Cultural influence of Gilbert and Sullivan a 1966 episode. In the UK series "Lilies", in the 2007 episode "The Tallyman" both "When I Was a Lad" and "The Sun Whose Rays" are heard. An episode of "Car 54, Where Are You?" has parodies of several G&S songs. In 1988, episodes of Australian soap opera "Home and Away" featured a school production of "The Mikado". A second-season (1998) episode of the TV show "Millennium" titled "The Mikado" is based on the Zodiac case. Gilbert and Sullivan references often appear in "The West Wing". Some incidents include an episode-long argument over whether "He is an Englishman" is from
The Mountebanks work was released in 2018. The story of the opera revolves around a magic potion that transforms those who drink it into whoever, or whatever, they pretend to be. The idea was clearly important to Gilbert, as he repeatedly urged his famous collaborator, Arthur Sullivan, to set this story, or a similar one, to music. For example, he had written a treatment of the opera in 1884, which Sullivan rejected, both because of the story's mechanical contrivance, and because they had already produced an opera concerning a magic potion, "The Sorcerer" (1877); Sullivan felt that the story lacked "human emotion".