A half-hour Christmas special, "Wilf In Santaland", broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Christmas Day 1984, switched the usual quickfire sketch-based format for a traditional Christmas pantomime. The following four radio series, running from 1985 to 1988, were produced in a half-hour sitcom format, which was largely an extension of the "Family Grumbleweed" sketch from the earlier incarnation of the radio show, with scripts still mostly written by Mike Craig and often featuring cameos from other contemporary light entertainment favourites such as Mollie Sugden, Jimmy Cricket, Paul Shane and Stuart Hall. A number of new characters were introduced, amongst them the vagrant Ratface, the spluttering, lisping entrepreneur Sid Squeak and his partner-in-crime Stanley Bubble.