The soundtrack of this serial contained a higher-than-usual number of recognisable pop songs, although due to licensing costs all were re-recorded by "The Lovells", a fictional group created by the show's incidental music composer Keff McCulloch. The songs featured in the serial were: "Rock Around the Clock", "Singing the Blues", "Why Do Fools Fall in Love", "Mr. Sandman", "Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite", "That'll Be the Day", "Only You", "Lollipop", "Who's Sorry Now?" and "Happy Days Are Here Again".
In the original script, the setting was 1957 and revealed that the Americans had launched a satellite in advance of the Russian Sputnik, only to have it knocked out of orbit by the Nostalgia Tours spacebus. Andrew Cartmel realised that the story was running overlength, it was decided to cut this element from the storyline, along with additional background on the Bannermen (revealing that they had polluted their own planet to the point that it was rendered uninhabitable).
Working titles for this story included The Flight of the Chimeron. The eventual title is a play on the name of the English cult rock band Echo & The Bunnymen.
First appearance of The Seventh Doctor's question mark umbrella.
The holiday camp scenes were shot in a real holiday camp.