Yup, any help u can provide, email it to me at [email protected] and I'll forward it on!

True story. Somebody once asked Jane Root, when she was controller of BBC2, if she'd consider repeating The Goodies. She replied, 'No, I've no intention of repeating *any* Lee and Herring shows...'

bILL oDDIE was int'd on daytime TV by that irish woman whose name I've forgotten and he said he asked Root about a Goodies anniversary special, and she said she had no plans to ever repeat any Goodies shows.
Maybe it's for the best.
Brilliant as they were, the cheesey racism hasn't dated very well

There was going to be a Goodies reunion in 1995, on the basis that the 2 videotapes sold well. They sold out. Where did it get to?

That was a BBC Enterprises venture, when they were a little more trigger-happy with backing new programmes. This was shortly after the 'Making Of Hitch-Hikers' and 'How Anneke Wills Felt About Recording Her 12 Episodes of Doctor Who' video specials.

A Goodies reunion would be dreadful, in any case. I think Graeme's written too many episodes of 'Surgical Spirit' in order to care. 'Astronauts' was the last nail in the coffin. Now, that *was* awful.

Cheeky racism? It would be difficult to deny the appearance of Tim as a Black & White Minstrel every other week. Nor is racism the only problem. There are stacks of animal cruelty episodes and several which were horribly sexist. Has anyone actually got through 'The Lost Tribe Of The Orinoco' and not felt a little insulted by it?

In fairness - and this wouldn't come across in 2000 on BBC2 - they used stereotypes as shorthand, which hardly helps matters. If the graphic violence was cartoony enough to be dubbed 'kids show', then why get wound up about Tim prancing around like a golliwog and waggling his hands? Because that's a little too blatant.

Another reason it should be left in a dusty box at the BBC is because they would eiher select later shows and annoy collectors, or begin at the start and work their way through. The latter would annoy viewers.

Forgot to mention a significant moment in the Goodies satellite repeats a few years ago. It was Summer 1995 (off the top) and they'd reached series 5. There was a break in the run to show 'South Africa'. Why? Because it was the day Nelson Mandela was elected in South Africa.

In case you don't know, this is the one where the BBC insisted on extensive re-writes. The episode had a litany of admittedly clever racist jokes, many from the first script. The best is Philip Madoc's piano which has one end of it's keys black, the other side white. All played for laughs. It's easy to miss it's mockery of apartheid, if you switch off to this barrage before it has moved on to apartheid of dwarves. Bill becomes a servant to TBT and GG, with an outrageous new femenine accent. Message clear?

I bet you two knew I would jump in here. :-)

I for one would love to see a complete run of 'The Goodies' again. I was recently in Australia for the Goodies convention (I must be mad) where the series is still very very popular as it has been frequently rerun, albeit edited down to a show suitable for children. With the advent of cable the shows get an uncut airing so the grown up children can see just how rude some of the shows were. :-)

OK, some of it is rather un-PC by today's standards but I must confess that is part of the fun, nothing more amusing then hearing a comment you know they really shouldn't have got away with.

The episodes screened at the convention went down very well with the audiences as did showings of 'If I Ruled the World' so if anyone from 'Hat Trick' is around, sell the show to Australia ASAP.

I'm sure I could come up with a list of truly brilliant episodes which would be far more preferable to another repeat of 'Are You Being Served' (nothing un-PC in that show now is there.)

So just how did Ms Root (a name that generates much hilarity in Oz poor lass) confuse L & H for 'The Goodies'? They are not even the same numerically speaking. Is she really in the right job?

David

Surely saying that "If I Ruled The World" went down well has just removed any merit that "The Goodies" would have for ging down well with the same audience?

(please excuse my grammar)

Re: 'Cheesy racism'...

Why do people talk about comedy being 'dated'? As a criticism, it doesn't mean anything.

Comedy shows are snapshots of the time they were made, and should ALWAYS be viewed in this way. After all, how else can you view them?

Otherwise, we'd only ever see comedy which is has been approved of as 'relevant to modern audiences'. (The same argument Paul Jackson used for butchering The Young Ones.)

Dave, please get in touch via this site. Your e address seems to be wrong or faulty this end. I have been trying...

Onto cheeky racism again. I watched season three's 'Where There's A Witch' last night. The Minstrels joke is brilliant.

I only feintly remember B&WMS, but, as The Corpses say, that & The Goodies were of their time. The joke itself can be missed now that B&WMS has effectively been embargoed from repeats. It was a joke completely in context at the time and undoubtedly would have been funnier. The audience laugh at the ridiculousness of Tim or whoever blacked up, because of the gesture not the colour.

As an addendum to 'South Africa', it is one of the best shows. A consistent string of jokes, incredibly fast-paced and well delivered. RACIAL jokes, not racist.

As for 'Are You Being Served' Dave, you're right, but the show bores me. 'Love Thy Neighbour's fine as well. UK Gold dared to repeat those in 1996 and taught us something. People lie to you.

The 'relevance' of a series *is* obviously important when repeats are considered. We are a very small minority of comedy completists/afficianados/pick-a-nicer-word out-of-the-thesaurus. We do not add up to millions. Modern audiences do.

It would be great to see The Goodies complete and unmolested on BBC-2 in a sensible spot where people might actually watch it. Even Sunday lunchtime would do. People would give it a try in their droves but I'm certain the BBC would panic and jump to later, shinier episodes. Who would they really want to please?

Fast moving colours and obscure cultural references. That's the L&H connection, if any.

Very quickly, the existing Goodies article in Edit News contains one important error - the first thing you slap your eyes on.

Only one episode is missing from the BBC shows. As for LWT, God knows, but Aussie fans seem to have no problem on that score.

The missing show is the original version of 'Kitten Kong', which was reworked for the Montreaux gong special in 1972. Anything else is on a format other than the standard 2" colour VT. These tend to get skipped.

'The cheesy racism hasn't dated well...'

I hate it when people flaunt completely received opinions under the impression that they've come up with a radiical and interesting view. Next he'll be saying that 90% of Python was rubbish and Smack The Pony should ditch the comedy songs.

Now this is quite a long shot, but I've been surprised in the past.

Has anybody got all of the Engelbert Humperdinck appearances by The Goodies?

There, I've said it.

>I hate it when people flaunt completely received opinions under the impression that they've come up with a radiical and interesting view.

What are we talking about here? Most of the people on this site have watched the shows in the recent past.

Is the racism cheesy? Come on Stewart, tell us more. You started it!

I was referring to Stewart Lee, not the authors.

I suspect most people on this list feel the same about the subject of racism in The Goodies. Nothing much more needs to be said other than a story about watching 'Encased In Concrete'/'The End' with a local telefantasy group. I'd popped in with a tape and they stuck it on, forgetting that Bill blacks up in the show. An Afro-Carribean member of the audience was in hysterics.

OK, this sounds like Bernard Manning's usual defence for racist jokes, but importantly the rest of the group panicked and nervously looked in the woman's direction.

Show Tim's camp producer in 'Hype Pressure' at a local gay group and I imagine you'd get the same laughs. I find the gay jokes and camp humour quite sweet and understanding. Just like all other Goodies jokes which attack the viewer's preciousness. It really doesn't matter unless you want it to.

I'm really starting to talk to myself.

Tonight's repeat of Only Fools And Horses contained quite a few jokes that could be called racist. But, being in the position in the nation's hearts the programme is, it got shown.

And quite rightly, really, because we're not idiots who can't view a show out of context. We know when it was made and the circumstances at the time, and while it might be a little embarressing to watch, it's no reason to keep an episode (or in the case of the Goodies, a series!) locked in the vaults.

When something like The 11 O'Clock Show relies entirely on the comedy of hate, that's when it's offensive.

I've only seen a couple of episodes of the Goodies and that was when I was quite young. I would like to see some more, because from those episodes it seems that I'm missing out on a good show.

Anyone want to talk about the Python referencing? Timbo brought it up on C4 the other week.

The received opinion is that The Goodies was Python with a plot. Not really true.

>Anyone want to talk about the Python referencing? Timbo brought it up on C4 the other week.

I haven't seen much of this show, but I do remember one bit which refers to the Pythons. It actually had a cameo from John Cleese - Tim Brooke Taylor had a magic lamp for some reason I can't recall, he rubbed it and out came Cleese as a Genie saying "And now for something completely different..." This got a huge laugh from the audience, and Brooke Taylor said something like "Push off!". Cleese looked at him, and shouted "KID'S PROGRAM!" and vanished. Excellent.

Chris, the show is 'Goodies and the Beanstalk', one of many which make direct reference to MPFC.

What I'm interested in is the bitchiness of some Python references in the show. 'Goodies Rule OK' (the one where they become pop stars. Well one of those shows.) has Bill and Tim wandering around a backlane dressed as vagrants. They bemoan The Beatles ripping their tunes off - suggesting all the greats fail and their copyists reap the rewards. Then he says "Alright Eric" to a pair of Gumbys. Just compare Python ratings and Goodies ratings and you should get the idea. Strange that the audience just react because it's a Python reference. It's a bit more knowing than that.

Also, and this is significant, there are a couple of shows of note from around the time of 'Holy Grail'. In 'Where There's A Will?'(filmed in 1973), Tim dresses up as a foxhunting Great Uncle of his. The butler follows him into the room with a pair of coconuts.....

Then there's 'Camelot' with stacks of the buggers and in the following week's show 'Planet Of The Rabbits'(1974) Tim and Bill are sent up to the moon to rescue a couple of rabbits. Graeme loses contact, checks his watch and shrieks "Blimey, it's ten past ten." Tunes the monitor to BBC and, hey presto, the Python credits. After a couple of seconds, he switches it off muttering "Damn, I wanted to catch Moira Anderson."

Seems to just be cheeky banter about mates of theirs who areforced to be competitors. Any ideas?

All those episodes are from 1973. Sorry.

Anyone got tickets to spare for Tuesday night's NMFT launch of Robert Ross's Goodies book? Contact me via the site. We knew nothing about this until it had sold out....