Series One, Episode Seven

PROJECT NO.: 11/5/0/2521

SR: Th 22/10/70 (#03)

TX: Sun 22/11/70 (#03)

ORIGINAL DURATION: 27’17" (archive records: 27’14")

ALTERNATE TITLES: ‘Police Public Image’ and ‘Love The Police’.

BBC F&TVA: D3-PAL

BFI: 2" CVT + viewing copies

SCRIPT: Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie with Tim Brooke-Taylor.

PLOT: The Goodies are forced into giving the police an image makeover by Deputy Commissioner Butcher, who invades their office and presides over them with brutality, intimidation and endless insinuations. The only suggestion they can come up with is that the police start to show their human side. The trio dress up as officers to show them how it’s done.

SEQUENTIAL ORDER: SS1 (FS1, two inserts), FS2, SS2, AD1, AD2, SS3, FS3, SS4, FS4, SS5.

CAST: Tim Brooke-Taylor (all bar SS4); Graeme Garden (all bar AD2, SS4); Bill Oddie (all bar AD2, SS4); Paul Whitsun-Jones (all bar AD1, AD2, FS3); Roland MacLeod (all bar AD1, AD2, FS3, FS4); Jim Collier ( court ledger [SS5]); Alexander Bridge (Butcher, foreman of the Jury [SS5]); Bartlett Mullins (padre [FS1]); Katya Wyeth (off-screen voice in court? [SS5]).

UNCREDITED CAST: Tim’s mum and a third officer [FS1], a road painter [FS2, FS3], shopkeeper [FS2], retired policeman gnome [AD2], two children, female traffic warden, cigar man, old woman, audience of eight for Graeme’s magic show, street trader, ten more children, two tramps, three grazers in park [FS3], plain clothes policewoman [FS4], nine sleeping officers in Police Intelligence [SS4], reappearing as jury? [SS5].

STOCK FOOTAGE/MATERIALS: A snowstorm and an Hawaiian beach appear amidst the CSO on Rent-a-View.

MUSIC/FOUND SOUNDS: The Oddie/Gibbs compositions are the ever-present ‘Needed’ [FS2], jingles for ‘Identikit’ [AD1], ‘The Coppe Shoppe’ [AD2] and a unique outing for ‘Love, Love’ [FS3, FS4]. Also there is a live rendition of ‘Give Police A Chance’ which, if you’ve been living under a rock for the last thirty years, is based on a song originally recorded by The Plastic Ono Band as their first seven-inch release in July 1969. The group comprised John Lennon and Yoko Ono and the song itself - ‘Give Peace A Chance’ - should be on any old Lennon compilation. The eighteen-man rendition in this episode is accompanied by a panto-style lyric sheet which descends from the sky. Other music in the episode includes some Hawaiian guitar ('Sweet Leani' ?) [SS1], a sax solo from Graeme [SS5], some pastoral number for ‘Identikit’ which may be Oddie/Gibbs’ responsibility [AD1], ditto the quirky jazz that opens ‘The Coppe Shoppe’ [AD2]. I’m also curious to know the origins of the music on the trio’s transistor in the park [FS3]. I’d like a copy of that - sounds like The Mar Keys. Sound effects comprise a gunshot, thunder and lightning [both SS1], traffic noise [FS1], crashing and skidding [FS2].

HATE FIGURES: The police, and to remarkably clumsy effect. The episode’s strength is that it keeps things simple, using a minimum of sequences, and avoids being overworked. The behaviour of Commissioner Butcher and his Sergeant is quite interesting, although it lacks the aplomb of ‘Army Games’’s Brigadier and Captain Hebbs. The latter episode created an inner logic to the arms race, showing us how the army’s infinite divisions each have an unquestioning self-belief. This is what makes their blindness to inherent stupidity ("cracking good show", "dashed clever" etc.) all the more amusing. In deference to ‘Give Police A Chance’, the guest cast manage to carry some pretty dodgy material without too many people noticing. Whitsun-Jones and MacLeod opt to play the characters large, all shouting and darting gestures which as an opposite to the subtlety of Richard Caldicot and Timothy Carlton is temporarily effective. They provide entertainment for half-an-hour with faultless timing, but their alternately subdued and explosive delivery draws unwelcome attention to incredibly irritating characters. This is really an excuse to give the police a kicking rather than create a second plot line with which to balance it. Ah well.

POST MODERN: Unless I’m hearing it wrong, Butcher grabs Tim by the lapels and screams in his face "so called sonny Jim, self-styled comic". Is this the first on-screen suggestion that they are living comedians in a TV show as well as its characters? Another neat little trick leads into the ad break. Oh sod it, here’s SS2 in full:

REFERENCES: When Bill sits idle, tripping on his sherbet, Graeme says "He’s turned in and dropped off. He doesn’t want to know. He’s rejected society. He’s escaped to a better world." This is a direct link to the dead head mumblings of Mr Timothy Leary, a pointless waste of human life which shuffled off this mortal ‘dreamscape’ in 1996. Some said that his command "turn on, tune in and drop out" spoke volumes to a frustrated generation that saw no value in social conventions. Funny, I just thought he was an emaciated git in a hat.

1. Nothing to report, other than a few aspects to the production itself.

2. At 3’12" there is an unprepared shot of Graeme nursing his shoulder, following the line "We got the job, that’s the main thing". A slight drag back at the beginning is noticeable.

3. A white flare at 4’00", which lands on the dizzolve between Graeme and Tim ("What on earth are you doing?") and bovver boy Bill ("I am just seeing how the police react to an ordinary member of the public".)

4. A boom shadow appears over the office door on Butcher’s arrival. This is marked in the above script extract.

5. At 12’42", during AD2, a member of the audience shouts "Oh yeah!" at the thought of handcuffs as a charm bracelet.

5. Paul Whitsun-Jones’ best line, "Who’s that puff?!", is delivered before Tony Blackburn actually appears on Rent-a-view. Still funny though.

1. The broadcast mixes too late into the opening credits. The loss is very slight.

2. The commercial break lands after the parody break, leading to a loss of 1". No dialogue or action is missing.

3. A traditional edit in Australian broadcasts comes home. Rather like the "bloody" and "groupie" edits in ‘Pirate Radio’ (#07) it is fair to speculate that the BBC Archive hold an alternate edit of this episode too. The ending of FS3 has never been repeated in this country since the early Seventies either. After the Goodies have paraded around, distributing love and happiness dressed as policemen, they descend on a lake in the park. Graeme removes the ‘NO SWIMMING’ sign and rows with it in a small boat, while Tim and Bill strip and go for a bout of skinny-dipping. This broadcast, like all UK repeats, removes 5" after a close-up of bystanders ("Amazing, they’re completely naked") and jumps straight to SS4. Here for the uninitiated is Bill’s arse:

1. The most significant absence is the title-sequence from this, the first of two 2-part screenings during 1994. A further loss of 1" deprives us of a fading theme and a close, establishing shot on Tim’s eye through the magnifying glass. The shot still translates quite well in this version.

2. The break occurs between SS3 and FS3, ruining the pace somewhat. The dissolve is missing, losing a close-up of Tim on the trandem and totalling 2".

3. Bill’s arse disappears in an identical manner to UK Gold #1. For goldfish then:

1. This second two-parter is a fresh edit, confirming UK Gold’s practice of acquiring material afresh for each broadcast. The edit point is 1" later at the start of SS1.

2. The break is at a different point, and what is most baffling is the decision to a) use the first series title-sequence for part two only and b) recap the action by 12". SS3 is divided across a day for no obvious reason, interrupting the action on Butcher’s line "Oh, it’s going too far!".

However, by these means we still get to see the missing shot of Tim from FS3.

3. Bill’s arse is gone though, which is more the pity because you can see right up it:

1. The ad break lands at the regular spot, between SS3 and FS3. On this occasion the cut is more extended at 3". Butcher’s gritted teeth "LOVE!" and Tim’s close-up on the bike are both missing.

2. Bill’s arse. Oh God...