The adventures of a crazy trio whose motto is "we do anything, anytime, anywhere."The adventures of a crazy trio whose motto is "we do anything, anytime, anywhere."The adventures of a crazy trio whose motto is "we do anything, anytime, anywhere."
- Nominated for 2 BAFTA Awards
- 2 wins & 3 nominations total
Featured reviews
Oddie, Garden and Brooke-Taylor shared a similar background and history to most of the Monty Python team. They also began as comedians while studying at University and various combination of Goodies and Pythons performed and wrote together for many television and radio comedies throughout the Sixties. Not long after Monty Python debuted on TV in 1969 The Goodies followed with their own series, which ended up lasting much longer. The Pythons aimed at adults, The Goodies at children, but for all their surface differences they shared a similar surreal Goons inspired wit, with an emphasis on wonderfully inventive sight gags.
Unlike Python, the show wasn't a sketch comedy. The basic premise was that out heroes would do anything, anywhere, anytime, which meant that they got into increasingly bizarre situations, which were often just an excuse for silly goings on and funny stuff. And the show WAS funny! Even today the best episodes stand up, and 'Kitten Kong', the unforgettable episode about a giant kitten terrorizing a city, must surely rank as one of THE highlights of television comedy, any decade!
The episodes were written by the trio and all stunts were performed by them as well. Their style was part slapstick and part dialogue driven comedy. Of the 75 or so episodes there are only a handful that do not stand the test of time (or taste, although the team have apologised for some of the incidental racism in the jokes which, however was standard for the time).
Some of the best episodes include The Giant Kitten (where a kitten is fed growth mixture, ends up two stories tall and eating London, and the Goodies have to don mouse suits to get close enough to inject the antidote), Pirate Radio (where the team start a pirate radio station, then pirate post office and Graeme attempts to take over the world), Goodies at the OK Tearooms (a western set in Cornwall where they mine for cream and scones, ending in a gunfight with sauce bottles) and The End (entire episode set in a room encased in a concrete block over a span of 100 years, with brilliant script and forced on them as they had used their series budget up).
The team had their start at Cambridge and Oxford with the boys from Month Python. They wrote a number of TV shows with the python lads and were good friends. The Goodies also starred in a radio series called I'm sorry, I'll Read That Again with John Cleese and some episodes written by Eric Idle which lasted for six years(1965-1971,1973). Monty Python's Flying Circus started about six months before the Goodies.
The Goodies was a classic TV series which is still funny and should be re-released on DVD ASAP.
That said I usually found their sometimes hysteric "Let's Be WACKY!" delivery a step down from the Monty Python method. And the theme song drove me nuts, it still haunts me with that irritatingly upbeat, "The Goodies...Goodies Yum Yum!" or something like that. It was over 25 years ago I last heard it outside my head.
By reading fellows commentators here, I now understand why my younger siblings enjoyed the show. They were very disappointed when WNET-TV here abruptly stopped showing it. They kept turning the TV on each week for months in hope it would reappear. This show was made for them.
Hopefully the series will be re-released in Britain and then brought over to the US.
Did you know
- TriviaAccording to the program Curious and Unusual Deaths (2009), this show caused an English man to laugh so long in 1975 that he died.
- Quotes
[the Goodies have been told there's half an hour to go before the end of the world]
Tim: At least there's time to do the ironing.
[Brings in the ironing board and a basket of laundry]
Tim: Just think, this is the end of Derby County... and the Muppets!
Graeme: The Muppets?
Tim: Yes, when we go, they'll go too, you know... oh, I do hope they don't suffer.
Graeme: They're not real, you know!
Tim: Well, of course they're real!
Graeme: Don't be silly... the Muppets are just dollies!
Tim: If they're "dollies", how come they can sing and dance and make sophisticated funny remarks?
Graeme: Look, Kermit the frog is a green sock.
Tim: [suddenly disturbed] What?
Graeme: Kermit the frog is a man on his knees with a green sock on his hand!
[to demonstrate, he uses a green sock as a glove puppet and imitates Kermit]
Graeme: "Hello frog lovers, and welcome to the Muppet Show! I'd like to welcome our very special guest, Miss Piggy. Yay-ay-ay-ay!"
Tim: Well she has GOT to be real.
Graeme: Pair of old y-fronts and a mop head.
[He holds up a pair of underpants and a mop head, and speaks like Miss Piggy]
Graeme: "Hello Kermit, spawn of my heart, frog of my dreams!"
[as Kermit]
Graeme: "Hi there Miss Piggy, and what can I do for you?" Fozzie Bear is a brown woolly jumper with a hat on!
[Holds up a brown pullover and a hat and speaks like Fozzie]
Graeme: "Oh boy, funn-y! Oh Kermit, I hope those two old guys don't heckle me!"
[Holds up two sponge balls and imitates Waldorf and Statler]
Graeme: "Boo boo, the bear's a comedian, the comedian's a bear! Boo, boo!"
[Waves a feather duster in Tim's face and bellows]
Graeme: "A-NI-MAL!"
Tim: [Nearly hysterical] No, stop it! Lies! LIES!
Graeme: [holds up the green sock again and sings] "Halfway up the stairs is the stair where I"...
Tim: NO!
[runs into the kitchen, screaming]
Graeme: I'll release his inhibitions through anger and violence! My life's work is at an end. I can die a happy man.
[Tim emerges screaming from the kitchen and throws the gas cooker at Graeme]
Graeme: You shouldn't have hit me with that! You'll ruin the cake!
- ConnectionsFeatured in Comedy Classics of the 80's (1991)
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