The Bone Brothers and the Grace Brothers (store-owners from the UK parent series) are cousins. The shop was renamed from the original UK version to avoid providing free advertising for Grace Bros, a genuine chain of Australian department stores founded in 1885 (subsequently bought out and as rebranded Myer stores in 2004).
Apart from Mr. Humphries the staff were renamed from the UK originals, causing John Inman problems - not unsurprisingly, he would occasionally slip up and refer to a character's British counterpart. To circumvent this problem the Bone Brothers personnel were given ID badges to wear, helping the actor.
The Australian characters were almost identical to their British counterparts:
- Captain Wagstaffe = Captain Peacock.
- Mr. Mankowitz = Mr. Grainger (with some characteristics of Mr. Goldberg).
- Mr. Randel = Mr. Lucas.
- Mrs. Crawford = Mrs. Slocombe.
- Miss Buxton = Miss Brahms.
- Mr. Bone = Mr. Grace.
- Mr. Cocker = Mr. Mash / Mr. Harman.
- Mr. Gilbert = Mr. Rumbold.
- In series two, Mr. Gilbert was replaced by Mr. Fenwick, and Miss Buxton was replaced by Miss Nichols, although of course there was next to no change in characterisation as the majority of scripts had been written for the UK originals.
All but one episode ( Undesirable Alien (1981) ) were adapted from editions of the first and seventh seasons of the BBC parent series.
The show was sponsored by Kambrook (manufacturers of kitchen and housewares appliances - "the Australian company with good ideas"), whilst local firms such as Rodmil Menswear, Chadstone Opal and Holeproof Hosiery provided appropriate set dressing.