Last of the Summer Wine Barry trying to better himself (at the insistence of Glenda), and Tom trying to stay one step ahead of the repo man. "Last of the Summer Wine" is the longest-running comedy programme in Britain, and the longest running situation comedy in the world. Each series has between six and twelve episodes; most were thirty minutes in length, with some specials running longer. There were 295 episodes and 31 series between 1973 and 2010, counting the pilot, all episodes of the series, specials, and two films. In 1978, the BBC commissioned a "Last of the Summer Wine" Christmas special instead of
One Foot in the Grave Television Sitcom in 1992 from the Royal Television Society and the British Comedy Award for Best Sitcom in 1992, 1995 and 2001. In 2004, "One Foot in the Grave" came tenth in a BBC poll to find "Britain's Best Sitcom" with 31,410 votes. The programme also came 80th in the British Film Institute's 100 Greatest British Television Programmes A number of complaints were made during the series' run for its depiction of animal deaths. For example, in the episode "The Valley of Fear", a dead cat is found in the Meldrews' freezer; in another, a tortoise is roasted in a