Humphrey Barclay became Head of Comedy at LWT in 1977 and supervised various successful series including "No, Honestly", "A Fine Romance" (1981–84). In May 1980 he unveiled "Metal Mickey" as a show "with the appeal of "Star Wars", the Daleks and "Mork and Mindy"" Following criticism at the Edinburgh International Television Festival of what was seen as casual racism the LWT series "Mind Your Language" (1977–79; 1986), Barclay commissioned "No Problem!", transmitted by Channel 4 during 1983–85, the first original black-made sitcom for British TV (an earlier series featuring a black family, "The Fosters" (ITV, 1976–77), had been a remake of a
British sitcom short lived Roman Britain sitcom Chelmsford 123 (1988–1990) which has fallen into relative obscurity. The new Channel 4 began to have successful long-running situation comedies. "Desmond's" (1989–94) was the first British sitcom with a black cast set in the workplace, and "Drop the Dead Donkey" (1990–98) brought topicality to the form as it was recorded close to transmission. Some of the biggest hits of the 1990s were "Father Ted", "Men Behaving Badly", "Game On", "Absolutely Fabulous", "I'm Alan Partridge", "Keeping Up Appearances", "Goodnight Sweetheart", "Bottom", "The Brittas Empire", "The Thin Blue Line", "Mr. Bean", "The Vicar of Dibley" and "One