NOT THE NINE'O'CLOCK NEWS, Unbroadcast Pilot. (1979)

Aside from Atkinson, the original cast comprised Christopher Godwin, John Gorman, Chris Langham, Willoughby Goddard, and Jonathan Hyde, and the first episode of a planned series was scheduled for 2 April 1979; this also featured Chris Emmett (impersonating Denis Healey), and Robert Llewelyn (impersonating Bob Hope).
As the programme was originally scheduled to air in the time slot occupied by Fawlty Towers, John Cleese was to have introduced the first episode in a sketch referring to a technicians' strike in progress at the time that hindered the production of the series, explaining (in character as Basil Fawlty) that there was no programme that week, so a "tatty revue" would be broadcast instead. However, the 1979 general election intervened, and the programme was pulled as being too political, being replaced with a repeat of the American sitcom Rhoda.
The sketch with Cleese was broadcast later that year when the final episode of Fawlty Towers went out during the broadcast run of the first series of Not The Nine O'Clock News, though the significance of the sketch was lost to some degree. Fawlty Towers waiter Manuel, played by Andrew Sachs, also appeared at the end of the unaired episode, trying to get a joke about the Ayatollah's contact lenses.
Other sketches of the unaired pilot episode were also lifted or remade on episodes throughout the first series. Healey's and Hope's impressions were achieved by the use of "talking head" puppets, which in the mid-1980s would become a characteristic staple of Spitting Image, produced by Lloyd in its early series.
In production
Lloyd and Hardie decided to re-cast the series, retaining Langham and Atkinson. They wanted to bring in a woman, but Victoria Wood turned the programme down. Lloyd met Pamela Stephenson at a party, and she agreed to join. Atkinson, Langham, and Stephenson were joined by Mel Smith, who was scheduled to work on the pilot, but declined after reading the script (he called the finished pilot in retrospect "the worst half hour of TV" that he had ever seen).