Of Funerals and Fish Of Funerals and Fish "Of Funerals and Fish" is the pilot episode of the world's longest running sitcom, "Last of the Summer Wine" (1973–2010), written by Roy Clarke. It was first aired on 4 January 1973 and became the first of 295 episodes. It was aired as a "Comedy Playhouse" episode. The plot involved the trio going around discussing life and death. It starred Bill Owen, Peter Sallis and Michael Bates. This also was the first appearance of Kathy Staff, although her character is at this point only known as Mrs Batty rather than Nora. Her husband, unseen in this
Television pilot almost entirely different cast, and its main character was renamed to avoid confusion with the then-ongoing series. List of highest rated television pilots which attracted 28 million or more viewers in America: Television pilot A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie) is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its creation, the pilot is meant to be the testing ground to gauge whether a series will be successful, and is therefore a test episode