The show's premise was not to make fun of the war but to spoof war-based film and TV dramas, and in particular a BBC1 drama Secret Army, which ran from 1977 to 1979 and dealt with the activities of a Belgian "escape line" that returned allied pilots to Britain, working from a Brussels café and later restaurant. Many of the elements and characters are directly taken from Secret Army, such as the café owner having an affair in the restaurant under the nose of his wife, a bed-ridden woman in a room above who knocks on the floor for attention, a pianist who is also the forger, and the enmity between the Gestapo and the German military. Many storylines for  'Allo 'Allo also derive directly from episodes of Secret Army, such as the valuable paintings and the accompanying forgeries, which both the Germans and the Resistance are seeking to obtain in the Secret Army second series episode "Weekend". Some actors from Secret Army also appear in 'Allo 'Allo!: Richard Marner, Guy Siner, John D. Collins, Hilary Minster, David Beckett and Louis Sheldon. Inspiration was also drawn from patriotic black-and-white British melodramas of the 1940s.