The Goodies
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"The Goodies and the Beanstalk" (VHS) |
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The Goodies "Kitten Kong" (VHS) |
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The Goodies (1st British DVD) |
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The Goodies (2nd British DVD) |
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The Goodies (1st Australian DVD) |
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The Goodies Funky Gibbon (CD) |
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The Goodies (2nd Australian DVD) |
For information about the The Goodies television series, see The Goodies (TV series)The Goodies are a trio of
British comedians (
Graeme Garden,
Tim Brooke-Taylor and
Bill Oddie), who created, wrote, and starred in a
surreal British
television comedy series called
"The Goodies" during the 1970s and early 1980s combining
sketches and
situation comedy.
The three actors in
The Goodies (TV series) met as students at the
University of Cambridge in the
United Kingdom, where Tim Brooke-Taylor was studying for a
Law Degree, Graeme Garden was studying for a
Medical Degree, and Bill Oddie was studying for an
English Degree. It was as undergraduate students at the University that Tim, Bill and Graeme also met
John Cleese,
Graham Chapman and
Eric Idle, who would later become founding members of
Monty Python. This group of students became close friends and studied together, including Tim Brooke-Taylor and John Cleese (who were both Law students, but at different Colleges within the University) swapping lecture notes, which gave them a more complete perspective on mutual subjects than they would have if they had only studied with their own colleges. They all became members of the prestigious
Cambridge University Footlights Club, with Tim Brooke-Taylor becoming president in
1963, and with Graeme Garden succeeding Tim as president in
1964.
[From Fringe to Flying Circus — 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960-1980' — Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980.] [Footlights! — 'A Hundred Years of Cambridge Comedy' — Robert Hewison, Methuen London Ltd, 1983.]Graeme Garden was himself succeeded as the Footlights Club president in
1965 by Eric Idle, who had initially become aware of the Footlights Club when he auditioned for a
Pembroke College "smoker" for Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie.
Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie were cast members of the highly successful 1960s
BBC radio comedy show
I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which also featured
John Cleese, which lasted for many years.
I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again resulted from the successful
1963 Cambridge University Footlights Club revue "A Clump of Plinths" (which, after having its title changed to
"Cambridge Circus", went on to play at
West End in
London,
England, followed by a tour of
New Zealand and
Broadway in
New York,
United States of America) and included an appearance on the top rating
Ed Sullivan Show.
They also took part in various TV shows with other people, including Tim Brooke-Taylor in
"At Last the 1948 Show" (with
John Cleese,
Graham Chapman and
Marty Feldman), and Tim Brooke-Taylor taking part in
"Marty" (with
Marty Feldman,
John Junkin and
Roland McLeod). Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie took part in
"Twice a Fortnight" (with
Michael Palin,
Terry Jones and
Jonathan Lynn), before Tim, Bill and Graeme worked on the late 1960s TV show
Broaden Your Mind (of which only about ten minutes survives).
The Goodies (TV series) ran from November
1970 to February
1982 on BBC2, with 70 episodes, mostly thirty minutes in length except for two forty-five minute
Christmas specials (
"The Goodies and the Beanstalk" and
"The Goodies Rule — OK!").
The Goodies never had a formal contract with the BBC, and when the BBC Light Entertainment budget for
1980 was exhausted by the production of
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series, they signed a contract with
London Weekend Television for
ITV. However, after one half-hour
Christmas special (
"Snow White 2") in
1981, and a six-part series in early
1982, the series was cancelled. In recent interviews the cast suggest the reasons were mainly economic—a typical Goodies sketch was more expensive than it appeared.
As well as being very successful on the TV screen, in their heyday The Goodies also produced successful books e.g.
"The Goodies File",
"The Goodies Book of Criminal Records",
"The Making of The Goodies Disaster Movie" and a string of successful chart singles penned by the musically talented Oddie, in 1975 they chalked up five hit singles in twelve months including
The Inbetweenies and
Funky Gibbon (no. 4 in the charts).
The Goodies (TV series) was created and co-written by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
The music for the show was written by Bill Oddie, and The Goodies theme music was co-written by Bill Oddie and
Michael Gibbs.
The show benefited greatly from the input of director
Bob Spiers, who later directed
Absolutely Fabulous,
Press Gang, some episodes of
Fawlty Towers and the film
Spiceworld.
Unlike most long-running BBC comedy series,
The Goodies has not enjoyed extensive
repeats on terrestrial television in the UK, the BBC in fact refusing to allow them since 1986. The BBC released two videos of the series in the 1990s, but did not seem enthusiastic about promoting them.
In the late 1980s, the pan-European satellite-channel
Super Channel broadcast a couple of episodes.
Sky's short-lived Comedy Channel broadcast some of the later Goodies episodes in the early 1990s. Later
UK Gold screened many of the earlier episodes, often with commercial timing cuts. The same episodes subsequently aired on
UK Arena, also cut. When UK Arena became UK Drama, later UKTV Drama,
The Goodies was dropped along with its other comedy and documentary shows.
The cast finally took matters into their own hands and arranged for the release of a digitally-remastered "best of" selection entitled
The Goodies ... At Last on
VHS and
Region 0 DVD in April,
2003. A second volume,
The Goodies...At Last a Second Helping was released on Region 2 in February,
2005.
In
Australia, the series has had continued popularity. It was repeated through the 1970s and 1980s by the
ABC — although, as the show was typically broadcast in the 25-minute 5:30pm children's timeslot, portions often had to be cut. The unedited episodes were repeated frequently on the pay television channel UKTV during the 1990s. The DVDs are available in Australia under different titles to the UK releases. The DVD titles in Australia are
The Goodies — 8 Delicious Episodes and
The Goodies — A Tasty Second Helping, respectively. The Goodies' DVDs are also available in a box set with a commemorative booklet (
The Goodies — The Tasty Box), though their content is unchanged.
In the
United States, the series was shown widely in syndication during the late 1970s and early 1980s, but has been little seen since. The series was also shown in
Canada on the
CBC national broadcast network during those same years, in the traditional "after school" timeslot.
In
Germany, The Goodies was shown in the late seventies as part of the variety show Engelbert and the Young generation. The show was dubbed into German, and, because the jokes were more visual than
dialogue based, it translated very well.
In
2004, an episode of the BBC documentary series
Comedy Connections was devoted to the Goodies.
Christmas 2005 saw a 90-minute
Goodies special, including a documentary about the series,
Return of the Goodies, broadcast on
BBC Two.
Early on in 2006 a single episode about the
Winter Olympics was broadcast on
BBC Two but was not followed by any more.
*
The Goodies "Funky Gibbon" CD# The Goodies Theme# Funky Gibbon# The Inbetweenies# Please Let Us Play# Black Pudding Bertha# Cricklewood# Good Ole Country Music# Nappy Love# Wild Thing# Rock With A Policeman# Panic# I'm A Teapot# Sick Man Blues# The Last Chance Dance# Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me# Make A Daft Noise For Christmas
The Goodies' songs had previously been on vinyl as "The Goodies' Greatest Hits", which contained many of the same songs as the above CD. The LP, however, did not feature "Black Pudding Bertha", "Please Let Us Play", "Panic", or "Sick Man Blues", instead having the tracks "Baby Samba" and "Rasta Shanty".
It may be argued that
The Goodies antics brought the surrealist adventure traditions of
The Goon Show to the television screen without diverting into areas of coarseness or topical satire to the same extent as other (more famous) British television series like
Till Death Us Do Part,
Monty Python's Flying Circus,
Not Only But Also,
Not the Nine O'Clock News or, much later,
The Young Ones.
There were satirical episodes of
The Goodies. These included
South Africa (apartheid),
Punky Business (punk), and an episode satirizing Mary Whitehouse's influence on television,
Gender Education.
The Goodies appealed to adults on an intellectual level, and also had a level of appeal to children as a consequence of its visual humour and slapstick.
Although there are similarities to the television series
The Monkees, with the group members employing music, slapstick comedy, bad puns and camera tricks; and all living in the same house together and working together, a tradition also borne out of the films of
The Beatles,
The Goodies owes nothing to either. Instead, the comedy of
The Goodies originated with the
Cambridge University Footlights revue,
"Cambridge Circus" (originally called
"A Clump of Plinths"),
"I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again",
"At Last the 1948 Show",
"Twice a Fortnight", and
"Broaden Your Mind" (enterprises from early
1960s onwards, in which one or more Goodies were involved).
Stella, an American trio, has a show on Comedy Central that is very similar to the Goodies in terms of basic plot line — with the trio even riding a tandem. The television series premiered in the United States on
June 28,
2005.
On
24 March 1975 Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from
King's Lynn literally
died laughing while watching an episode of
The Goodies. According to his wife, who was a witness, Mitchell was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which Tim Brooke-Taylor, dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of
bagpipes to defend himself from a psychopathic black pudding (from the Lancastrian martial art "Ecky-Thump") in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye." After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and expired from heart failure. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments so pleasant.
[The Complete Goodies —Robert Ross, B T Batsford, London, 2000.] [Man Dies Laughing at The Goodies, "Daily Mail", London (29 March 1975)] [A Goodies Way to Go — Laughing, "Eastern Daily Press", Norwich (29 March 1975)] (This incident was also confirmed by the Goodies, themselves, on stage during their February-March, 2005, tour of Australia, with the Goodies also commenting that they had received a letter from the bricklayer's widow, thanking them for making her husband's final moments so pleasant for him.)
Tim Brooke-Taylor was a writer/performer on the television comedy series
At Last the 1948 Show (which also included
John Cleese,
Graham Chapman and
Marty Feldman in the cast), in which Bill Oddie guest starred in some of the episodes. The famous 'Four Yorkshiremen' sketch was co-written by the four writers/performers of the series — Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman. The '
Four Yorkshiremen' sketch was one of the few sketches which survived the destruction of the series (by the tapes being wiped), by
David Frost's Paradine Productions (which produced the series). The 'Four Yorkshiremen' sketch appears on the DVD of
At Last the 1948 Show. It is fortunate that any episodes remain after the wholesale destruction of the episodes of the series — and these were only saved because John Cleese discovered to his horror that the tapes for "At Last the 1948 Show" were being destroyed and fought to save the remaining 5 episodes from suffering the same fate. There were originally 13 episodes of the series altogether — so more than half of the episodes of the series have been lost to posterity (all the surviving material was released on DVD in 2005).
Tim was a cast member of the television comedy series
Marty with Marty Feldman and
John Junkin — a compilation of the two series of
"Marty" has been released on a DVD with the title of
"It's Marty".
Tim was also a cast member of John Cleese's special
How to Irritate People.
Tim was a regular cast member of the long running Radio 2 comedy sketch show
Hello, Cheeky! along with
John Junkin and
Barry Cryer, which ran from
1973 to
1979. The series also transferred to
Yorkshire Television for two series in
1975 and
1976.
Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie were writers/performers on the television comedy series
Twice a Fortnight (which also included
Terry Jones,
Michael Palin and
Jonathan Lynn in the cast).
Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden were writers/performers on the television comedy series
Broaden Your Mind, with Bill Oddie joining them for the second series.
The three writers and performers also collaborated on the
1983 animated children's programme
Bananaman, where Tim, Bill and Graeme played various (voice) roles.
Bill Oddie has occasionally appeared on the BBC Radio 4 panel game
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, on which Garden and Brooke-Taylor are regular panellists.
Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie co-wrote several of the episodes of the television comedy series
Doctor in the House — co-writing most of the first season episodes of the series — and co-writing all of the second season episodes of the series.
In 1982 Garden and Oddie wrote, but did not perform in, a 6-part
science fiction sitcom called
Astronauts for
Central and
ITV. The show was set in an international
space station in the near future.
Garden was a regular team captain on the political satire game show
If I Ruled the World. Brooke-Taylor appeared as a guest in one episode, and during the game "I Couldn't Disagree More" he proposed that it was high time
The Goodies episodes were repeated. Garden was obliged by the rules of the game to refute this statement, and replied "I couldn't disagree more...it was time to repeat them ten, fifteen years ago." This was followed by uproarious applause from the studio audience.
In
2004, Garden and Brooke-Taylor were co-presenters of
Channel 4's daytime
game show Beat the Nation, in which they indulged in usual game show "banter", but took the quiz itself seriously. Oddie hosts a very successful series of nature programmes for the BBC. Brooke-Taylor also appeared on BBC's hospital comedy ''
TLC.
*Although
The Goodies are well known for performing spectacular but comedic stunts, it was
Tim Brooke-Taylor who performed most of them.
*It was one of the first shows in the
UK to use
chroma key and one of the first to use
stop-motion techniques in a
live action format. Other effects include hand
editing for repeated movement, mainly used to make animals "talk" or "sing", and play speed effects as used in the episode "Kitten Kong".
The trio reunited in
Australia for "The Goodies (Still A)Live On Stage" as part of
Sydney's Big Laugh Comedy Festival in March
2005. The show toured the country, visiting
Melbourne,
Brisbane and
Canberra and selling out most of the 13 performances. [
1]
A further Australian tour by the Goodies, sans Bill, took place during November and December 2005. [
2]
Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden will be taking their Goodies Live show to the 2006
Edinburgh Fringe festival. The show is expected to be similar to the second leg of the Goodies Australian tour, with Bill Oddie participating via video (due to his many filming commitments). [
3]
