Were those an intentional reference to the brilliant series of British comedy shorts by Rob Brydon, called 'Marion and Geoff'?

'Marion,' spelled as it is, has always seemed like a strange name for Carol Burnett's character. It's kind of a common female name in the UK (hence Marion and Geoff), but I associate that name with men in the US. (Maybe just because of Marion Barry.)

In Marion and Geoff (to the extent I remember the story), Geoff (Brydon) is a cab driver (!) living in perpetual denial about the fact that his ex wife Marion (?) is moving on from him and developing a serious relationship with a man with whom she cheated on Geoff for years, and denial about the fact that Geoff's children seem to like their new daddy more than him (and their 'new' daddy might actually be their real daddy).

Other than the names and the fact that Jeff is a cabby, no obvious parallels. But those two are major enough to make it seem like it couldn't be a coincidence. Maybe the writers just found themselves with a cabby naked Jeff and when they needed a name for an important woman in his life, one of the writers might have just thought the reference would be cute.


Anyway, last I tried, Marion and Geoff was super difficult to track down and view (I think it's a BBC property, but because it's not a full show it hasn't had a normal release). But if you can find it, it's highly recommended.


EDIT: Wikipedia reminds me, in Marion and Geoff, Geoff is the other guy. Brydon's cabby character is named Keith. Still...