It’s forty years since the first episode of „The Goodies“ was broadcast on the BBC, but you wouldn’t know it. For some (t)reason, the BBC rarely acknowledges the existence of one of it’s most popular comedy programmes. Originally entitled „Super Chaps 3“, „The Goodies“ were concieved, written and performed by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie. All three were Cambridge graduates, and had come to comedy through the „Cambridge Footlights“ comedy revue society, where they had met and worked with John Cleese, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman, later of Monty Python fame. Their first success came with the radio show „I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again“.

Walking the Cat

The idea that the Goodies would do „anything, anywhere, anytime“ was concieved so that the theme of the programme was as loosely pinned-down as possible, with the three living in their shared home in the London suburb of „Cricklewood“, and travelling on their supremely unwieldy „Trandem“ – a three-seater bicycle that they apparently never managed to ride for more than 100 metres, according to Bill Oddie. Brooke-Taylor played a pro-royal upper-class Union-Jack waistcoat-wearing conservative, Garden (who studied medicine) a slightly-mad scientist type, and Bill Oddie portrayed a left-leaning 70′s hippie character. The series lasted from 1970 until the early 1980s, racking up no less than 70 episodes including two christmas specials,although it suffered unfairly from comparisons with Monty Python, and the general attitude that it was a „Kid’s programme“ aimed at children, despite being shown after 9pm at night. The humour was highly visual, meaning that it translated easily – episodes made their way to Germany as part of „Englebert and the Young Generation“.
Memorable episodes include „Kitten Kong“, where a kitten is injected with growth serum by Graeme, and demolishes the Post Office Tower in a satire of „King Kong“, „Kung-Fu Capers“, where Oddie, complete with oversized flat cap, demonstrates the Lancastrian art of self-defence – „Ecky Thump“ – by beating people senseless with a black pudding, and „U-Friend or Foe“, which pretty much satirized then-current SF Blockbusters „Star Wars“ and „Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind“. The „Kid’s Show“ criticism was well and truly addressed with a pointed satire of Apartheidt („South Africa“) where South African police paint anything dark brown white, including Tim Brooke-Taylor’s tie.

Anything You Can Do

Unfortunately, due to some strange machinations at the BBC, the Goodies were rarely – if ever – repeated or even issued on DVD or video. The BBC claimed to have stopped making the show as the costs were high due to the special effects frequently demanded by the script, but, if that’s the case, why not repeat them to defray the costs?

Teaching the Dodo To Fly

The show is regularly repeated in Australia, where it has an enormous fan-base.

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Update: BBC finally repeat the Goodies after 25 years > read more

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