What is The Goodies?

The Goodies

The Goodies are a trio of British comedians: 

Tim Brooke-Taylor

Graeme Garden

Bill Oddie

They wrote and performed in their eponymous surreal comedy show during the 1970s and early 1980s combining sketches and situation comedy.

Brooke-Taylor, Garden and Oddie were cast members of the 1960s BBC radio comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which also featured John Cleese, David Hatch and Jo Kendall, and lasted until 1973. I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again resulted from the 1963 Cambridge University Footlights Club revue A Clump of Plinths. After having its title changed to Cambridge Circus, the revue went on to play at West End in London, England, followed by a tour of New Zealand and Broadway in New York, US (including an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show).
They also took part in various TV shows with other people, including Brooke-Taylor in At Last the 1948 Show (with Cleese, Chapman and Marty Feldman). Brooke-Taylor also took part in Marty (with Marty Feldman, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod). In 1968 Brooke-Taylor appeared with Cleese, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman in How to Irritate People. Garden and Oddie took part in Twice a Fortnight (with Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Jonathan Lynn), before Brooke-Taylor, Garden, and Oddie worked on the late 1960s TV show Broaden Your Mind (of which only about ten minutes survives).

The Goodies television series was created by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
The episodes for the series were originally co-written by all three Goodies (Tim, Graeme and Bill). Later, the episodes were co-written by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
The music for the show was written by Bill Oddie, and The Goodies' theme music was co-written by Bill Oddie and Michael Gibbs. The show also benefited greatly from the input of director Jim Franklin.

The original BBC television series ran from November 1970 to February 1980 on BBC 2, with 69 episodes, mostly thirty minutes in length except for two forty-five minute Christmas specials (The Goodies and the Beanstalk and The Goodies Rule – O.K.?).
It was one of the first shows in the UK to use chroma key and one of the first to use stop-motion techniques in a live action format. Other effects include hand editing for repeated movement, mainly used to make animals "talk" or "sing", and play speed effects as used in the episode "Kitten Kong".
In September 1978, the trio appeared in an episode of the BBC One television game show Star Turn Challenge, presented by Bernard Cribbins, in which teams of celebrities competed in acting games. Their opponents were three members of the cast of The Liver Birds, Nerys Hughes, Elizabeth Estensen and Michael Angelis.
The threesome travelled around on, and frequently fell off, a three-seater bicycle called the trandem.
Tim Brooke-Taylor performed most of the comedic stunts on the show.
They also presented the Christmas 1976 edition of Disney Time from the toy department of Selfridges store in London, broadcast on BBC1 on Boxing Day at 5.50 pm.

The Goodies never had a formal contract with the BBC, and when the BBC Light Entertainment budget for 1980 was exhausted by the production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series, they signed a contract with London Weekend Television for ITV. However, after one half-hour Christmas special ("Snow White 2") in 1981, and a six-part series in early 1982, the series was cancelled. In recent interviews the cast suggest the reasons were mainly economic – a typical Goodies sketch was more expensive than it appeared.
They had a string of successful chart singles penned by Bill Oddie. In 1974-75, they chalked up five hit singles in twelve months: The Inbetweenies, Black Pudding Bertha, Nappy Love and Funky Gibbon (all performed during the episode "The Goodies – Almost Live"), and Make a Daft Noise for Christmas.

On 24 March 1975 Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, literally died laughing while watching an episode of The Goodies. According to his wife, who was a witness, Mitchell was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which Tim Brooke-Taylor, dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a black pudding-wielding Bill Oddie (master of the ancient Lancastrian martial art "Ecky-Thump") in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye." After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the settee and died from heart failure. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments so pleasant.

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