Last of the Summer Wine enjoyed the show. The programme was nominated for numerous awards and won the National Television Award for Most Popular Comedy Programme in 1999. There were twenty-one Christmas specials, three television films and a documentary film about the series. "Last of the Summer Wine" inspired other adaptations, including a television prequel, several novelisations, and stage adaptations. In 1972, Duncan Wood, the BBC's Head of Comedy, watched a comedy on television called "The Misfit". Impressed by writer Roy Clarke's ability to inject both comedy and drama into the sitcom, Wood offered Clarke the opportunity to write a sitcom. Clarke nearly turned the
First of the Summer Wine station Gold. The show was broadcast in Australia on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation network in the early 1990s. "First of the Summer Wine" was a prequel to Clarke's long running show, "Last of the Summer Wine", portraying the youth of the principal characters from the mother show in the months leading up to World War II. With the possibility of war hanging over them, the young men and women enjoy their youth while trying to find a place for themselves in the world. The show used young, mostly unknown actors to play the characters, with only two actors from the