Last of the Summer Wine (series 1) episodes, however the pilot still was not included in the re-release. The pilot episode was released on the final boxset series 31 & 32 as an extra on disc four on 15 August 2016. Last of the Summer Wine (series 1) Last of the Summer Wine's first series originally aired on BBC1 between 4 January 1973 and 29 December 1973. All episodes from this series were written by Roy Clarke and produced and directed by James Gilbert. The pilot episode, alternately known as "The Last of the Summer Wine" and "Of Funerals and Fish," originally premiered on the BBC's "Comedy
British sitcom world's longest running sitcom. The commercial station ITV had popular successes with "Rising Damp" (1974–78, sometimes called the best of all ITV sitcoms), "Man About the House" (1973–76) and "George and Mildred" (1976–79). "Rising Damp"'s star, Leonard Rossiter, also played the lead role in the BBC's highly popular "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" (1976–79). The decline in cinema attendance in this period meant that many of these series were turned into cinema films; the first film version of "On the Buses" (1969–73) was the biggest hit at the British box office in 1971. According to Jeff Evans, "On