Based on a novel by Norman Lindsay, Saturdee is a fictionalised account of Lindsay's childhood, set in the equally fictional Victorian town of Redheap. According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, Lindsay
invented the central character, twelve-year-old Peter Gimble, as a projection of everything he would have liked to have been and he also included a friend of Peter's, Conkey Menders, as a representation of his real boyhood. Saturday was the day the boys and their friends lived for, a time of escape and adventures, after the chores of the week and the coming sabbatical gloom of Sundays.
Moran notes that since the writers and the director/producer had previously been involved with the ABC, it is surprising that this was not an ABC production. Instead, it was commissioned by the Seven Network. Shot over eleven weeks on location in Creswick, Victoria, the program cost $1.3 million to produce, but rated well with its target audience.
