On 8 November 2004, the first series of Monkey Dust was released in the UK on DVD. Several musical substitutions had to be made from the television airing (where the BBC is allowed to play any commercial release without permission), as artists such as Cliff Richard and David Gray would not allow their work to be used on the DVD. Cover versions of the original songs were used instead.
Interestingly, only the first series of Monkey Dust was commercially released on DVD. The second and third were only broadcast on BBC Two and BBC Three respectively, and later distributed (without profit) on BitTorrent sites such as UKNova. It has been speculated that due to growing controversy in Britain regarding issues such as paedophilia and terrorism (the latter particularly in wake of events such as the 7 July 2005 London bombings), people were reluctant to release it with its current '15' rating.[citation needed] A more official explanation was that it was out of respect for creator Harry Thompson's suffering through a terminal illness, although this does not explain why there are still no plans for release following his subsequent death.