The Goodies

The Goodies is a British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s. The series, which combines surreal comedy sketches] and situation comedy, was broadcast by BBC 2 from 1970 until 1980 &mdash; and was then broadcast by the ITV company LWT for a year, between 1981 to 1982.

Beginnings
The three actors met as undergraduates at Cambridge University where Brooke-Taylor was studying law, Garden was studying medicine, and Oddie was studying English. Their contemporaries included John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle, who later became founding members of Monty Python. This group of students became close friends and Brooke-Taylor and Cleese, who were both law students, but at different colleges within the university, studied together, swapping lecture notes. They all became members of the Cambridge University Footlights Club, with Brooke-Taylor becoming president in 1963, and Garden succeeding him as president in 1964. Garden himself was succeeded as Footlights Club president in 1965 by Idle, who had initially become aware of the Footlights when he auditioned for a Pembroke College, Cambridge, "smoker" for Brooke-Taylor and Oddie.

Brooke-Taylor, Garden and Oddie were cast members of the highly successful 1960s BBC radio comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which also featured Cleese, David Hatch and Jo Kendall, and lasted until 1973. I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again resulted from the successful 1963 Cambridge University Footlights Club] revue A Clump of Plinths. After having its title changed to Cambridge Circus, the revue went on to play at West End in London, England, followed by a tour of New Zealand and Broadway in New York, US (including an appearance on the top-rated Ed Sullivan Show).

They also took part in various TV shows with other people, including Brooke-Taylor in At Last the 1948 Show (with Cleese, Chapman and Marty Feldman), and Brooke-Taylor taking part in Marty (with Marty Feldman, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod). Garden and Oddie took part in Twice a Fortnight (with Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Jonathan Lynn), before Brooke-Taylor, Garden, and Oddie worked on the late 1960s TV show Broaden Your Mind (of which only about ten minutes survives).

Television Series
The Goodies television series was created by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, with the episodes for the series originally co-written by all three Goodies (Tim, Graeme and Bill). Later, the episodes were co-written by 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 also benefited greatly from the input of director Jim Franklin.

The original BBC television series ran from November 1970 to February 1980 on BBC 2, with 69 episodes, mostly thirty minutes in length except for two forty-five minute Christmas specials (The Goodies and the Beanstalk and The Goodies Rule – O.K.?).

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 threesome travelled around on, and frequently fell off, a three-seater bicycle called the trandem. One of these trandems was later cycled across Africa, a trip immortalised in the resultant book Three Men on a Bike. Although The Goodies are well known for performing spectacular but comedic stunts, it was Tim Brooke-Taylor who performed most of them. They also presented the Christmas 1976 edition of Disney Time from the toy department of Selfridges store in London, broadcast on BBC1 on Boxing Day at 5.50 pm.

In 1980 John Howard Davies (Head of BBC Comedy 1980-85) decided after ten years and continuing increased cost, to stop producing the series and decided to use the budget more wisely including creating The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy instead. The Goodies were made an offer where as if Hitchikers guide failed the BBC would given them another series. Graeme Garden explained in the "Return of the Goodies" during this period London Weekend Television offered the group alot of money with a three year contact. However, after one half-hour Christmas special ("Snow White 2") in 1981, and a six-part series in early 1982, the series was cancelled, when Michael Grade saw how much the first series cost to make. LWT continuled to pay the contract to the goodies but not to make any series. Bob speirs The series Director believe LWT under estermented complexity and cost of producing the show

Basic structure of the series
The series' basic structure revolved around the trio, always short of money, offering themselves for hire &mdash; with the tagline "We Do Anything, Anytime, Anywhere" &mdash; to perform all sorts of ridiculous but generally benevolent tasks. Under this loose pretext, the show explored all sorts of off-the-wall scenarios for comedic potential. Many episodes parodied current events, such as an episode where the entire black population of South Africa emigrates to Great Britain to escape apartheid. As this means that the white South Africans no longer have anyone to exploit and oppress, they introduce a new system called "apart-height", where short people (Bill and a number of jockeys) are discriminated against.

Other story lines were more abstractly philosophical, such as an episode in which the trio spend Christmas Eve together waiting for the Earth to be blown up by prior arrangement of the world's governments. The "Christmas Eve" episode titled "Earthanasia" was one of the two episodes which took place entirely in one room. The other, "The End", occurred when Graeme accidentally had their office encased in an enormous block of concrete. These episodes were made when the entire location budget for the season had been spent, forcing the trio to come up with a script shot entirely on the set that relied entirely on character interaction - episodes known in the industry as bottle episodes.

Repeats
Unlike most long-running BBC comedy series, The Goodies has not enjoyed extensive repeats on terrestrial television in the UK John Howard Davies has stated, on the 'Return of The Goodies' reunion programme, transmitted on BBC2 in 2005, that at that time, the slots available to him were not suitable for the Goodies. In 1986 BBC2 broadcast the episode "Kitten Kong" during a week of programmes screened under the banner TV-50, when the BBC celebrated 50 years of Broadcasting. In the late 1980s, the pan-European satellite-channel Super Channel broadcast a couple of episodes and the short-lived The 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 with Network Video 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. Series 9 (including the Xmas special) was released on Region 2 as The Goodies – The Complete LWT Series on 26 March 2007 and a fourth volume The Goodies ... At Last Back for More, Again was released on region 2 in 2010 as well as a DVD box set containing all four volumes to celebrated 40 years of The Goodies.

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. However, only clips of the series were shown, rather than any full episodes. This special was repeated on BBC Two on 13 November 2010.

Early on in 2006 a single episode Winter Olympics was broadcast on BBC Two but was not followed by any more. In February 2007, the 1982 LWT series was repeated on pay-TV channel Paramount 2.

In December 2010 BBC Two showed selected late night repeats of the BBC series, which ran nightly from 23–30 December. This apparent gesture followed years of campaigning by The Goodies that the shows had not been repeated like other BBC shows such as Dad's Army and Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. The episodes actually shown were: "Bunfight at the O.K. Tea Rooms" / "Earthanasia" / "The Goodies and the Beanstalk" / "Kitten Kong" / "Lighthouse Keeping Loonies" / "Saturday Night Grease" / "The Baddies" (a.k.a. "Double Trouble") and "The Stone Age", although "Scoutrageous", "Kung Fu Kapers" and "Scotland" (a.k.a. "Loch Ness Monster") were originally billed as episodes 1, 2 and 7 of the repeat run. They were shown late at night where they were unlikely to gain many new fans, although they did garner good ratings given their time slot, and the first six episodes were taken from the BBC's own master tapes, rather than the digital remasters, the rights to which are currently owned by Network Video, "The Baddies" and "The Stone Age" have never been digitally remastered.

Awards and nominations
A special episode, which was based on the original 1971 Goodies' "Kitten Kong" episode, was called "Kitten Kong: Montreux '72 Edition", and was first broadcast in 1972. The Goodies won the Silver Rose in 1972 for this special episode at the Festival Rose d'Or, held in Montreux, Switzerland.

The Goodies also won the Silver Rose in 1975 at the Festival Rose d'Or for their episode "The Movies".

Nominations
The Goodies were twice nominated for Best Light Entertainment Programme at the BAFTA Awards in 1972 and 1976.

Characters and production techniques
The show featured extensive use of slapstick, often performed using sped-up photography and clever, though low-budget, visual effects, such as when they built a railway station together, and awoke the next morning to discover that the construction equipment outside (steam shovel, bulldozer, backhoe) had come to life, and were lumbering, growling, and battling like dinosaurs.

Other episodes featured parodies of contemporary pop music composed by Oddie, some of which went on to substantial commercial success in the British charts, among them the hit single "Funky Gibbon" as well as character-based comedy. Some early episodes were interrupted by spoofs of contemporary TV commercials.

The group also acknowledges their debt to the usage of music in silent movies. In "The Movies" episode, they buy an old movie studio, and attempt to make their own epic film, MacBeth Meets Truffaut The Wonder Dog. After several 'takes', they argue and each begins to make his own movie in a different style. The episode finished with an extended silent movie segment, in which each movie comically interferes with the others.

The characters are based on the personae of the three characters: Garden, a bright but bizarre "mad scientist"; Brooke-Taylor as a conservative, vain, sexually-repressed, upper-class royalist; and Oddie as a scruffy, occasionally violent, left-leaning rebel from Lancashire. The group have suggested that the characters of Graeme, Tim, and Bill represent the Liberal, Conservative and Labour wings of British politics or middle-class, upper-class, and working-class stereotypes respectively. The characters played up to their stereotypes, but were not necessarily based on the actor playing the character, even though the actors played characters with their own names, and had some minor characteristics in common. In reality, Garden is a medical doctor, Brooke-Taylor is a lawyer who is not at all conservative ("But I had the double-barrelled name so I was always going to play the Tory" ) and Oddie is a pacifist, ornithologist and active environmentalist.

The Goodies episodes
The Goodies made 76 episodes (including specials).

Dual Goodies roles
Episodes in which the Goodies appeared as other roles, including appearing as doubles of themselves — while also appearing in their usual roles of Tim, Bill and Graeme — included the following:


 * "The Baddies" — in which Tim, Bill and Graeme also act as robot duplicates of themselves
 * "Daylight Robbery of the Orient Express" — in which Tim, Bill and Graeme also act as mime duplicates of themselves
 * "2001 & A Bit" — in which Tim, Bill and Graeme also act as their own sons — (Bill as Bill Brooke-Taylor, Tim as Tim Garden and Graeme as Graeme Oddie)
 * "Alternative Roots" — in which Graeme, Bill and Tim also act as their own ancestors — (Graeme as his ancestor Keltic Kilty, Bill as his ancestor Kinda Kinky and Tim as his ancestor Kounty Kutie)
 * "The End" — in which Tim, Bill and Graeme also act as futuristic Goodies.
 * "The Goodies – Almost Live" — in which the Goodies also appear as "Pan's Grannies".
 * "Hunting Pink" — in which Tim also appears as his 'Great-uncle Butcher'.
 * "Kung Fu Kapers" — in which both Tim and Graeme dress up as their fictional relatives to try to fool Bill.

Alternative Goodies roles

 * "Rome Antics", in which Tim, Bill and Graeme appeared as Ancient Goodies (the episode takes place during the time of the Roman Empire).
 * "War Babies", in which Tim, Bill and Graeme appeared as 2-year-old Goodies (the episode takes place during the time of World War II).

Tim's uncles
Tim's uncles are featured in the following episodes:
 * "Camelot" — Uncle King Arthur
 * "Farm Fresh Food" — Uncle Tom (played by John Le Mesurier)
 * "Hunting Pink" — Great Uncle Butcher (played by Tim)

Monty Python spoofs and imitations
The Goodies was a consistently very popular show in the UK, although, because it seemed to appeal particularly to younger viewers, some critics dismissed it as juvenile in comparison to the other contemporary UK "alternative" comedy hit, Monty Python's Flying Circus. In fact, whilst this comparison irritated them, Oddie, Garden and Brooke-Taylor were old university friends of the Monty Python cast, and had worked with them in the past, so there was considerable mutual respect between the rival shows. This led to several gentle parodies of Monty Python appearing on The Goodies. Goodies episodes, in which Monty Python's Flying Circus was either parodied or alluded to, included the following:


 * "The Goodies and the Beanstalk" — At the end of this episode, John Cleese portrays a genie in the guise of a Monty Python character and uses the Python catchphrase "And now for something completely different". When spotted and told to "Push off!" by Tim, he shouts dismissively: "Kids' programme!" before vanishing.
 * "Invasion of the Moon Creatures" — the opening credits of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" can be seen when Graeme switches on the television. Graeme immediately switches off the television in disgust because he has missed what he wanted to see (Moira Anderson).
 * "Fleet Street Goodies" — in which the Liberty Bell March (the theme for "Monty Python's Flying Circus") can be heard.
 * "Scatty Safari" — in which four Gumbies are featured.
 * "The Goodies Rule – O.K.?" — in which two Gumbies are seen on Skid Row.
 * "U-Friend or UFO?" — Bill plays the Python theme on the trombone with the aliens.

Missing episodes
"Kitten Kong" (episode seven from season two) is the only Goodie episode that is officially missing from BBC archives. However, an expanded, more elaborate version of the episode called ‘Kitten Kong: Montreux '72 Edition’, especially made for 1972 Montreux festival, does exist, and is said to have only minor differences with its 1971 prototype. The Goodies were awarded the Silver Rose at the 1972 Montreux festival for this special episode.

Several other episodes that were originally screened in colour are also missing, but exist as black and white telerecordings made for overseas sales.