Bill Oddie, Graham Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are the goodies

The Goodies, 1970

The Goodies had met as undergraduates at Cambridge University.  Up until 1973 they were regulars on the long running BBC Radio series “I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again”.

The  series combined surreal sketches with situation comedy and was a TV hit for twelve years.

The Goodies ran for seventy four episodes over nine series.  Eight series with the BBC and a ninth series and Christmas Special for ITV.

Summary

The basic idea revolved around the trio of Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graham Garden, always short of money, offering themselves for hire — with the tagline “We Do Anything, Anytime” — to perform all sorts of ridiculous but generally benevolent tasks.

Under this loose pretext, the show explored all sorts of madcap scenarios for comedy potential. Many episodes parodied current events of the time.  There was also the occasional Monty Python send up.

Clips

 

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Cast

Tim Brooke-Taylor
Bill Oddie
Graham Garden

Details

Channel: BBC2 (1970 – 1981), ITV (1981 – 1982)
Written By:
Tim Brooke-Taylor
Bill Oddie
Graham Garden
Original Transmission Dates: 8th November 1970 – 13th February 1982

Missing Episodes:

Kitten Kong (episode seven from season two) is the only Goodie episode that is officially missing from BBC archives. However an expanded  version of the episode called ‘Kitten Kong: Montreux ’72 Edition’ especially made for 1972 Montreux festival does exist believed to  have only minor differences with its 1971 prototype.

The Goodies were awarded the Silver Rose, at the 1972 Montreux festival for this special episode.

Several other episodes that were originally screened in colour only exist as black and white tele-recording made for overseas sales.