Dad's Army

Dad's Army

Capt. George Mainwaring

Sgt. Arthur Wilson

LCpl. Jack Jones

Pte. James Frazer

Pte. Charles Godfrey

Pte. Frank Pike

The Voice of (76 episodes, 1968-1977)

Pte. Joe Walker

Chief Warden Hodges

the Verger

Private Sponge

the Vicar

When an episode of the show was shown to members of the public to gauge audience reaction prior to broadcast of the first series, the majority thought it was very poor. The production team put the report containing the negative comments at the bottom of David Croft's in-tray. He only saw it several months later, after the series had been broadcast to great acclaim.

Three episodes of this series (Dad's Army: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker (1969), Dad's Army: A Stripe for Frazer (1969) and Dad's Army: Under Fire (1969)) are no longer thought to exist (although the off-air soundtrack to one, Dad's Army: A Stripe for Frazer (1969), was recovered in 2008), after an archive purge at the BBC in the 1970s saw the destruction of the only known copies. Until recently, there were five missing episodes (all from the second season) before an appeal by the BBC called "Treasure Hunt" saw the return of two 16mm film recordings (Dad's Army: Operation Kilt (1969) and Dad's Army: The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage (1969)) taken from the original video tapes. These recordings had been dumped in a skip outside the Elstree Studios when they were found and taken home by one of the studio staff, 30 years before. After seeing the 'Treasure Hunt' appeal on TV in 2001, the prints were returned by a friend of the staff member, to whom the prints had been entrusted.

John Laurie and Arnold Ridley both fought in World War One and both were wounded and invalided out of the army.

Throughout the series LCPL Jones is the only member of the platoon to wear medal ribbons on his uniform. Frazer, Wilson, and Godfrey (and possibly others) all saw service in WWI and would have medals and ribbons, and would most likely have worn them proudly as well.

Frazer: I never doubted you for a minute.

Frazer: I am refusing to obey.

Hodges: Put that light out!