The Plague (Father Ted) being "a big thicko". The original Father Ted titles follow. Dougal gets a pet rabbit which, after much deliberation, he calls Sampras. Meanwhile, Jack has acquired a habit of sleepwalking naked, and Bishop Brennan is set to visit after the nude, sleepwalking Jack frightens one of Brennan's friends and his family. Unfortunately, the Bishop has a fear of rabbits brought on by a bad experience he once had with some in a lift (they nibbled his cape "and everything"), and Ted and Dougal must get 'Sampras' out of the way before he visits. They fail, and the situation is exacerbated
Father Ted Crilly Geoffrey Perkins asked Linehan and Mathews to discard the mockumentary format and expand the Father Ted episode to a traditional sitcom. Linehan found the character of Ted easier to write if he imagined Mathews's version delivering the lines. "Every time I wrote Ted in the early days, I'd hear Arthur's voice... Ted was this very bland character who'd never curse except for saying a very quiet 'feck' to himself. That panic and turmoil under the surface defined Ted before we even started writing him. Years later, when we did, it was just like pressing 'play' on a tape recorder." One