[paulmac_ie]

Dermot Morgan died just after making the third series. Before Ted, he was best known for Scrap Saturday, a radio show that parodied and mocked the Irish politicians of the day.

Scrap Saturday was arguably a watershed in Irish culture. It was broadcast on the national broadcaster (RTE) that even today is criticised for being too close to the government. By making fun of powerful figures, it opened peoples eyes to how ridiculous and corrupt Irish politics could be.

Ironically, Fr. Ted was commissioned and broadcast on Channel 4 on UK TV. At the time, the talk was about how RTE refused to commission the series because they didn't want to mock the Church, although this has been refuted by the writers.

Over the course of two series, Dermot Morgan mocked both the political and religious establishment and brought both closer to the common person. Whether this reflected the changes that were happening in modern Ireland, or lead the way can be debated. But we're certainly poorer for his loss.

[jwdunne]

Oh wow. I’m not sure where I got first series from. I must have binged in one continuous session!

Thanks for the history on a show I remember fondly from my youth. I love that :)

[paulmac_ie]

They're short series, and with very few arcs, there's not much to differentiate between series. And it's easy to binge watch the entire box series!

My favourite part of my job is naming internal tools and applications after characters and quotes... it helps that the owner of the company is a huge Ted fan.