Trivia

German record producer Frank Farian named the disco group Boney M. after the series and its main character in the 1970's.

The original spelling in the books was "Bony". Following the success of the television show the spelling on the covers of subsequent printings of the books was changed to "Boney" although the spelling in the text of each book was maintained as "Bony." A note found in the opening cover pages of each book read: "*Boney is the spelling preferred by Norfolk International Production in their television dramatisation of this series; Bony which is used throughout the text of this book, is the spelling preferred by Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte's creator, Arthur Upfield." The change in spelling was made to avoid people mis-pronouncing the name as "Bonny".

The first choice to play Boney, Jon Finch, asked to be released from his contract two weeks before filming so that he could star in Frenzy (1972)

There was controversy as the result of the fact that James Laurenson, a white man, was hired to play Inspector Bonaparte. However, the producers had mounted a search for a mixed-race Aborigine and had not been able to find one despite many weeks of searching. Even more ironically, James Laurenson was Tasmanian, and his ancestors had killed off the last aboriginal Tasmanian centuries earlier.

Michael Powell was introduced to the "Boney" stories while filming They're a Weird Mob (1966) in 1965, and was very keen to film them. He and Paramount Pictures nearly went ahead with a movie in the early 70's, but the script failed to secure a deal.