In the 1960s, no other TV company made dramas like ITC. In fact, few British series of the time boasted the Tinseltown-like sophistication and glamour (all were made on 16mm film, with movie-level production values) of Man in a Suitcase, The Champions, The Baron or Department S.

But there’s one ITC series from that time that stands apart from its stable-mates, one that wasn’t quite as glossy or as serious in tone, a more downat-heel and light-footed kind of adventure series. It’s perhaps for that reason that Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) has endured more than many of its ITC stable-mates. None of those other shows have an IP so valuable that they were remade 30 years later, while even since Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s twoseason re-imagining in 2000, there have been endless rumours of a third version telling the story once more of Jeff Randall and his ghostly partner, Marty Hopkirk.

But why Randall and Hopkirk and not, say, The Baron? Or Man in a Suitcase? Or Man of the World? Co-created by Dennis Spooner, R&H always felt different. Part of it was Spooner’s penchant for comedy - although a veteran of The Baron and The Champions, he’d also penned episodes of such gag-heavy sitcoms such as Bootsie & Snudge and Hancock. Then there was its uniquely - for ITC - sense of grit. Where many of its other shows showcased square-jawed leads in a James Bondlike world of transatlantic sophistication, Randall and Hopkirk took place in an altogether more recognisably real world.

Take a look at (producer) Monty Berman and Dennis Spooner’s initial pitch for the show, and it makes specific mention of Here Comes Mr Jordan, Blithe Spirit and Hal Roach’s Topper films as pointers as to the series’ tones. And it was that marrying of the whimsy of those fantasy-flecked movies and the grounded quality of something like Gideon’s Way that help make Randall and Hopkirk so defiantly different. Outside of those ghostly touchstones, though, everything else about that early version of the show was recognisably on-brand for ITC. ‘Steven Randall,’ as he was then, is described in the pair’s pitch as “ambitious [and] in his late twenties, early thirties. A direct, blunt, honest man of tall, athletic build.”