First watched : 1974
I probably first watched this when it followed Top of the Pops in July 1974 ( actually repeats of episodes first broadcast on BBC2 ). It quickly became one of my favourite programmes and remained so for the rest of the decade.
The Goodies met at Cambridge where they were closely associated with the Monty Python guys. Both Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor were presidents of the Footlights Club. Tim looked set to join the Python team but didn't feel he could match the input of the others in writing material and indeed he wrote the least for The Goodies. The trio had appeared together in other shows including the radio hit I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and Broaden Your Mind. The show always suffered some criticism as a lowbrow version of Python but I think most people would admit to secretly preferring The Goodies.
There was something of a local connection to the show as Bill Oddie was born in nearby Rochdale and back in 1980 my friend and I once met an old lady on a bus who claimed to be his mum. Lillian Oddie was still alive at this time so I suppose it might have been her.
The great thing about The Goodies is that from its premise of three ill-assorted guys ( mad scientist, highly-strung conservative and obnoxious anarchist ) available to take on any assignment it could go pretty much anywhere except for nudity and bad language. The shows took in slapstick, sight gags, surrealism , character comedy, a liberal sprinkling of pop cultural references and satire. Any popular film or TV show in the seventies was likely to be spoofed by the trio. What sealed its place in the hearts of people of my age was the special extended episode The Goodies Rule OK where the gang have to deal with a Britain under a literal puppet government i.e Sooty and Sweep, Hector , Andy Pandy and so on , all your childhood icons drawn into this marvellously silly scenario.
Some of it was un-p.c of course. It's difficult to imagine the episode spoofing Roots , which featured a blacked-up Enoch Powell , getting the green light now.
The Goodies was also famous for someone actually dying while laughing at the show. I heard this at school and for long assumed it was an urban myth but it is actually true. A guy's heart gave out while watching the Rochdale-referencing Kung Fu spoof introducing the martial art of "Ecky Thump" and his widow did send them a friendly telegram about it.
That happened in their annus mirabilis year of 1975 when, in addition to being in a top-rated comedy show they also had five hit singles all written by Bill , most memorably "Funky Gibbon".
The Achilles heel of The Goodies was that it was expensive to make and as soon as the ratings slipped a bit it was under pressure. Between 1977 and 1980 only 6 episodes were made. Not surprisingly the guys went over to ITV in 1981 but hit the same brick wall as Simon Dee , Brucie and Mike Yarwood with their show being cancelled in 1982 after only six further episodes.
The trio dispersed without acrimony and worked together again providing the voices on the cartoon series Bananaman. After that Graeme seemed to remember he was a doctor and presented the BBC series Bodymatters in the mid-eighties before returning to comedy writing. Tim became a comic actor in a string of undistinguished sitcoms. The two maintained their involvement in the long-running radio comedy I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
Bill of course went back to his childhood hobby of bird-watching and gradually built up a whole new TV persona as a grouchy wildlife presenter,
Bill's successful re-branding was helped by the BBC's aversion to paying them any repeat fees with extremely rare repeats of any of their work until a documentary show Return Of The Goodies in 2005. That year the trio did a 13 date tour of Australia . A UK tour in 2007 had Graeme and Tim on stage with contributions from Bill on video. Though now all in their seventies they remain active in TV and radio,
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