Father Dougal McGuire Linehan and Mathews to discard the mockumentary format and expand the Father Ted episode to a traditional sitcom, Father Dougal became one of the main characters. When writing Dougal, Linehan and Mathews drew on Stan Laurel, incorporating some of Linehan's own behaviour during moments of confusion. Linehan and Mathews saw O'Hanlon in a modernised Shakespeare play broadcast by RTÉ, and were impressed by the "weird, gormless" face he could pull. Linehan later said, "That was Dougal right there. He was just spot-on and he became our secret weapon. The show took off so quickly because Ardal was so instantly funny."
Hell (Father Ted) would describe it as a "holiday in Hell", hence the episode's title. The unusual attractions such as The Magic Road were based on real-life locations Arthur Mathews had visited. During the filming of the scene in Entertaining Father Stone where the priests are playing crazy golf in a rain storm, which caused the actors to get soaking wet, Dermot Morgan joked that next time the writers will probably get them covered in raw sewage. This is the entire reason why the scene where Ted and Dougal are sprayed with sewage was written. The actors did not realise that the substance