13.85 million viewers watched this opening episode, ranking ninth in the TV charts. However, in the very competitive environment of 1978, where over 12 million was often needed to break the charts, none of the other series one episodes made the Top 20.
The title sequence to the first series featured an animation of Syd and Eddie arriving in a UFO.
As with many episodes throughout the whole series, Eddie does impressions that can't be listed under "Movie Connections" as they don't refer to a specific movie or TV episode, but a character overall. Examples in this first episode include Sylvester the Cat, Oliver Hardy, James Cagney and W.C. Fields.
The earlier episodes of the series were more like traditional variety shows rather than the later stand up/sketches that the show would evolve into. Here there's a single cutaway sketch, a song from a guest, and some vox pops recorded on location, but the remainder is Syd and Eddie doing their basic act on stage, and a three minute dance routine from "Birds of a Feather".
Eddie was well aware that the age of variety still hung over their act before they transferred to television, noting in his 2005 autobiography "Larger Than Life" that their agent at the time, Norman Murray, still clung to those ideals: "He could put together great bills for the old theatrical shows, but those days had long gone. There were no places even then for the jugglers and the plate-spinners. The power was shifting. The clubs were now king of the live scene and the heyday of the theatres was over. Acts like ours could earn a lot of money without any need for a big variety bill and I don't think many people really knew how to deal with that."
Eddie was well aware that the age of variety still hung over their act before they transferred to television, noting in his 2005 autobiography "Larger Than Life" that their agent at the time, Norman Murray, still clung to those ideals: "He could put together great bills for the old theatrical shows, but those days had long gone. There were no places even then for the jugglers and the plate-spinners. The power was shifting. The clubs were now king of the live scene and the heyday of the theatres was over. Acts like ours could earn a lot of money without any need for a big variety bill and I don't think many people really knew how to deal with that."
Although a great deal of the humour in this episode is silly, bordering on outright childish, there are a number of jokes that are more risqué than in later years: in particular, Eddie doing routines about Yogi Bear starring in Emmanuelle (1974), or producing three hand puppets and implying the third is on his penis are significantly less "family friendly" than they would later become.