Casanova '73

"Casanova '73" was a short-lived British sitcom broadcast on BBC 1 in 1973. It was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson and starred Leslie Phillips as Henry Newhouse (a literal translation of the Italian "casa nova"). The show's plots were bedroom farce and the humour owed much to the innuendo of film series such as "Carry On" and the "Doctor" series, both of which Phillips had previously appeared in.

The series is perhaps more famous for what replaced it than for its own content. Midway through its run, the BBC decided that the show was too risque to appear in an early evening slot and moved it to late nights, filling the now vacant slot with the quiz show "Mastermind", allowing the formerly late-night quiz to become a popular hit. In his autobiography "Hello", Leslie Phillips recalls how Magnus Magnusson cornered him at a subsequent BBC function to thank him for making "Mastermind" a success, and Magnusson himself also told the story on numerous occasions.