How Neighbours has tricked us all into being obsessed with them again.

It was the suburban soap opera that gifted nineties Australia with a never-ending supply of drama, romance and relatable characters.

Neighbours now appears to be making a comeback, with rating spikes both here and overseas.

The re ignition of fans’ flames may seem unusual to past audiences but The Binge hosts Laura Brodnik and Rosie Waterland think they’ve discovered the root of its recent success.

Listen to Laura and Rosie discuss the newfound magic of Ramsey Street  on The Binge. 

Laura attributed the ratings revival to producers moving away from casting new faces and instead hiring actors with established brands.

“Lately the ratings have been bigger, both here and overseas, and it’s because they’ve done all this stunt casting and it’s working because Australians love stunt casting,” she said.

Stunt casting is when well-known celebrities are cast into small roles in order to generate publicity for the show.

The hosts brought up how bringing on known talent is different to casting patterns of past seasons.

Rosie listed some of the big names to have emerged from the show.

“Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, Margot Robbie, Jessie Spencer…” she said.

Here are a couple of other well-known faces of past seasons. Post continues after gallery…

The latest example of ‘stunt casting’ can be seen in how singer Rob ‘Millsy’ Mills, 34, is set to appear on Ramsay Street in the role of a teacher.

“Now Rob Mills is going on there and they’ve kind of built this whole mythology around what his character is going to do,” Laura said.

Casting success may have boosted local interest but both hosts agreed Neighbours’ continued presence owes a lot to its international audience.

“What I don’t think we realise is that Neighbours is hugely popular overseas so I don’t think it will ever end because it’s always going to have this massive international audience,” she said.

Neighbours is on at 6:30, Monday to Friday, on Channel 11.

Listen to the rest of what Laura and Rosie have to say about Neighbours on this week’s episode of The Binge.