The executive responsible for its release was the then Head of Variety, Michael Standing, although it contained a large amount of material which had been previously issued in the preceding years in memo form.
Among jokes banned were those concerning lavatories, effeminacy in men, immorality of any kind, suggestive references to honeymoon couples, chambermaids, fig-leaves, ladies' underwear (such as "winter draws on" and so on), lodgers and commercial travellers and the vulgar use of words such as "basket".
The document also advised: "Extreme care should be taken in dealing with references to or jokes about pre-natal influences (e.g. His mother was frightened by a donkey).
"[3] It has been observed that if these rules had been strictly followed a great many of the BBC's most successful comedy shows since, such as Beyond Our Ken, Till Death Us Do Part, Steptoe and Son, would never have been aired.
[citation needed] The successor to the Green Book, the Producer Guidelines, the corporation's programme-making code of ethics was introduced by Director-General John Birt in 1989.