The Official Goodies Rule - OK! Fan Club Website

THE GOODIES CLARION AND GLOBE

THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF 'THE GOODIES RULE - OK' FAN CLUB

Issue No. 109 16th December 2004

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'The Goodies Rule - OK!'

Chadstone VIC 3148, AUSTRALIA

THE LADS AND LASSES OF THE C&G

- David Piper-Balston

COOL COR COMIC REVIEWER:

- Peter & Julia Stanbridge, David French, Amanda Stokes, Andrew Foxley, Robert Simpson

1. QUIZ & QUOTE - Goodies brainteasers for you and you and you

2. BOFFO IDEAS - News and club happenings

3. SPOTTED!!! - The latest Goodies sightings.

4. 2001 AND A BIT - Tim, Graeme and Bill sightings post-Goodies.

5. FEATURE ARTICLE - You'll Have Had Your Tea

6. GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARY - Robot

7. GOODIES COR!! COMICS SYNOPSIS #36

8. QUIZ & QUOTE ANSWERS

Plus ... THE GOODIES ARE COMING ... Supplement.

(by "Magnus Magnesium")

QUOTE: "Obscene, dirty, squalid, scabrous, salacious, lewd, randy, rude, outrageous, lubricious ... and a bit off!"

(a) A current affairs presenter says this quote. What was he referring to?

(b) Who were the Goodies pretending to be on this current affairs show?

QUIZ: This month's questions are from the episode: "Hype Pressure"

(d) Which favourite target of the Goodies had a book titled "Play The Guitar My Way - And Other Jokes"?

(e) Complete this quote by Bill: "I'm gonna give up music ..."

(f) According to Graeme, who wrote the song Funky Gibbon?

(g) What mark out of 10 did judge Tony Bitch give Dennis Droll in Tim's talent quest?

(h) What was the name of Bill and Graeme's act when they performed on this show?

The answers are listed at the end of this newsletter.

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:

The results from last month's website poll were:

* If I were to adopt a pet from The Goodies, I'd choose:

- Twinkle (aka Kitten Kong) - 64 votes

- Frankenfido - 18 votes

- The Dodo - 34 votes

- The Loch Ness Monster - 15 votes

- Big Bunny - 29 votes

- The tyrannosaurus rex - 1 votes

- Brian the giant cod - 29 votes

- Black and White Beauty - 14 votes

- one of the Kenneth's ("they're all named Kenneth") - 33 votes

- Rolf Harris - 124 votes

So Rolf wins again (sigh!)

At least Goodies fans are showing a bit more good taste and common sense this month, with the poll results as of December 15th being:

*Which Goodies-inspired holiday gift would you like to receive?

- a skateboard - 1 vote

- a skateboard destruction kit - 27 votes

- a large quantity of Mars bars - 11 votes

(including mine - incurable chocoholic!)

- an engraved piece of cheese - 13 votes

- a Goodies t-shirt - 50 votes

- a new Goodies DVD - 84 votes

- a chance to see the Goodies in Australia - 205 votes

- Rolf Harris 36 votes

It looks like our top two Christmas presents will be under the tree after all, though not for another couple of months yet!

HAPPY EARTHANASIA!

On behalf of the committee of the Goodies Rule-OK fan club, our best wishes to all C&G readers and your families for a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year in 2005 – especially in early March for Australian Goodies fans!

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:

GOODIES DVD VOLUME 2

(by David Piper-Balston)

Network have very kindly provided us with some information on the next Goodies DVD which should be released February 14th 2005.

The episodes to be included will be:

5-12 Bunfight at the OK Tea Rooms

There will be audio commentaries on three episodes and included will be a booklet written by Andrew Pixley featuring information on the episodes.

"Christmas Night with the Stars" - The Goodies 5 Minute Christmas

"Crackerjack" - A Man's Best Friend is his Duck.

A clip of the gymnasium sequence from "A Collection of Goodies"

GOODIES BACK ON BRITISH TV ... BRIEFLY!

(by David Piper-Balston - Goodies-l - 5th December)

(additional information contributed by Robert Simpson)

As part of a night of Classic Christmas TV 'Five' are showing "The Goodies and the Beanstalk" at 7pm to 7.45 Monday 27th December.

So finally the Goodies get another showing on British Terrestrial TV. :-)

Shame it couldn't have been the unreleased 'Goodies Rule OK'

The rest of the evening is taken up with 1979 Christmas special of Robin's Nest at 7.50pm; 8.20pm - George and Mildred; 9.00 Morcambe and Wise Show Christmas Special (from 1983); 10.05 Steptoe and Son (christmas episode 1974 - another shift from the Beeb), and 11pm - midnight, Ken Dodd's Comedy Heroes.

REMEMBER THE SECRET POLICEMAN'S BALL

(from information by David Piper-Balston and Alison Bean - Goodies-l - 9th December)

BBC4 have been trailing the documentary "Arena - Remember The Secret Policeman's Ball" with a very quick clip of The Goodies appearance at the Amnesty International comedy and music concerts.

The programme screens tonight 9th December at 9pm and again at midnight on BBC4 and gets a repeat on BBC2 29th December at 9pm.

I saw this documentary previewed at the Prince Charles Cinema last week. It's interesting and worth watching but the only bit in the documentary which concerns The Goodies are those clips which appear in BBC-4's trail. The documentary focuses mainly on the members of Monty Python and Beyond the Fringe.

4. 2001 AND A BIT

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 & 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.

* A new show called "Bill Oddie in Tiger Country" will air on BBC 2 on Sunday, 28th November from 18:00 to 18:40. Here's a description: "Bill Oddie embarks on a personal pilgrimage to Corbett National Park in India, where a close friend of his was killed by a tiger. In his search for the elusive tiger Bill encounters wild elephants in the morning mist, monkeys and deer watching out for each other and unusual crocodiles, and rides an elephant in an attempt to see the tiger in its natural habitat."

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 16th November)

* November 28th is going to be a busy day for Goodies fans. It appears Bill will also be in a show called "Seven Wonders of London" on BBC 1 London from 22:55 to 23:35.

The listing says "Bill Oddie explores London's seven most popular natural wonders. His journey takes him through forests, into secret gardens and along the Thames as he uncovers a wondrous landscape that has helped to shape so much of the capital."

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 22nd November)

* Who do you think you are? (repeat)

Friday 24th December on BBC 2

10:50 to 11:45 (55 minutes long).

"Bill Oddie. Series in which celebrities trace their ancestry, discovering secrets and surprises from their past. Bill Oddie embarks on a very personal journey to try and find out what happened to his mother, who was institutionalised for most of his childhood. It takes him back into the history of mental health in the post war years, then to the gritty story of the cotton mills at the heart of the industrial revolution in north west England."

(Lisa Manekofsky & David Piper-Balston - Goodies-l - 10th December)

* Birding With Bill Oddie marathon (repeats)

Sunday 26th December on UKTV Documentary

airing most of the day from 09:00 to 21:00

Sunday 26th December on UKTV Documentary Plus

airing most of the day from 10:00 to 22:00

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 10th December)

* Stately Stoats (repeat)

Friday 31st December on BBC 2

19:50 to 20:00 (10 minutes long).

"Nature documentary, narrated by Bill Oddie, following the exploits of a female stoat trying to raise a family in the grounds of Kedleston Hall, one of Derbyshire's finest stately homes."

(Lisa Manekofsky & David Piper-Balston - Goodies-l - 10th December)

* Here's a non-tour related article from http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3886081 :

Walkers 'Must Respect' Opened-Up Countryside

"PA" News, Tue 14 Dec 2004

TV wildlife presenter Bill Oddie said today that walkers taking advantage of new laws which allow them to roam the countryside bear a "massive responsibility" to respect it.

His comments came as he formally marked the opening up of thousands of acres of countryside to walkers in southern England.

"I am a supporter of the availability of the countryside more than it was but I absolutely believe that people need to be instructed on how to behave," he said at the Heatherland Centre in Ferndown, near Bournemouth.

"And they will also have to accept there will be areas that are still no-go from a safety point of view or a wildlife point of view. People must respect the countryside. It is a massive responsibility and no-one should regard it as a right."

Southern England is the third region to have areas of mountain, moor, heath, down and registered commonland mapped as open access land and open to the public under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act.

The latest launch follows the first landmark opening of the lower north west and south east areas in September, when ramblers, campaigners and others celebrated the historic new right with ceremonies in the Forest of Bowland and the Peak District.

Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael added: "This is another very special day for everyone who loves the countryside.

"Southern England has a wealth of wonderful open countryside which everyone has the right to enjoy.

"The CRoW Act gives everyone the opportunity to do just that, but I hope people make the most of it, bearing in mind that it is important to respect the needs of land managers."

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 14th December)

GRAEME SPOTTINGS

* On the episode of Little Britain which was screened on the ABC on 25th November, there was a brief mention of Graeme Garden on a sketch involving new and very unusual breakfast cereals.

Graeme's face was on a cereal box and the suggestion was that there would be chopped up bits of him inside every pack. Yum. Yum! For some reason this new idea, as well as few others which were made by the overly-eager but ever-hopeful ideas man, didn't go down well with the board of company directors.

* Masterchef (repeat, with Tim Brooke-Taylor)

Saturday 11th December & Sunday 12th December on UKTV Food and UKTV Food Plus 1 - various times

"Lloyd Grossman presents the amateur cookery contest, with contestants from the South-East of England. With guest judges former-Goodie Tim Brooke-Taylor and leading food-writer Claudia Roden."

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 10th December)

I'M SORRY I HAVEN'T A CLUE (ISIHAC) &

I'M SORRY I'LL READ THAT AGAIN (ISIRTA)

* For those in the UK, the Radio4 show which has featured both Tim and Graham has released a special Christmas CD. Not sure if Tim and Graham are specifically in it and I have not yet received my copy, but it includes the best of past Christmas moments.

Send a cheque payable to The Audiobook for £10.99 to;

RT Christmas Clue Offer

The Audiobook collection

(Peter & Julia Stanbridge)

* National Radio in New Zealand have been replaying editions of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue at the graveyard timeslot of six minutes past midnight every Friday night/Saturday morning for a few months now. The editions that have been played date from the late 1990's up to the 2002 series. They've all been played once, and it looks like National Radio are playing them all again. In addition, broadcasters Dick Weir and Lloyd Scott have both admitted on air how much they enjoy listening to the show each week.

* I found this Radio 4 Press Office info about the upcoming "Hamish and Dougal

Hogmanay Special" at http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/11_november/17/radio4_fri31.shtml

Hamish And Dougal Hogmanay Special

Friday, Dec. 31st 11.30pm-midnight

Hamish and Dougal, the two Scotsmen, invite you to see in the New Year from the vantage point of their Highland home.

Performed by Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, this Hogmanay Special also features Alison Steadman as Mrs Naughtie, Hamish and Dougal's long-suffering housekeeper, Jeremy Hardy as the local laird, and several surprise celebrity guests.

Music is specially arranged by John Garden, son of Graeme and keyboard player with the hugely successful Scissor Sisters, and performed by a four-piece ceilidh band.

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 1st December)

* I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue - NEW SERIES

18:30 Mondays at 18:30 on BBC Radio 4, repeated Sundays at noon, also available via Radio 4's Listen Again service for about one week after broadcast (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ )

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 10th December)

* Old episodes of "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" (ISIRTA) can be heard on BBC 7 on Fridays (each episode is then available for the next 6 days on their Listen Again Service). http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 10th December)

* Old episodes of "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" (ISIHAC) can be heard on BBC

7 on Mondays (each episode is then available for the next 6 days on their

Listen Again Service). http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 10th December)

* A new 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' spin-off book is due to be published next April... it's called 'Definitions' by ISIHAC producer Jon Naismith, and collects the best entries from the 'new definitions' round from the show. Should be in hardback at £7.99.

5. FEATURE ARTICLE

(contributed by Lisa Manekofsky)

From http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/29699.html

You'll have had your tee-hee

You'll Have Had Your Tea: Radio 4, Hogmanay: 11.30pm to midnight.

It is the first real icy day of winter and Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden are cocooned inside a family kitchen/dining room, trying to pull Hamish and Dougal over the threshold of the laird's fortified house. "We're on page 10 now," says Cryer, "and we still haven't got them through the door." At this point, clarification is needed. As it happens, we are nowhere near the draught of Scottish baronial. Indeed, our most northerly location is north London and the convivial Cryer residence at Hatch End.

And as far as Hamish and Dougal are concerned, a bit of discretion is required. They may be the fictional stars of Radio 4's You'll Have Had Your Tea but since the two possess as much savvy as a brace of clootie dumplings, it is hardly tactful to inquire if they represent their creators' alter egos. Yet to Cryer and Garden's delight, dim-wittedness hasn't stopped Hamish and Dougal from gaining such a nationwide rapport with listeners that they've been given "the half- hour leading up to the Hogmanay bongs" for a special production of the tartan spoof.

Of course, lesser scriptwriters, south of the border have been felled by a tossed caber for attempting to caricature the Scots, so how have Cryer and Garden got away with it? "Actually, the programme has a big following in Scotland and I think that's because it's so obviously written with affection," says Cryer. "And if its mood and tone are inspired by anything," he adds, "it's the Broons and Oor Wullie, which I absolutely loved as a child. In fact, so much so that my grandparents saved back copies for me to read on holiday."

For the uninitiated, YHHYT is bampot comedy which combines the surreal and the quaint in a very satisfying mix. Inhabiting a mythical Scottish village, Hamish and Dougal go about their daily chaos aided, or scuppered, by their shared housekeeper, Mrs Naughtie (Alison Steadman) and a nitwit laird (Jeremy Hardy) who lusts after a leggy socialite called Fiona Fitts Kneatley.

Cryer and Garden not only write the series but play the leads, which brings us back to today's pressing problem. The Hogmanay script - twice as long as usual- must be finished by next week, and so far what passes for a plot is all over the place.

"We've got little pieces of scenes scattered about but somehow we have to find a path through the wilderness in between," says Garden. Yet any sense of crisis is relieved by the fact that the two collaborators are old hands at extracting hilarity from panic. "It's like a jigsaw puzzle at the moment," says Cryer. "We've got lumps of dialogue and it's a case of plopping them into the right spaces."

Garden, the quieter of the two men, is one of the few authentic Scots in the series - he was born in Aberdeen - although the Hogmanay show will feature a cameo performance from Today presenter James Naughtie as Mrs Naughtie's son. Cryer muses that she's the only one in the script who comes near to what might resemble common sense. "But that's not saying a lot." Apart from Jim Naughtie's guest role, there will be Tim Brooke-Taylor turning up as a sniffy Sassenach toff, and also Humphrey Lyttelton, the pivotal character of Radio 4's classic, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, who will play a one-off butler to the laird.

The I'm Sorry reprobates, who include Cryer, Garden and Brooke-Taylor, have become something of a brotherhood, but then this masterpiece of clever quiz buffoonery has been running for 32 years and, indeed, it was Garden who dreamed up the game. In the past nine years it has hauled in a clatter of Sony awards for best comedy programme, regularly attracting an audience of two million listeners. "Many a TV producer would kill for figures like that," says Cryer.

But at the beginning, Garden wasn't sure if it would survive. "Some of my bleakest moments were in the early years of the show. We were contracted to do it but it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Then we got a run of really good producers who had a feel for it. They started to shake us up a bit and about 13 years ago it just took off and it's been evolving ever since."

By contrast, YHHYT reels backwards not exactly into the mists of Brigadoon but into a fog of daft confusion and place names such as Glen Close, Ben Kinsley, Loch Krankie and Loch Jaw. "The origin was a two-minute slot that Graeme and I did as Hamish and Dougal on I'm Sorry. It's incredibly shortbreadish really but that seems to be part of its charm."

The show's other distinction is ambiguity. "Hamish and Dougal live in separate houses but we're never quite sure about their relationship or what's going on with them and Mrs Naughtie," says Garden. "As for the laird and Mrs Naughtie," adds Cryer, "well, there's been talk in the village but no firm evidence yet." And the butler? "Ah, the butler. He's new to the area and he doesn't consider Hamish and Dougal fit to enter the big house. To Lyttelton, who's rather Jeevesish, we're just a couple of oiks." Cryer remembers that Eric Morecambe used to describe his double act with Ernie Wise as "two idiots together, only I'm the bigger idiot for thinking I'm smarter than him." That sums up Hamish and Dougal perfectly, he says.

As their real selves, Cryer and Garden couldn't be more dissimilar: Cryer, the crumple-faced bletherer whose generous helpings of wisecracks helped many a comic to big-time fame. Jimmy Logan, Tommy Cooper, Kenny Everett, Stanley Baxter - he's worked with scores of them and brims with racy anecdotes.

Garden, by comparison, seems almost introspective, the Cambridge Footlights graduate who went on to qualify in medicine at King's College, London, but who was so over-taken by comedy he eventually joined up with Bill Oddie to deliver the Goodies. He paints, writes novels, plays the banjo "in private" and recently he collaborated with Rory Bremner on his West End show.

But the best of all possible worlds, Garden says, is doing radio with an audience. "There's this sense of conspiracy because they know they're the only people who are actually going to see what's going on. They're in on the gag from the start." Cryer adds: "And they love it when we do re-takes because that makes them part of the trick even more."

Does comedy change over generations? "Well, yes, in that you can now say the a*** and f*** words etc and you couldn't 10 or 20 years ago," says Garden. "But you can't do swear words forever because that's a road leading nowhere," adds Cryer.

And Billy Connolly's crack about the British hostage, Kenneth Bigley, has raised the issue of whether there are any taboos left in comedy. "I think Billy is brilliant," says Cryer. "Someone who likes pushing things to the edge. Yet on that occasion it was a mistake. Now I read he claims he was misquoted. Being Billy, of course, he finds it very hard to back off."

Garden says that there will always be boundaries which comedians shouldn't cross on stage. "There are certainly medical jokes which no-one in their right mind would tell outside a room full of doctors. But I bet the web is packed with jokes about the sort of thing Billy Connolly was trying to do. It's the fact he was aiming to get a laugh in public out of the Bigley tragedy which people found offensive."

Time is marching on and Cryer and Garden can no longer delay thinking themselves into Hamish and Dougal mode. "Those two are so old-fashioned," says Garden. "It's as if they're operating in the days of the censor. That way, anything bawdy which does slip through the net is hilariously shocking."

And to those who say the double entendre means nothing in this aggressively explicit age Cryer maintains that audiences love it because it plays with language. "The double entendre is one of the joys of using words, and there'll be no shortage of it in the Hogmanay script."

No shortage, that is, if Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden ever manage to out-smart Lyttelton, the butler, and get Hamish and Dougal beyond page 10 and through that door.

6. GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARY

First screened: 9th January 1982

Graeme and Tim analyse the rather disappointing end-of-year profits and expenses statements from the computer and decide that there is only one thing left to do - sack Bill immediately! Despite his own admission that he is "useless, irritating and lazy" and an embarrassment to them, Bill is sufficiently angry to set up a picket line at the front door to protest at his redundancy due to automation. He returns inside to pack up his belongings (shoving them into a dirty garbage bin), but is shocked to find that Tim's state of extreme anxiety is not from a guilty conscience over his own sacking, rather because it seems as though Graeme is about to give birth! After a loud pop and a hearty wail, Graeme proudly appears with a blanket-clad baby - a robot (that even has his eyes!) which will eventually grow up to replace Bill, though Bill finds the whole idea so loony that he walks out for good.

After a few sleepless nights, Graeme and Tim soon discover that raising a baby robot is no easy task and they advertise for a nanny to look after it. Tim is initially reluctant to have some foreigner looking after the robot (and hanging their wet tights on his rubber duck!), but the beautiful bunch of applicants soon change his mind. However Graeme rapidly cures Tim's naughty thoughts by insisting that he must hire the ugliest nanny - the appallingly grotesque, bearded, big-knockered, funny-voiced Helga from Sweden (who just happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to Bill in drag!).

Helga takes the robot for a walk in the pram to a playground with evil chuckles along the way (as 'she' intends to take revenge on it for replacing 'her' in the Goodies), however it gets the better of her in both the playground and a construction site until she sends it off to sleep with a quick burst of 'Rock a bye Robot' from the sax and then dumps the robot at a scrap metal yard, with more nasty laughter as she flees. Tim is appalled by her lack of care (as he puts her over his knee and constantly spanks her white frilly knickers!) and Graeme is concerned that the robot has disappeared 25 times in the past two weeks (although it is programmed to return home each time, which constantly thwarts Helga's frequent attempts to get rid of it). He is also worried that the robot is staying out late on its own and although Helga (who by now has lost her Swedish accent and sounds just like Bill!) tells him that it is no longer a baby any more, it will always be a baby to Graeme, as the frequent screenings of his home movies prove (along with video evidence that Helga hates the robot with a passion and has been desperately trying to get rid of it for ages).

Graeme and Tim argue over whether the robot is a male or a female while Helga is of the opinion that "robots are totally without sex", which draws a derisive "Not for much longer sweetie!" from the robot, who has returned with his "tin trollop" and appreciates Tim's command to get up to his room immediately! Graeme starts to ponder where he and Tim went wrong as the robot ruins their lives (and the ceiling as it bangs and clunks around upstairs with its girlfriend!) and Graeme's attempt to set a good example when he dresses up as a good robot fails miserably when the robot takes a fancy to him. It is now only interested in sex and loud music (as the 'Funky Gibbon' blares from its speakers!) and when it grows long hair and a beard, Tim and Graeme are shocked to realise that it has turned out just like Bill!

Helga mounts a passionate defence of Bill (as Tim remarks "Knocking you off too, was he?! Randy little beggar!") before she finally reveals that she is Bill in disguise. He and Tim then make a patriotic speech which denounces robots for ruining the country and demands that they all should be melted down. This causes the robot to order all of the other kitchen appliances out on strike and Tim has to chase after them (to the tune of 'Come Back') as they race along the street. He is bombarded by toast fired from the toaster, gets a punch in the face from a boxing glove inside the robot's head, has a vacuum hose which rears at him like a python, spits a stream of chocolate milk in his face and tries to swallow him whole, before he is surrounded and charged at by the robot, Graeme's computer and a kitchen stove.

Tim appears to be trapped, but Graeme throws him a large magnet and after he pulls all of Graeme's magnetic robot gear off (which causes Graeme to make a quick dash for cover in just his undies!), he is able to use the magnet to latch onto a steel girder held high above on a crane. The machines crash heavily into each other below and set off a large explosion, as pieces of metal fly in all directions. Later, Graeme is using Bill (upside down on a stand with a hose in his mouth) as a vacuum cleaner and even though Graeme's now mangled robot says "Sorry mummy!" to him, he no longer needs automated help now that he has been able to "send in the clones" by mass-producing several copies of Bill, who imitates numerous household appliances like a mixer, stove, computer and record player!

* Bill: "All right, I'm going. But I'm going to take industrial action. And I'll tell you, you've got right up my nose!"

Tim: "And what are you gonna do?"

* Tim: "You might as well be the first to know. We're expecting a little visitor, a little stranger, the patter of tiny feet."

Bill: "You're gonna replace me with a midget!"

* Bill (thinking that Graeme is having a baby): "It's not possible! It's not natural! It's not very nice!"

* Bill: If you want me to go, fine, I'll go" ... "I mean, I know when I'm licked ... and it feels lovely..!"

* Graeme (in bed, wanting Tim to oil the robot): "Tim, it's your turn!"

Tim (dreaming): "Oh not now Maggie, not now!"

* Tim (when the doorbell rings): "Probably some au-pair in answer to our advert and you know how I feel about that. Some foreign slag mooning around the house, playing her Swedish punk records and hanging her wet tights on my rubber duck!"

* Helga (in a silly voice after Tim has warned her about her wet tights and his rubber duck): "It's all right. In Shveden ve know all about de kinky!"

* Tim (spanking Helga's frilly-clad bottom on his knee): "Helga you're a very, very naughty girl and must take greater care of the robot ... (smiles and continues spanking) ... botty, botty, botty ...!"

Graeme (crossly): "Oh, stop that at once! Helga, I said stop that! You're wilfully arousing Mr Tim! Yes I know your type - coming over here breaking up respectable families, flaunting your frillies, tantalizing vulnerable old men who should be past that sort of thing!"

Helga (in Bill's voice): "Don't worry, he is!"

* Bill picketing the front door of the Goodies office, holding up a placard reading 'Support Your Striking Mate' and having to take shelter under it as it starts raining. The rain washes away some of the ink, altering the message to 'Up Yours Mate', with Bill being thumped back through the door of the office by a burly passer-by who takes offence to it!

* Tim nervously pacing the floor like an expectant father and wishing he could be with Graeme, who is nearing his time much to Bill's incredulous disbelief, with Bill accusing Tim of always being closer to Graeme (because Graeme has less hair than Bill does!), but exclaiming "I didn't know they were THAT close!" in a shocked voice when Tim races off to be with Graeme! Also Tim's frantic reappearance looking for boiling hot water and his brief 'I'm a teapot' panic performance before there is a big pop and a newborn scream, with Graeme appearing holding a little white bundle and proudly declaring "Congratulations! It's a robot!"

* Graeme and Tim having problems tending to the baby robot during the night, especially Graeme singing "Rock a bye Robot" and bouncing it up and down on Tim's bed (because he is too selfish to take his turn getting up), pulling Tim's Union Jack pyjama top open and telling him to breastfeed the robot (G: "You know it'd have your nipples off!" T: "Why don't you do it?!" G: "I am not ruining my figure for anyone!"), Graeme sniping at Tim for never oiling it or draining its little sump and Tim groaning "Gordon Bennett! What oil did you use?!" at Graeme after the robot loudly breaks wind!

* The selection process for the new au-pair, with Tim getting rather randy over the bevy of beauties before him until he comes across the hideous Helga (Bill with beard intact and a blond wig, makeup, white fur stole, pink top, mini skirt, knee-length white boots and an enormous pair of cone shaped knockers!), firstly going "Ugghh! What's that!" (hopelessly cracking Bill up with laughter!), then hastily commenting "Oh don't worry dear, I'm sure you've got a beautiful mind!" and also choosing the "naff old tart on the end" upon Graeme's orders, but going over to a pretty girl at the front end of the queue and desperately trying to make out that she looks like a "duff old boiler" in a bid to get Graeme to hire her.