Index
» Introduction
» #1
» #2
» #3
» #4
» #5
» #6
» #7
» #8
» #9
» #10
» #11
» #12
» #13
» #14
» #15
» #16
» #17
» #18
» #19
» #20
» #21
» #22
» #23
» #24
» #25
» #26
» #27
» #28
» #29
» #30
» #31
» #32
» #33
» #34
» #35
» #36
» #37
» #38
» #39
» #40
» #41
» #42
» #43
» #44
» #45
» #46
» #47
» #48
» #49
» #50
» #51
» #52
GOODIES COR COMICS SYNOPSIS #14
(by Linda Kay)
(from C&G 85 – January 2003)
Issue 149
April 7th, 1973 No. 37
Cover banner: "Goody-Goody! TV Stars "The Goodies" Appear Inside!"
As in any form of storytelling, the best comics tend to be the ones which can introduce, re-introduce and tie together its various elements, making the narrative seem circular in fashion.
There's nothing quite as fun as a detailed story which develops its own in-jokes and resolves itself in with a good dose of irony. Throw in some comical illustrations, several names which double as terrific puns and some pokes at the legal system and football violence and you have another winner in the canon of the Goodies Cor!! comics!
Header: THIS TALE INVOLVES A ZEBRA CROSSING - "STRIPES" US THERE'LL BE FUN!
The Goodies are riding their trandem down a very busy city street, surrounded by huge, menacing cars which are speeding by. The have reached a zebra crossing where an elderly man is attempting to cross. At the same moment a very rich and corpulent woman is pulling her less-than-thrilled poodle over the last of the crossing. Having spotted her, The Goodies come to a screeching halt, which helps them to avoid hitting the elderly man who is directly in front of them. An angry motorist proceeds across the zebra crossing in front of the elderly man, narrowly missing him yet cursing at the poor man as he passes.
GRAEME: Cor!! Stop! That's Barbara Seville, the famous Spanish Opera-Singer!
ELDERLY MAN: AARGH! Look out!
ANGRY PASSING MOTORIST: Gerroff the road, you old nit!
The Goodies have stopped and the elderly man addresses them shakily. The Goodies are too embarrassed to admit they had stopped to look at the opera singer and not because of the crossing.
ELDERLY MAN: Phew! That was close! Nobody has any manners any more. At least *you* stopped for me, young fellers!
BILL: Yes, well .. !
Moments later the Goodies park their trandem on the side of the road and discuss what happened.
BILL: The old chap was right, you know! Everyone seems to have lost all sense of values these days!
TIM: Then it's up to us to put things right!
As they walk along they pass a football field where a fight between opposing players is taking place. A crowd of fans stand at the sidelines cheering encouragement as the long-haired, neanderthal-looking players pound on one another. The Goodies walk toward the melee.
FAN IN CROWD: Garn! 'it 'im, Charlie!
PLAYER #1: UNK!
PLAYER #2: DO-OOH!!
TIM: We ought to help sort this out!
Tim pushes himself between the two players (shoving one in the face quite bluntly) and begins preaching. Graeme and Bill stand behind him, as the referee comes rushing toward them angrily.
TIM: Come, come! Pack it in! This is no way to behave on the football field!
REFEREE: 'ere, what d'you think *you're* doing?
The referee boots all three Goodies off the field with one swift kick to their rears as the players and fans cheer.
REFEREE: Gerroff the pitch, you interfering busybodies, *I'm* in charge here! Right, lads, punch on - I mean, *play* on!
GOODIES: GAAGH!
The Goodies hurry from the playing field as the fight picks up where it left off.
BILL: Cor!! I dunno, there's no *gratitude* left in the world!
GRAEME: Tcha! Let's get back to our bike!
BUT BACK AT THE BIKE ...
They find a traffic warden writing them out a ticket. Double yellow lines are now next to the curb where the trandem sits. A fancy car with the license plate COR 149 (in the tradition of using the number of the comic book as a license plate number) sits right in front of where the bike sits.
TRAFFIC WARDEN: This your machine? You're parked on the yellow lines. I'll have to book you forthwith!
TIM: B-but the lines weren't there when we left!
GRAEME: And why don't you book that car?
A wide angle of the street reveals the Goodies have parked in front of a courthouse and are now being ushered inside. We can see a workman busy painting the double yellow lines along the curb further down the street (the lines have been painted *around* the fancy car!). A prisoner (complete with a ball and chain on one leg) is polishing the fancy car as a police guard watches. Neither the guard nor the bobby outside the courthouse seem to notice the two crooks walking out of the bank next door with two big bags of loot.
TRAFFIC WARDEN: A quick paint job by order of Mr. Wright-Burke, the magistrate. That's *his* car - and you'll be meeting him in a minute!
INSIDE THE COURTROOM, OUR HEROES HAD TO WAIT THEIR TURN ...
The Goodies watch as a huge thug sits on trial, his defense lawyer posturing before the judge.
DEFENSE LAWYER: ... And if it pleases the court, your learned worship, M'lud, sir, my client claims he came over all faint, fell against the jeweller's window, and smashed it! The 30,000 pound necklace must have dropped by chance into his pocket, and ...
JUDGE: Say no more, Mr. Scheister! Case dismissed and give the poor fellow a fiver from the till!
Tim looks ecstatic at this ruling.
TIM: Good gracious! If *that* villain got off *we* should get a medal!
BAILIFF: NEXT CASE! CALL THE GOODIES!
BUT ...
The judge leers over his bench menacingly.
JUDGE: You are a disgrace to society! I will not tolerate deliberate flaunting of our new parking restrictions! 50 pound fine with two hours to pay or three months jail!
The Goodies are booted out of court in the same fashion they were previously kicked off the football field.
BILL: Here we go again!
As they regroup on the sidewalk they see the criminal who was on trial before them taking off in the magistrate's car (tittering "Heh, Heh" as he drives off).
BILL: Hey, look - that villain who got off - he's pinching the beak's car!
GRAEME: Serves the old twister right, but we *are* the Goodies, and he's a *baddie*, so we must stop him!
TIM: How?
The Goodies leap upon their trandem and take off after the stolen car. They quickly catch up and Graeme tosses out a magnet tied to a rope which latches on to the magistrate's car.
GRAEME: We stick close behind using my patent magnetic tow-line that just happens to be in my pocket - thus! STAND .. !
As the car and it speeds off, the Goodies suddenly pick up speed as they are now being towed behind. It's all Bill can do to hang onto the back.
GRAEME: ... BYYY-YYY-EEEEEE ....
BUT SECONDS LATER, BACK AT A FAMILIAR ZEBRA CROSSING ...
The same elderly man is now crossing the street again, coming back the other way. A very large truck (bearing the name Jug o'Nort Removals) is approaching quickly (a motorcyclist beside the truck proceeds across the walk behind the elderly man). In the background we can see the stolen car with the Goodies behind it speeding toward the truck.
JEREMY, THE TRUCK'S PASSENGER: Stop, Cecil! Remember your 'ighway code, section
42! There's an old geezer walking across the crossing!
CECIL, THE TRUCK'S DRIVER: Perfectly correct, Jeremy! 'ang on whilst I slaps on me anchors!
The huge truck screeches to a sudden stop and the stolen car plows into the back of it with a tremendous crash. The Goodies in turn smash into the back of the wreckage and go flying themselves. The bumper of the stolen car (license plate still attached) goes flying into the air. The elderly man reaches the sidewalk unscathed and unaware of the major accident behind him.
THE GOODIES: NN-GGG-G!
HALF AN HOUR LATER ...
We are once again outside the courthouse and this time we see a policeman leading the judge and the crook, who are handcuffed to one another and wearing ankle ball and chains (the thug looking rather bashed and bandaged after his accident) to the dungeons. An inspector addresses the Goodies, who are themselves bandaged and bashed from the accident. The officer hands them a check.
INSPECTOR: Capitol work, Goodies! You helped rumble Wright-Burke's nefarious crime-career. He and that crook were partners-in-crime, using the car for various villainies! Here's 50 pounds reward!
BILL: So that's why he let the crook off! Well, inspector, justice prevails in the end!
Just as suddenly the inspector snatches the check back again.
INSPECTOR: Too right it does, because now I'll have to book you for dangerous bicycling! 50 pounds fine - TA!
The Goodies fall backwards in a faint.
THE GOODIES: *Oh, no*! You just can't win!
Sign-Off Line: BILL, TIM AND GRAEME RETURN IN ANOTHER EPIC COMEDY NEXT WEEK!
RATING (Using the BLACK PUDDING RATINGS SYSTEM):
IIII - Officially amazing.
This is another good example of The Goodies making the jump to the comics page in great form. Our heroes note a problem and set out to make it right, this time not for monetary gain but for the sake of goodness. Of course their efforts prove futile and in a standard comic strip ending they appear to have won out in the end only to suffer a final blow to their already bruised egos.
The artwork in this outing is particularly rich ... the massive crash between the car, the truck and the trandem is depicted in all its crunching glory, including the rubbishy contents of the truck flying up through its roof to litter the air. Several names in this story are puns in and of themselves ... Barbara Seville, the opera singer, Mr. Wright-Burke, the magistrate, and Mr. Scheister, the defense lawyer. There's actually quite a bit more dialogue in this story than usual but given the nature of the courtroom scenes it doesn't seem forced or excessive. The line- painting gag is straight out of an earlier Goodies episode (Give Police a Chance) although it's hard to say whether or not the artist was aware of the gag from watching that episode or not.
Once again there are pleasant details to discover, such as the tiny saw which can barely be seen working its way through a barred window of the courthouse in the second to last panel and the check presented to the Goodies at the very end being drawn from the Bank of Toytown. Graeme even gets to introduce a new invention, throwing out the wonderfully silly line about how it just "happens to be" in his pocket at the time. All in all a very fun piece.
As a New Year's treat we can now answer a question which probably no one has ever really wondered about (apart from this author) ... according to Robert Ross' book, The Complete Goodies, Tim Brooke-Taylor has an original Cor!! comic layout on his office wall. The burning question ... which one is it? We can now report the original artwork is from the February 24th, 1973 issue, which was reviewed in Issue # 79 of the C&G; this was the comic in which the Goodies set out to find publicity for themselves. Our special thanks to Tim for letting us know which Cor!! comic graces his office wall!
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