Index
» Oct 2008
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* THE GOODIES FAN CLUB CLARION AND GLOBE *
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* THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF 'THE GOODIES RULE - OK!' *
Issue No. 155 12th October 2008
THE LADS AND LASSES OF THE C&G
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EDITOR
- Brett Allender <clarion@goodiesruleok.com>
ACE REPORTER:
- Lisa Manekofsky
C&G CONTRIBUTORS:
Larynxa, Robert Simpson, Garry Johnstone. Alison Bean, Clair, Wackywales, Jess Norman
CONTENTS
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1. QUIZ & QUOTE - Goodies brainteasers for you and you and you
2. BOFFO IDEAS - The latest club news and happenings
3. SPOTTED!!! - The latest Goodies sightings.
4. 2001 AND A BIT - Tim, Graeme and Bill sightings post-Goodies.
5. FEATURE ARTICLE: An Oddie But A Goodie
6. GOODIES WORD FINDER SOLUTION (from #154)
7. QUIZ & QUOTE ANSWERS
1. QUIZ & QUOTE
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(by "Magnus Magnesium")
QUOTE: "A touch of the old hormones ... Now this time, think less about your stomach and more about your ... oooh just get on with it!"
(a) Which Goody says this quote?
(b) What has this animal eaten that it shouldn't have?
(c) Which episode is this quote from?
QUIZ: This month's questions are from the LWT episode "Robot".
(d) How do Graeme and Tim decide to balance the Goodies budget?
(e) Which feature does the Robot have that is the same as its "father" Graeme's?
(f) Which country is Helga, the new ugly nanny, supposedly from?
(g) Which Goodies song does the teenage robot have blaring from its speakers?
(h) Which domestic appliance almost swallows Tim whole?
The answers are listed at the end of this newsletter.
2. BOFFO IDEAS
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You can make it happen here. Liven up the club with a boffo idea for bob-a-job week. E-mail <enquiries@goodiesruleok.com> with your comments, ideas or suggestions - meanwhile these are the boffo ideas which our club has been working on this month:
WEBSITE SUBMISSIONS
Our Webmaster Tim Aslat has been slaving away outside the five mile limit for the past week or so to set up an email address to which Goodies fans can submit materials for the GROK website (such as images, files, & downloads). The address is groksite@gmail.com, so please help us out by sending us anything Goodies-related that isn't already available on-site.
WEBSITE POLLS
Last month's poll was a relatively serious question and indeed it was the two most "serious" responses that clearly polled the most votes, underlining the annoyance of Goodies fans that other comedy shows of the same vintage have enjoyed frequent rescreening on the BBC over the past 25 years while The Goodies hasn't been repeated properly once.
What do you think might be the reason the BBC doesn't repeat "The Goodies"?
- it's an evil plot of Nasty Person 23 votes
- don't want to restart Ecky Thump craze 17 votes
- too unhip to appreciate The Funky Gibbon 9 votes
- afraid it will make new shows look bad 60 votes
- think Nicholas Parsons masks too scary 3 votes
- too afraid of restarting Goodymania 13 votes
- fail to see how popular repeats would be 38 votes
- other 6 votes
- not enough Rolf Harris 14 votes
Total: 183 votes
Anyway time to jump off the soapbox and look at this month's poll, which is a choice of funky costumes suitable for giving others a fright on the night of Halloween. A Nicholas Parsons mask would be great for scaring the hair off people, especially if you're up for a bit of wigspotting and fish annoying as well, while Nanny Helga from the Robot episode would be a rather frightful sight on any night of the year for that matter.
So head to the website for a trick and a treat and cast your vote today. You know it makes sense!
Which Goodies inspired Halloween costume would you chose?
- Jolly Rock Lighthouse Keeper
- The Masked Scout
- Knight of Uncle King Arthur's Camelot
- Eurovision Raving Loony contestant
- Keeper at the Goodies Star Safari Park
- Grand Master of Ecky Thump
- In any garment made of string
- Black & White Beauty
- other
- Rolf Harris
3. SPOTTED!!!
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More exciting than getting your wig-spotters badge! If you've seen the Goodies recently, e-mail <clarion@goodiesruleok.com> with the details. Here's where we've Spotted!!! the Goodies this month:
FLIPPIN' 'ECK!
(Larynxa – 14th Sep)
The "Ecky Thump" craze has spread to California! Of course, California being the home of many weird things, they've added their own special touch: spice rub.
This story originally ran in the Fresno Bee, and was picked up by Associated Press, which spread it around the world. I saw it on a news ticker on the Toronto all-news channel, only, whoever typed up the ticker item described the weapon as a "foot-long sausage".
Here's the story, which I found on WalesOnLine:
08 Sept 2008
A man broke into the home of two California farmworkers, stole money, rubbed one of the men with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing.
Fresno County sheriff's Lt Ian Burrimond said 22-year-old Antonio Vasquez was found hiding in a field wearing only a T-shirt, boxer shorts and socks after the attack.
He said deputies arrested Vasquez after finding a wallet containing his ID in the ransacked house.
The farmworkers told police the suspect woke them on Saturday morning by rubbing spices on one of them and smacking the other with an eight-inch sausage.
According to the Fresno Bee newspaper, both the spices and the sausage came from the victims' kitchen.
After the man fled, the victims discovered the home had been ransacked and that some money was taken, Lt Burrimond said.
He said the money was recovered, but the piece of sausage used in the attack was discarded by the suspect and eaten by a dog.
"That's right, the dog ate the weapon," Lt Burrimond said.
"I tell you, this was one weird case."
GOODY MEMORIES
(Robert Simpson – 14th Sep)
(with additional information provided by Garry Johnstone, Lisa Manekofsky and Alison Bean)
Did anyone else catch Harry and Paul on Friday night on BBC1? For those that may have missed it the 2nd episode of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's new sketch show featured a Goodies spoof - "Hoodies", including a Hoodies version of the famous theme tune, and obligatory trandem. Perhaps echoing that great Goodies parody of themselves, Baddies!
The show is available via the BBC iplayer catch-up service until this Friday (UK residents only I think).
They've obviously been mining their memories of 1970s comedy classics as there's also a rather good homage to the Monty Python Wicker's World sketch in "Clarkson's World" in the same episode.
There is also a repeat of the episode on the BBC at 10.00pm on 15th September.
TOP OF THE POPS 2
(Lisa Manekofsky – 23rd Sep)
Fri, 26 Sept - "TOTP 2" on Dave at 9:00 is a repeat of a Comic Relief special which includes an archive appearance from The Goodies. This episode is repeated at 15:00 and again the next morning at 8:00.It is also being repeated on Fri, 10 Oct at 15:30 and again the next morning at 8:30
GOODIES RESCREENINGS
(Lisa Manekofsky – 23rd Sep & 1st Oct)
* Sat, 11 Oct & Sun, 12 Oct - "The Goodies" (probably the LWT series) is repeated on Paramount 2 each night from 21:00-22:00 (the repeated in the early morning - check your local listings for exact times).
4. 2001 AND A BIT
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If you've sighted Tim, Bill or Graeme in a post-Goodies role, e-mail <clarion@goodiesruleok.com> so that we can tell everyone where to spot a Goodie nowadays. Those of you seeking radio and tv alerts between issues of the C&G should consider signing up for the Goodies-l mailing list (more details available on the club website), as our crack (cracked?!) team of reporters attempt to post alerts as the information becomes available.
** (All items in this section contributed by Lisa Manekofsky, except where otherwise credited) **
BILL SPOTTINGS
(22nd Sep)
(23rd Sep)
* Sat, 4 Oct - "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" on Dave at 23:00 is a repeat of the episode with Bill. It's scheduled to be shown again on Sun, 5 Oct at 01:40.
(23rd Sep)
* Fri, 10 Oct - "Natural World" on UKTV Gardens at 19:00 is a repeat of "The Eagle Has Landed", a documentary narrated by Bill. It will be shown again at 23:00, then on Sunday, 11 Oct at 07:00 and 11:00.
(1st Oct)
Bill's appearance in BBC 7's "Comedy Controller" is scheduled to be repeated tomorrow (Oct 11th). Following is a listing for the show.
The Selection
Comedy Controller: Bill Oddie
There's a difference to this week's selection programme as Bill Oddie delivers his thesis on The Development of Radio Comedy in the 20th Century. This hugely entertaining lecture from Oddie the Ornothologist, incorporates: 'Up The Pole' (1st broadcast 01/11/1948), 'ITMA' (06/01/1949), 'Archie's The Boy' (11/11/1954), 'Beyond Our Ken' (27/05/1960), 'On The Hour' (14/05/1992) and 'On The Town with the League of Gentlemen' (27/11/1997). Saturday at 9am, 8pm and 3am
The show can be heard online from http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio7/ and it will be available from Listen Again (via the BBC iplayer) for a week after broadcast.
(10th Oct)
GRAEME SPOTTINGS
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(Clair – 22nd Sep)
* Thurs, 25 Sept & Thurs, 2 Oct- "The Long Hot Satsuma", a 1980's sketch show starring Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer, & Alison Steadman, is repeated on BBC 7 at 23:30. Each episode can be heard worldwide from www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7 ; they will be available from Listen Again for a week after broadcast.
(23rd Sep)
* Sun, 5 Oct - "Holby City" on UKTV Gold at 00:55 is a repeat of an episode with Graeme. It is Series 6, episode 16 entitled "The Buck Stops Here".
(23rd Sep)
* Tues, 7 Oct - "Comedy Classics" on ITV1 at 22:35-23:35. This episode in the series about classic sitcoms looks at Doctor in the House. Graeme & Bill were among the writers for the series. (thanks to wackywales for mentioning this in the club forums)
(1st Oct)
* Graeme is one of the celebrities who have contributed an angel drawing in
support of The Kaos Signing Choir for Deaf & Hearing Children.
A small version of Graeme's drawing, among others, can be seen at
http://www.thekaos.org/auction.html , along with the bidding information for the auction which is being held in The Palace Suite, Alexandra Palace, London N22 7AY from 7.30pm to midnight on Saturday 18th October 2008
(from information by Lisa Manekofsky & Jess Norman - 1st Oct)
TIM SPOTTINGS
* Sundays - "Hello Cheeky" (with Tim) on BBC 7 at 13:30 (repeated later in the day at 19:30 and Monday morning at 6:30). The show can be heard worldwide via the internet from www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7 ; each episode will be available for a week after broadcast from Listen Again.
(23rd Sep)
I'M SORRY I HAVEN'T A CLUE (ISIHAC) and
I'M SORRY I'LL READ THAT AGAIN (ISIRTA)
The following is a mailing from the official I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue mailing list.
An additional piece of ISIHAC news comes from last week's BBC 7 Newsletter, which said, "Fans of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue will be pleased to know that the series (archive programmes of course) will be returning to BBC 7 later in the autumn."
Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member,
It seems an opportune moment to communicate after the hiatus caused by the death of our beloved Chairman Humph in April this year.
Firstly, on behalf of the team, I'd like to thank the thousands of you who sent us messages of condolence. There were so many I regret I have still not replied to 900 or so - I promise I will in due course. And belatedly, on Humph's behalf, I'd like to thank the thousands who sent Humph "Get Well" messages when he first went into hospital. I spent several hours printing out as many as I could and took a huge pile of them in for Humph to read in his hospital bed. I'm so pleased he was able to appreciate the scale of everyone's affection for him at what must have been a very worrying time.
You will probably have heard the various Radio tributes to Humph since his death. I do hope you caught the ISIHAC team's tribute to the great man on 15th June narrated by Stephen Fry. If you didn't, I'm pleased to say that BBC Audiobooks will be releasing it later this year, together with the show Humph In Wonderland which we recorded last Christmas. I will send further details of these in due course.
And you might also have read Radio 4's announcement that we will be continuing with I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue in 2009. We have all been slightly ambivalent about continuing the show without Humph, but have been greatly encouraged by the huge number of emails you've sent encouraging us to keep going. Despite the rumours, we've made no decisions about possible replacements for Humph, and are unlikely to make any decisions this year at least. Certainly I don't envisage us selecting anyone on a permanent basis for several series.
For anyone suffering withdrawal symptoms in the absence of their biannual dose of 'Clue', there are several programmes and publications either currently available or in the pipeline...
* On BBC iPlayer you can currently catch both the BBC4 tribute to Humph, and a half-hour excerpt from the ISIHAC Tour show we filmed at the Lowry Centre in Salford earlier this year. This is the only complete film of ISIHAC in existence and was the last recording Humph made before he went into hospital just ten days later. We will be releasing the entire show as a DVD in due course, hopefully by Christmas. The links to the iPlayer shows are as follows: For the BBC4 Humph Tribute it's http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ddwcy/ and for the half-hour tour show except it's http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dmpd2/
* On 10th October our publisher Trevor Dolby at Preface Books is bringing out the complete collection of Humph's introductions to all the places we visited over seventeen years touring the show, written by Iain Pattinson. The book is entitled Lyttelton's Britain and contains a large amount of previously unbroadcast material. As I say in a foreword to the book, I think the combination of Iain Pattinson and Humphrey Lyttelton has been the single most important writer/performer partnership in British Radio since Galton & Simpson started writing for Tony Hancock. It's a wonderful and hilarious collection and I confidently predict it will be a best-seller. You can pre-order a copy of Lyttelton's Britain now, and Trevor is offering this book at a special discounted rate of 35% off the retail price to members of this mailing list - that's less than Amazon. Just go to http://www.chairmanhumph.co.uk/ and click on 'Pre-Order Now', then enter the promotional code 'Lyttelton' before purchasing, and the price will amend to £9.74 plus £2.75 postage, so £12.49 in total.
(17th Sep)
(22nd Sep)
(23rd Sep)
(6th Oct)
* The tribute to Humphrey Lyttelton which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 a few months ago is scheduled to be released on Audio CD on 13 November. Here are the details:
"I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: Chairman Humph A Tribute"
Audio CD
Release Date: 13 Nov 2008
Suggested Retail Price: £8.99
Product Description
"Stephen Fry presents a special tribute to Humphrey Lyttelton, the sublime host of "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", through the eyes of his close pals on the show and distinguished admirers, from Dame Judi Dench to Radiohead. The programme features many highlights taken from his thirty-six years at the helm of Radio 4's perennial antidote to panel games."
As a reminder for Clue fans, a number of other titles (listed below) are scheduled for release in the near future. If you'd like to write a review of any of these items, we're always eager for contributors to the club's website and the Clarion & Globe newsletter (send any C&G submissions to clarion@goodiesruleok.com)
* I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: v. 11 (Audio CD)
Scheduled release date: 9 Oct 2009
Recommended Retail Price: £12.99
Product Description
This is the eleventh quartet of "Clue" editions from recent series, with the regular team of Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer – plus special guest players - being given silly things to do by chairman Humphrey Lyttelton.
* Lyttelton's Britain: A User's Guide to the British Isles as Heard on BBC Radio's "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" (Hardcover)
Scheduled release date: 9 Oct 2008
Recommended Retail Price: £14.99
Short Product Description
The "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" team of Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, in the company of their esteemed chairman Humphrey Lyttelton, have been recording their BBC radio show around the UK for longer than any of them can remember...that's about week - or twenty minutes in the case of Barry Cryer. At each venue Humph would present a short history of the location, written by Iain Pattinson, to the mutual delight of the audience, the team and their delightful scorer Samantha (who somehow always found time for a rewarding poke in the area's back streets).We are privileged to present, in gazetteer form, the very best of Humph's local histories from Radio 4's multi award-winning 'antidote to panel games'.
* Last Chorus: An Autobiographical Medley (Hardcover)
by Humphrey Lyttelton
Scheduled release date: 25 Oct 2008
Recommended RRP: £18.99
Short Product Description
A feast for all his many fans and admirers, this is the great Humphrey Lyttelton s last book, a sparkling autobiographical kaleidoscope of memories, anecdotes, and entertaining stories from his colourful life, from his childhood as the son of a famous Eton Housemaster, through to his role as the irrepressible chairman of I m Sorry I Haven t a Clue.
* I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Live On Stage (DVD)
Release Date: 10 Nov 2008
Run Time: 90 minutes
(9th Oct)
5. FEATURE ARTICLE
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(contributed by Lisa Manekofsky – 22nd Sep)
An Oddie, but a Goodie
Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 21 September 2008
BILL ODDIE was the shouting Goodie - the strutting beardy one with a northern accent and a problem with authority, whose voice seemed perpetually hoarse from ranting and raving. A quarter of a century since the demise of the The Goodies, he's still noisy.
From his home near Hampstead Heath in north London, Oddie is talking to the Sunday Star-Times loudly enough to distort the telephone speaker. He chunters and chuckles and laughs wheezily, full of chumminess and chirpiness as he talks about his autobiography, which reveals that he has spent his life being highly strung to the extent of plucking the hair from his own head, terrified of his fans to the point of phobia, feared in turn by colleagues because of his grumpiness and ill temper, and latterly prone to clinical depression.
The odd thing is it took until he was 60 - he's now 67 - before Oddie realised there was anything wrong with him. Perhaps no one felt brave enough to tell a man with multiple wildly successful careers - actor, writer, comic, composer, musician, celebrity bird-spotter - that he was in fact a psychological wreck and a bit of a bully. Perhaps it was that everyone was misdirected by the fact he was forever being unnaturally cheerful.
"The one thing I never was was lugubrious," says Oddie. "You see someone like [depressive comedian and suicide Tony] Hancock, and you think Jesus Christ - you can see it all there."
Not that Oddie's problems are particularly secret now. His memoir, One Flew into the Cuckoo's Egg, published in New Zealand next month, is a portrait of the artist as a damaged child, interspersing boilerplate northern English childhood memories (uncomfortable school shoes, collecting birds' eggs, playing cricket with milk crates for wickets etc) with tales of family dysfunction - notably his mother Lilian's long-term incarceration in a psychiatric hospital.
In 2000, decades of suppressed anger and stress caught up with the motherless man, triggering the first of a series of crippling bouts of depression. A few years later Oddie learnt more of Lilian's story, finally developing some empathy for a woman he barely knew and felt only resentment towards the few times they met.
It turns out Lilian's decades of mental illness probably began as postnatal depression, triggered by a late miscarriage and then the death of a newborn girl after a difficult birth. Most disturbingly, Lilian's deeply unpleasant live-in mother-in-law had refused to call for a midwife as the birth went wrong, and had stopped Lilian from comforting the crying baby during the five days she lived. Oddie was born the following year.
Little wonder, writes Oddie, that Lilian ended up in the institution locals called "Barmy Hill". "You didn't have to be mad to live there," he writes, "just heartbroken."
The second half of the memoir, rather more cheerily, is a freewheeling collection of observations and vignettes from a life of celebrity and success, written in the form of an interview of Bill Oddie by Bill Oddie, in alternating typefaces.
Oddie's worldwide fame peaked with The Goodies, the madcap TV series co-starring Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden that ran from 1970 to 1982 and attracted audiences in the UK of up to 15 million people. The trio also wrote three bestselling annuals and had five top 20 singles and a top 20 album - Oddie wrote all the music.
From this side of the world, Oddie faded from view along with The Goodies, but he was still writing and presenting for British TV through the 80s.
Then in the 90s he parlayed his life-long obsession with bird-spotting into a career as a wildlife presenter. His enthusiastic and knowledgeable on-camera extemporisations on the marvels of blackbirds, grebes and the lesser spotted tit have made him famous all over again. He is recognised almost as often as during the height of Goodies-mania, only these days fans don't give him the screaming heebie-jeebies. Oddie and co may have asked for it by creating skits where they are attacked by a giant kitten or squashed with a weight marked "1 TON" but some fans had difficulty separating reality from fantasy.
"It was like meeting Tom and Jerry in the street," says Oddie. "They could punch us, knock us over and we'd still get up and smile at them. But of course that was not the case."
His new fans are far less dangerous. They include "little kids and grannies, and 90% of the time the approaches are really really nice, because you're not a cartoon figure any more".
The book's self-interview lets Oddie flagrantly boast about his talents and achievements, then save himself from appearing unbearably smug by switching fonts and accusing himself of being a "cocky little bugger". It's not as irritating to read as it might sound.
Oddie is less boastful, though, about the rivalry between the Goodies and Monty Python's Flying Circus, both of which grew from the ashes of the 1963 Cambridge Circus, the university revue that proved so popular it toured the world (including New Zealand). The Goodies never won the critical respect accorded their friends and rivals in Monty Python, writes Oddie. They were a pop group to Python's classic rock act; the Bay City Rollers of comedy versus Python's Steely Dan. How does Oddie feel about his team failing the posterity test while Monty Python passed?
"Bitter is the word, possibly," says Oddie. He pauses. "But not really."
Oddie sees the Goodies' legacy in the comedians who followed them, from The Young Ones in the 1980s to The Mighty Boosh this century.
"I get nothing but pleasure in thinking I might have influenced or even inspired a few people to have a bash. Though I've often thought the biggest inspiration for young comedians was to watch and think `bloody hell we can do better than that'."
Oddie has been to New Zealand twice. There was the 1964 tour with John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor and other members of the Cambridge revue, during which Cleese supposedly encountered the diabolical hotel service that would later inspire Fawlty Towers. And in 1981 Oddie was a Telethon celebrity, based in the Dunedin studio (other guests included Kamahl, Kenny Everett and Basil Brush).
He has fond memories of monstrous jetlag, charming locals and improvising a curled-lip punk version of the Telethon theme song, which to the best of his recollection was called "We're all looking for love". He also looked for birds. Once the jetlag was out of the way Oddie stayed on a little longer and hooked up with New Zealand's birdwatching fraternity, visiting Little Barrier Island and an albatross colony, and ringing yellow-eyed penguins.
He says he'd like to get back, perhaps make a wildlife programme or two. But his favourite Kiwis at the moment are the Flight of the Conchords. As the composer of hundreds of comedy songs and ditties for The Goodies and other shows, Oddie feels a strong affinity with New Zealand's hottest comedy export.
"I'm a big fan. I'm sure they have no idea that I used to write so many comedy songs... I doubt whether there's any conscious connection. But I'd be very proud to think that there might be, somewhere in the ether, because I love their stuff."
One Flew into the Cuckoo's Egg - Hodder & Stoughton, $39.99.
6. GOODIES WORD FINDER SOLUTION
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(by Brett Allender)
The solution for last month's puzzle contains hidden words and phrases relating to the "It Might As Well Be String" episode of The Goodies has 3 words (5, 3 & 4 letters) - clue: "one of the products that the Goodies advertise":
Nosho Dog Food
7. QUIZ & QUOTE ANSWERS
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(a) Graeme
(b) A chihuahua
(c) Frankenfido
(d) By sacking Bill immediately
(e) His eyes
(f) Sweden
(g) The Funky Gibbon
(h) The vacuum cleaner
YOUR SCORE:
8 Mastermind Of The Year
7 Goodies fan supreme
5-6 Clever clogs
3-4 Reasonably Goodie
1-2 Thick as old boots
0 Rolf Harris!
NEXT C&G EDITION:
- #156: 12th November 2008.
UPCOMING:
THEMED ARTICLE: "Goodies Targets: Tony Blackburn"
MUSIC REVIEW: "Spring Spring Spring"
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The Goodies Fan Club Clarion and Globe is copyright The Goodies Rule - OK! 2008. All rights reserved.
Permission to reproduce this work or any section of it, in any form must first be obtained from the copyright holders.
For further information regarding this publication please e-mail <clarion@goodiesruleok.com>.
For other general enquiries about the 'Goodies Rule - OK' fan club or 'The Goodies' itself, please e-mail enquiries@goodiesruleok.com
TO OBTAIN THIS NEWSLETTER IN WORD DOCUMENT FORM:
E-mail <clarion@goodiesruleok.com> requesting transfer to the Word mailing list.
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