Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Happy 40th Anniversary to THE GOODIES


Above: THE GOODIES: Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden.

It was 40 years ago this week that THE GOODIES TV comedy series premiered. The BBC's historian, Robert Seatter, has a remembrance of the trio at the BBC Blog.

Here's the opening of the show, which I haven't seen in decades. Thank you, YouTube:



THE GOODIES was scheduled near or instead of MONTY PYTHON repeats on my local PBS station. I don't think I have seen an episode since then.

I remember one bit where Bill Oddie is going to film a new old-time silent movie, and he spends much of the episode painting the sets black and white because that's the way a silent movie looks. It was a silly show, with pie throwing, chases and lots of physical comedy.

Here they are performing the very silly (and catchy) "The Funky Gibbon" tune, written by Bill Oddie. It was Britain's "5th biggest grossing pop act of 1975:"



Big hat tip to Jon Melville!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for this post, Mike - I've been a huge Goodies fan since 1976, when it was one of the only English shows on TV while I was in Sweden (along with Space 1999). If you're missing your Goodies, let's watch a few next time you're in Brooklyn - I've got a couple of DVDs!!!

richardcthompson said...

I'd never seen these but my wife has. She told me one of the only cases on record of someone actually laughing themselves to death happened while watching the Goodies. So now I'm scared to watch any more.

But you know, thanks, Mike.