ed in the producer taking the idea to Michael Mills, then the BBC Head of Comedy. With David Croft now involved with writing the scripts, as Perry had no writing experience at the time, the first series was commissioned under the new title of Dad's Army, which was suggested by Mills. Perry, credited with the original idea for Dad's Army, conceived the sitcom with the role of Walker in mind for himself, but Croft and Mills successfully dissuaded him. As well as the character of Private Pike, modelled on himself, an elderly man he had known in the Home Guard had served with Lord Kitchener and became the basis for Corporal Jones. Perry also composed the opening tune for Dad's Army, "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?". It won the Ivor Novello Award for Best TV Signature Tune in 1971. The series did though have doubters within the BBC who feared mocking the Home Guard would not be well received. Perry recalled in 1997 that the BBC "did audience research on it before it went out. They showed the first episode to audiences for three whole days, and 99 per cent of people loathed it. They said, 'That bald-headed old man [Captain Mainwaring] doesn't even know his lines'." Despite the doubts, the first episode was screened on 31 July 1968, with Perry making a cameo appearance as the entertainer Charlie Cheeseman in the sixth episode, "Shooting Pains". At its peak, the show had ratings of 18 million. It ran for nine years, from 1968 to 1977, and led to two film versions (released in 1971 and 2016), a stage show and a radio version. In the 2013 Telegraph interview, Perry said: "It amazes me. I think it's because it's the thing that all British people savour: we were on our own at that time and we didn't turn away. Dad's Army reminds us of our finest hour." Michael Palin, remembered how Dad's Army seemed to take over the BBC in the late 1960s and early 1970s saying 'when we were preparing the first Monty Python series, the BBC Light Enterta
