Guest star Michael Gwynn, who plays Lord Melbury, passed away only four months after this episode aired.
For this pilot episode, Polly was originally meant to be a philosophy student undertaking a Ph.D. on Wittgenstein. Since Connie Booth and John Cleese did not feel comfortable about this, they changed her to an arts student, which required a short re-shoot with Polly talking about her art. Booth, Robin Ellis and supporting artiste Julie Mellon appeared in the new material, taped after The Hotel Inspectors (1975), where Danny Brown's hair is noticeably different (due to the actor by then shooting the period drama Poldark (1975) ) and in fact tied back.
After this episode, modifications were made to the set. For example, in the next episode the wallpaper is a completely different colour, and the hotel layout slightly wider. The theme music was also re-recorded and the lettering on the hotel sign is different.
John Cleese enjoyed performing with Terence Conoley so much that he cast him in Waldorf Salad (1979) of the second series, playing an entirely different character but with an equally irritable personality.
While £100 or £200 might not seem like such a large amount in the year 2022, adjusted for inflation this would have been the equivalent of about £950 or £1,915 in 1975.