Kees van Kooten came up with the idea of the Dirty Man character after meeting a similar looking man during a walk in the woods. Like the Dirty Man in his first appearance, the man Van Kooten met pretended to warn him that people were having sex in the woods.
The Tegenpartij ('Counterparty' or 'Opponent') was originally introduced in an audio sketch in 1980. The intention of the creators was to satirize right-wing low class people, with the party being led by the two shady characters of Jacobse and Van Es, who were obviously abusers of the welfare system and small-time criminals, despite their entitled claims of being "free boys" and actually helping Dutch economy. Over the course of the show, however, the fictional party turned out to be far more popular than its creators intended, with the VPRO receiving many letters of people actually supporting Jacobse en Van Es's right-wing, selfish and racist attitude, and the newly created far right Centrumpartij even stealing slogans from the characters. Herefore, Van Kooten and De Bie decided to let the characters die a gruesome death while attempting a coup d'etat, in order to show that these characters were not to be admired at all.