Tennent's Pilsner Lager wanted to use the show's characters in their advertisements, but couldn't obtain the rights. Instead, the show's creators devised Lou Tennent and Candy Floss, who were uncannily similar to Dick Spanner and Mae East.
The show's budget was so low that they couldn't afford to employ actors to voice all of the characters, so the stories were primarily told through Dick's narration. Voices heard in the background were provided by crew members, and director Terry Adlam provided vocals for Mae East.
The show first aired as 22 short segments on Network 7 (1987), a Sunday morning show aimed at teenagers. It was so popular that they were later edited into four 25-minute shows that were rerun in early evening and late-night timeslots.
In 2007, it was reported that producer Gerry Anderson was searching for the Dick Spanner puppet, which had been stolen by a crew member. This turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by distributor Pickwick to drum up interest for their DVD release of the series. In actuality, Anderson didn't know where the puppet ended up, but he was disinterested in trying to find it.
When Terry Adlam was asked to create a new two-part episode for the 2017 DVD release, he'd initially planned to do "The Case of the Screaming Dame" in CGI. However, he ultimately decided to release them as animatics, which were "rough around the edges" to match the vibe of the stop-motion show.