do later"); or a spoof spy story set on an international sleeper from London to Paris ("…as I moved through the train I gazed at a handsome film star, slumbering in his compartment, and a thought struck me – whether you're great or whether you're humble, when you sleep upright you dribble").
In addition, the character actor Wallas Eaton was engaged to play minor male roles, replacing Clarence Wright from the first series.
For the first episode of the next series, the TIFH Talking Point segment featured a parody of the sagas of 'nice' families such as those eponymously named in The Archers or Life With The Lyons that abounded on the BBC at the time.
It would be closing time, and Mr Glum would start telling the week's story to the barman as a ruse for obtaining another pint (or two) of "brahn" (brown ale).
A short signature tune would herald a change of scene to the Glums' front room, where Ron and Eth would be sitting on the sofa.
Very often, the story arose from the consequences of some idiotic behaviour on the part of Ron, who was incapable of competently carrying out any simple task, even going to the fish-and-chip shop (in which instance he put his change up his nose).
The parody sketch, previously used in stage revues but brought to radio by Muir and Norden for Take It from Here, was very influential on comedy shows such as Round the Horne and many television programmes.
In one of the parody sketches, a take-off of the films of English north country factory owners, Muir claimed that they introduced the phrase "Trouble at t'Mill".
For one series, Wallas Eaton portrayed an opinionated newspaper letter writer named Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, another phrase that entered the language.
Many of the jokes and comic exchanges from Take It from Here were recycled in the series of Carry On films when scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell ran out of time, and Muir and Norden gave him some old TIFH scripts – for instance, the line spoken by Julius Caesar (played by Kenneth Williams) in Carry on Cleo on facing some would-be assassins: "Infamy!
A single stand alone series of The Glums was produced and broadcast the following year (consisting of eight episodes) by London Weekend Television, usually drawing on two original radio scripts each week.