The Opening Titles, Elements of this will change weekly.
In Week 1 -
Rich wakes up with a toy smurf,
Stu is smoking a regular pipe,
Rich's fridge is full of takeaways (the picture on the fridge door should also change weekly.
This week it was Kate Moss with "Eat some chips" written on her).

Behind the Scenes Facts

1 Jo Unwin had lost her voice. She managed to croak her lines out, hence the actor Kevin Eldon's frog lady comment.

2 The cameramen loved the joke about the kid from Live and Kicking, which suggests that he is as big an idiot as he looks.

3 No-one seems to like the Curious Orange at the moment, but it's a slow burner and you'll all be doing it in the playground in a month's time, you idiots. Yes even those of you not at school will be going into playgrounds to do it. It is played by Paul Putner from the Ragu advert.

4 Similarly the unusual priest will get funnier as weeks go by, but we wanted to start small with it. This character first appeared
on On the Hour on Radio 4, where it was played by our arch enemy Patrick Marber, but we wrote it, so it belongs to us!

5 Queen Rikki was queen of the show. She was very nervous, but got quite cocky by the end.

6 Histor's Eye was first broadcast on our Radio 1 show. (We originally wrote it as part of a Radio 4 pilot show - that was recorded but never completed, called "Whatever Became Of" - a where are they now of fictional people. The show also starred Steve Coogan, Patrick Marber, Jo Unwin and was produced by Armando Iannucci- wouldn't you like to hear a tape of that? We would) People who like to complain about us doing old stuff will be pleased to see we have recycled some old scripts for later in the series.
Joseph Champniss designed the crows.
He was a fan who used to send us cartoons and who we soon realised was better than any of the other idiots we got to do stuff for us professionally. The man is a Welsh mis-fit, but a genius.
Paul Putner played king Arthur and the actor Kevin Eldon played the other parts. Rich is Histor and Stu is Pliny. We were incredibly tired when we filmed this and holding up massive birds at arm's length did not make things any easier.
We had to shoot everything very quickly due to budgetary (budgerigar) considerations. Thus the bits where Rich's voice cracks and he clearly forgets what he's meant to say (even though he was reading it) are genuine, but fit rather well.
Most of the sketches were filmed at the Riverside theatre in Hammersmith where Chris Evans does TFI Friday from.

7 Danbert Nobacon was played by a bloke called Xav (Zav?) Shame he was such a lousy shot with the bucket of water.

8 You may have noticed that the window behind us had an unpleasant gasworks view. We wanted to change this every week, but we'd have had to use photos blue screened in and this would have looked rubbish apparently.

9 Men of Achievement 1974 is a real book and all the things we read out of it are genuine.

10 When Insects Attack is another regular feature. Roger Mann played the man attacked by a fly. He used to be in Packing Them In on Channel 4 with the actor Kevin Eldon and our guest Jenny Eclair, but now works with computers in Rugby. He is also one of the Cluub Zarathustra team (along with Stu, the actor Kevin Eldon, Richard Thomas, Sally Phillips and Simon Munnery - and others). We are hoping he will return full time to comedy as he is one of the funniest men in the country. If you video it try and listen to the things he is improvisioning on the phone. They are very funny. See how his arm movements copy John Cleese.

11 The Ironic Review is based on the exploits of the Modern Review team and TV pundits like Robert Elms. Vera Hannan's name is made by combining the names of Richard's grandmothers. The funniest line in it (which didn't get a laugh in the studio) about Derek Jarman's films being homophobic was made up on the spot by Paul and the actor Kevin Eldon. Rich and the actor Kevin Eldon nearly laughed when they both said "idiot" together. Stu nearly laughs when he says "Stop shouting". Sasha Bedford-Hill
(a street in Balham) is played by frog-woman actress Jo Unwin who likes her life to remain private and thus will not be discussed on our web pages.

12 Trevor and Natalie and played by Trevor Lock and Natalie Brandon. Trev is a stand-up comedian and Nat is a student.
They were both in Excavating Rita and This Morning With Richard, Not Judy in Edinburgh last year.

13 Roger Crowley is based on Aleister Crowley the wickedest man in the world and played by Roger Mann. The idea is that he is cutting into our transmission via his computer, but this wasn't really edited in properly this week. Again this is a bit of a slow burner. We've filmed 8 of them so, like most of the items, you're going to have to get to like it if you don't already.

14 Rich's pants got wetted by Danbert Nobacon and were uncomfortable for almost two hours after the show was over.

15 Jenny Eclair was our guest this week. We've both been on her show "Jenny Eclair Squats" on Channel 5 and we used to share a flat with her when we went up to Edinburgh. We didn't really get enough time to talk to her properly. But then that's live TV.

16 In the Spice Girls bit after discussing Emma Spice Rich forgot to say "Only 1 in 5 women are like that, not 1 in 2 like you and Dr Samuel Johnson think".

17 This weeks' hymn was "When I needed a Neighbour". In the warm up to the show we sang this with some amended verses- "When I needed a massage" "When I needed a lift to the shops" "When I needed a kidney" and Rich wanted to sing "When I needed a blow-job," but Stu wouldn't let him. Quite right too.

18 Early indications are that we started with 900,000 viewers and this rose to a million during the course of the programme.
This apparently is not bad for the slot and the fact the audience rose is very encouraging (ie people weren't turning off in disgust).

19 The BBC duty log received 12 complaints. If you want to ring in to complain or say something nice the number is 0181 743 8000. We will put up all the complaints on another page when we get time.

Thanks to all the people who e mailed (both good and bad). You were over whelmingly positive, but had some constructive things to say. Do keep letting us know what you think, and if you change your mind. At the moment people seem to prefer the studio stu ff, but we are convinced that the film items will grow on you. Remember this series is all new (to TV) characters (except for the teachers which will be returning in week 3) and it takes a while to establish things. We could have just sat back and continued churning out Rod Hull, Quinlank and Moon on a stick, but we wanted to give you something new, so be patient with us.
Obviously if you don't like the new stuff by the end of the series let us know and we'll never do it again.