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. 105 12th August 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:

C&G CONTRIBUTORS: Garry Johnstone, Sarah Lacon, Daniel Bowen, Amy Rixon, Jennie Park, Michael Shaw, Chris Limb, Richard Nolan

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. GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARY - U-Friend Or UFO

6. GOODIES COR!! COMICS SYNOPSIS #32

7. QUIZ & QUOTE ANSWERS

(by "Magnus Magnesium")

QUOTE: "Too many times you've taken too much from us. London Bridge ... the Queen Mary ... Julie Andrews and David Frost. And we're grateful!"

(a) Which Goodie says this quote?

(b) Who was he speaking to?

QUIZ: This month's questions are from the episode: "The Race"

(d) Where were the Goodies supposedly cycling to when they won the Tour De France?

(e) What is the brand of Graeme's patented windscreen washer that drenches Tim with a torrent of bubbles

(f) What does the Baron do to the Japanese driver's car to nobble it?

(g) Which vital piece of mechanics has Graeme forgotten to fit to the Goodies race car

(h) What was Bill's indignant response to Graeme saying on the phone:"We are the Goodies. Le Bon Bon."

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:

WIG SPOTTERS ABOUND!

After last month's shameless plea for more contributors to join our merry ranks it's great to see so many new bods taking up the challenge. I haven't forgotten about the promised badges either - they will be delivered when my premium bond comes through (a little bit of spare time to do some scanning!) in the next week or two. Lone Scout's honour!

NEW GOODIES T-SHIRTS

Anyone who has visited the GROK webpage in the last couple of months will have noticed that we were out of stock of most sizes...

Well, that's all changed; new shirts have arrived and we are now fully restocked!

The webpage will be overhauled in the immediate future to intoduce our new style shirt - red with white 'The Goodies' print. The purple shirts and the blue ones you see on the current page have been 'retired' to make way for the new design. Also coming in the next few weeks is the Goodies cap - these are black heavy brushed cotton with red 'The Goodies' embroidery.

Now the bad news. For the first time since the Goodies T-shirts were introduced 6 years ago, we've been forced to raise our prices.

The new price for each shirt is $25.00 + postage (or $45.00 + postage for two).

However, as a special for C&G readers - all shirts are available at current prices until the end of August.

($20.00 per shirt + postage ($35.00 + postage for 2).

Please contact club Merchandise Officer, Richard Nolan (tshirts@goodiesruleok.com) and mention The Goodies Clarion and Globe when ordering.

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:

US GOODIES DVD RELEASE

(by Lisa Manekofsky)

"The Goodies - Three Classic Episodes" DVD was released in the United States on 31 July. Many vendors are still waiting to get it in stock (even Amazon.com is showing the title as being backordered). However, I was able to get a copy so I can confirm that it definitely is out.

Here's a brief overview.

The DVD contains the same footage as the "Kitten Kong" VHS tape which was released by BBC Video in the UK and ABC Video in Australia. Specifically, it has the episodes "Kitten Kong", "Scatty Safari", and "Scoutrageous". These are definitely the same versions as on the VHS tape - the episode titles are shown on-screen at the beginning of each show, "Scatty Safari" has the same edits, and the overall running time of the DVD is the same as the BBC video.

The DVD cover claims the episodes were digitally remastered. I'm not a videophile (who might be better able to comment on the technical quality of the episodes) but to me the colors look good (compared to a VHS release, not the 8-episode DVDs released in the UK and Australia which contain digitally restored episodes). The picture quality seemed pretty good. Since I was trying to evaluate the picture (rather than just casually watching the episodes) I did notice some graininess. It wasn't too noticeable on the people but was easier to spot if you looked at the background (for example, at the wall in the Goodies office). But, in my opinion, it is an improvement over VHS.

The cover claims that the disc has scene access but it doesn't.

The DVD is All Regions (aka Region 0) so it is viewable worldwide as long as you're using a machine capable of playing NTSC discs (or converting NTSC to PAL). Most computer DVD drives can play discs regardless of whether they are PAL or NTSC.

Scans of the front & back covers plus the DVD itself can be found at

http://www.goodiesruleok.com/images/jef.films.dvd.back.jpg

http://www.goodiesruleok.com/images/jef.films.dvd.cover.jpg

I'd expected this to be a no-frills release so I was pleasantly surprised that some effort was put into the menus and added features. The main menu has options to play all episodes, select an episode, or look at biographies or filmographies. All the text is done in the Goodies font. The background photo is the publicity shot of the Goodies on the trandem which is used on the main page of the club website (http://www.goodiesruleok.com ).

The DVD's main menu has an egg-shaped window which plays the first 30 seconds of the opening credits from "Kitten Kong". They've applied a fish-eye effect to the video, causing it to look like the video has been stretched over a sphere.

The episode selection page also has an animated menu. Above each episode's title is a 30 second clip from that episode (the fish-eye effect has not been applied to these clips). When you select an episode it begins playing (rather than taking you to a scene selection menu for that episode - as I mentioned above, there is no scene selection on this DVD).

The Goodies font is also used for titles on the biographies and filmographies pages (with the trandem photo as the background image). The filmographies are taken directly from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com ). Unfortunately, the DVD's "biographies" are also taken from IMDB, but on that site the information is just called Trivia. It's a series of factoids that readers have submitted to the website which fall far short of being actual biographies. The makers of the DVD didn't even bother to fix the punctuation and grammar. It would have been nice if they'd spent an extra few minutes browsing the web to come up with better sources for the bios.

In conclusion, I think this is a respectable release, although certainly not up to the standard of Network's DVDs. My hope is that "Three Classic Episodes" will open the door for the UK DVDs being released in the US by demonstrating demand for the show.

[By the way, if anyone knows how the Amazon.com rankings translate into actual units sold please drop me a line at president@goodiesruleok.com - it'd be great to know what those numbers actually mean.]

GIANT DOUGAL ALERT

(Garry Johnstone - Goodies-l - 14th July)

The Magic Roundabout sequence from Goodies Rule OK? was on BBC2 last night, as part of the documentary on the history of the bizarre Magic Roundabout series. First time I'd seen the show, so came as quite a surprise when the Goodies suddenly appeared, although it was apparently a repeat from BBC4 from last year.

WHICH GOODY ARE YOU?

These are a couple of links which I found that everyone has probably seen already. If not and you want to know which Goody you are, then visit the below web pages.

http://www.quizilla.com/users/slashshipper/quizzes/Which%20member%20of%20the%20Goodies%20are%20you%3F

http://www.youthink.com/quiz.asp?action=take&quiz_id=259

Interesting to see what results come up.

MORE SUPERCHALKS THREE

I think someone mentioned this before... at Southbank in Melbourne there is a set of Goodies pavement drawings. I went down there yesterday with a camera:

http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/2004/07/23/goodies

They are a few metres away from the Doctor Who ones that have been there for some time (but which are now severely faded)

http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/2004/03/24/found-at-southbank

(Daniel Bowen - Goodies-l - 23rd July)

AND EVEN MORE OF THE OSAMA...

I finally worked out how to get photos from a phone to a computer, so here's a couple of photos of the Goodies pavement drawings in Southbank, Melbourne:

http://www23.brinkster.com/nickrick/gallery7/gallery7.html

They're not as crisp and clear as the pictures Daniel so kindly put up for us all to see, but they do show where the Osama Bin Laden thing was which someone mentioned in earlier conversations about the drawings.

(Amy Rixon - Goodies-l - 9th August)

ABC DVD PROMOTION

I found this link whilst browsing on the internet hoping to find a confirmed date for the release of the new goodies dvd:

http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/promotion.asp?promoid=106

I was hoping for a September release but November is better than nothing.

TRANDEM SPOTTING

News of one of the Goodies' trandems:

http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/july04/trandem.htm

The cycle of life...

Goodies' trandem resurrected

The three-seater 'trandem' bike ridden by The Goodies has been brought out of retirement to promote an Edinburgh show.

Three-man sketch troupe The Trap brought the original bike on eBay for £600, and have spent several weeks fixing it up so they can ride it around the Scottish capital during the festival.

Only two trandems were ever made for the cult Seventies show, a red one and the blue one brought by performers Dan Mersh, Paul Litchfield and Jeremy Limb.

They say they are 'chuffed' with their new piece of memorabilia, which they brought from a collector in York.

Mersh said: "It's actually very easy to ride once you get the hang of it, as there are three people powering it along.

"People always wave at us, but we try not to wave back in case we lose our balance.

"I am sure it will come into it's own on the 4am journey from the Pleasance back to our flat in the Meadows"

Litchfield added: "I was thinking about getting some binoculars and growing a beard for the festival so I can really be like Bill Oddie, wo also used to take the back seat."

There is also a photo of the three performers aboard the trandem accompanying the article.

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.

* Taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3932665.stm

A family history TV show has led Bill Oddie to discover he had a sister who died when she was just five days old.

The presenter found out about Margaret Jean during BBC Two's Who Do You Think You Are?, a new show in which celebrities trace their family trees.

It is part of BBC Two's autumn line-up, which also includes terrorist drama The Grid, finance show Bank of Mum and Dad, and arts series The Culture Show.

Oddie said: "I have a personal history which I didn't know very much about.

"I was a good subject because there was a hell of a lot for me to find out."

The 63-year-old said he now believes his mother, who was schizophrenic and spent time in mental institutions, may have suffered from post natal depression at a time when the condition was not recognised.

Oddie moved to Birmingham aged six and was brought up by his grandmother. Margaret Jean was born a year before Oddie.

Other celebrities taking part in Who Do You Think You Are? include comedians David Baddiel, Meera Syal and Vic Reeves.

Presenters Jeremy Clarkson and Moira Stuart will also be tracing their roots in the 10-part series.

(David Piper-Balston - Goodies-l - 28th July. Also contributed by Michael Shaw)

* Taken from http://www.waterscape.com/newsandevents/news/Bill_Oddie_launches_wildlife_survey_20040803_154056.html

TV wildlife personality Bill Oddie today launched Britain's first ever "vole patrol" - the National Waterway Wildlife Survey.

Bill appealed for people across the country to visit their local waterway this August and record the wildlife they see there. Visiting Camley Street Natural Park on London's Regent's Canal, he pointed out some of the species that a canal or river visitor is likely to see.

"Britain's beautiful canals, rivers and lakes are havens for wildlife," he explained. "They are fantastic places for families to visit in the summer holidays as August is a great time to spot all sorts of waterway wildlife - including herons, kingfishers, swans, coots, moorhens, mallards, dragonflies, bats, foxes, frogs, toads and newts. You may also be lucky enough to see some of the rarer and shier species including otters, water voles, badgers, grass snakes and even seals!"

Whatever you've spotted, you can record it using the brand-new form at www.waterscape.com/wildlife. The interactive form links directly into British Waterways' national species database - so you'll be helping waterway ecologists to keep track of biodiversity.

Just behind St Pancras station, Camley Street is a perfect example of the wide variety of wildlife you'll find beside the water. Residents and visitors include birds, bees, butterflies, amphibians, a rich variety of plant life and some urban foxes.

The story also featured today (3rd August 2004) on London ITV1 news show "London Today" and "London Tonight".

(David Piper-Balston - Goodies-l - 3rd August)

* Radio Times (31st July-6th August) recently published their list of the Top 40 Eccentrics on British Television. Amongst such illustrious company as Adam Hart-Davies, the Two Fat Ladies and Graham Kerr was Bill Oddie whose contribution to the world of televised eccentricity was described thus: "hangs around gardens at night in Hawaiian shirts, watching birds". Insert your own sexist joke if you can be bothered.

* SIGGRAPH 2004, the international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, was held in Los Angeles on 8-12 August. Each year the conference has a computer animation festival called the Electronic Theater which showcases works from universities, the entertainment industry, and other sources.

For this year's Electronic Theater Aardman Animations submitted the series of promos they'd created for BBC 2's "The Big Read" which featured a computer animated bookworm with the voice of various celebrities talking about a favorite novel. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the selections included the one in which Bill Oddie talks about "The Wind in the Willows" as mentioned in C&G #96 and #97.

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

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

* "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Christmas Clue" is scheduled to be released on 4 October 2004 on both CD and audiotape. It should contain the 2003 Christmas show (probably an extended version rather than the one that was broadcast). No further information about the contents of this title are available at this time.

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 15th July)

* BBC 7 played the first episode of "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" yesterday - it will be available for 6 days (through Sunday night, UK time) at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/monday/

This 1972 episode of the series features all three Goodies plus Jo Kendall (from "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again") as the panelists.

(Lisa Manekofsky - Goodies-l - 20th July)

* This has just been posted by Mike to the ISIHAC Announcement group so many

many thanks to him. http://lists.topica.com/lists/isihac-announce

"Details for the first recording of the next series has been announced.

The recording will take place at the Anvil Theatre, Basingstoke, on Sunday 19th September. The ticket prices are £12.50, £10, £8.50, £7 and £5. The Theatre's box office telephone number is 01256 844244.

The other two recordings, one in North England and one in the South, have yet to be confirmed."(David Piper-Balston - Goodies-l - 13th August)

5. GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARY

First screened: 4th February 1980

Bill listens to a Salvation Army band one evening as a cloud of fog suddenly forms, a weird green light glows and the female trombonist is lifted high into the sky while her hat falls to Bill's feet. As he walks along the street with her hat in hand and ponders her strange disappearance, a male trombonist in a jazz band suffers a similar fate and things become even more curious when a man in an outdoor loo (who makes loud trombone-like noises after a hearty feed of baked beans!) is also lifted up through the roof into a strange glowing light.

The radio news also reports the strange disappearance of 76 trombonists from the U.S. Marines band at the Edinburgh Tattoo, but Tim is more concerned about preparations for the grand opening of his Knutters Knoll Knite Spot restaurant, which is located high atop a space shuttle-shaped hill that rises above the surrounding plains. He is rather annoyed that Bill hasn't shown up to help him, but Graeme comes to the rescue and constructs a robot to assist with various domestic duties which Tim soppily christens as EBGB (the acronym of its full title Electronic Brain of Great Britain).

Meanwhile Bill has parked his ute on a lonely road near Knutters Knoll and continues to quietly ponder the disappearances (and also the similarity between the shape of the Salvation Army hat and Knutters Knoll itself) when his vehicle is struck from behind by an empty van. It had been driven by the Torquay Trombone All Stars before they were all strangely abducted and Bill takes a leftover trombone with him in a bid to solve the mystery.

The next day, Tim is extremely cross with Bill for not turning up at the opening night at Knutters Knoll (as the huge influx of druids created quite a shambles), but Bill has other things on his mind and figures out the connection between the various incidents. While Tim serves a cheeky little Chateau Meths 1979 to a couple of tramps, Graeme also attempts to solve the puzzle (as he destroys Tim's carefully written menu on the blackboard with a list of the abductions), but can't spot the bleedingly obviously connection that all of the missing people played the trombone (apart from the man on the bog who had poetic licence!) until Bill tells him so. Bill's theory is that all of these people have been grabbed by the UFO's (which prompts a pained look from Tim!), but Graeme is extremely scornful and Tim is rather scared by the prospect of UFO's actually existing.

Bill finally prepares an order, but piles the food up in a shuttle shape on the plate, much to Tim's horror and Graeme surfaces from behind a bench with the Salvation Army hat on his head (and with an extremely loony look on his face which worries Tim even more!) and declares that Bill is simply in love with a Salvation Army trombonist (then tips the plateful of food inside the rubbish bin in EBGB's head, which in turn horrifies the two tramps). However Bill disregards this scientific shortsightedness and takes his trombone to the local park in a bid to summon up the aliens, but only manages to disturb the local flashers and attract some uncalled-for attention from a 'twilight zoner' until they all flee from a spooky alien being which lurches towards them along a path.

Bill races back to Knutters Knoll and bangs hysterically on the door, but Tim is too frightened to let him in and EBGB only manages to blast the door to bits, which doesn't exactly help to keep the weird creature out. However the alien is merely Graeme (complete with red jacket, brown beret, thick glasses, scientific apparatus and a very silly voice), who proclaims "Gawd I'm knackered!" after he has irresponsibly scared the pants off everyone while out doing a bit of UFO spotting. He gladly demonstrates his UFO detection gear to Tim, but they get so carried away that they don't even notice Bill being lifted through the roof while playing his trombone.

Bill is soon dumped back inside the building though, with 'reject' stamped on his forehead and his trombone unravelled as he couldn't play it well enough and Graeme locates the alien ship on his computer screen (which sends Tim into a state of mad panic where he even thinks that a trombone blast from the ship is the result of his own nervous state!). Graeme has trouble with trying to make contact with the aliens (not exactly helped EBGB's dalek impersonation!) and a look at television reveals that the aliens have tuned into the tv wavelengths (with the BBC logo, Patrick Moore's hair and a clay pot in the interlude all being changed to the distinctive shuttle shape).

To convince the aliens not to blast them out of the universe, the Goodies try to impress them with a show of strength as Supermen (and even manage to fly through the air - with the help of a hired crane!), but their aching bones afterwards tell them that they really need to send up an ambassador of peace and goodwill who even the aliens will respect - Tim as Supernun! Bill launches Supernun into space (with the help of a few sticks of dynamite under the habit), but not before mad scientist Graeme has slyly asked him to fit a nuclear warhead, which means that Tim is now a "five megaton nun, son!" (before he admits that he's "made a bit of a boob" after Bill tells him that they will be blown up too, then quickly adds "But I am terribly sorry!"). Bill is horrified by this, as he has just worked out the alien's trombone language and wants to make peace with them, so he takes to the skies in his Superman costume and after a game of tennis in space, he manages to knock Supernun out of orbit and away from the alien ship.

The aliens wish to land on Earth and naturally choose the shuttle-shaped Knutters Knoll to park their enormous glowing spaceship on (crushing the Knite Spot to splinters in the process of landing), as Bill goes to greet them armed with only his trusty trombone and to a 'loony signal' from Graeme for his efforts. After he initially gets a flat response from a trombone on the ship (which appears from a porthole like a gun from a battleship, to frightened gasps from the assembled crowd), Bill manages to get several trombones to merrily pump along in harmony to the Goodies and Monty Python themes, before a huge entrance portal opens up on the side of the ship and he prepares to go inside. In an inspiring speech, Bill tells everyone that these are the last surviving aliens and that this is a history-making meeting until he is rudely interrupted by something which plummets back to Earth. "It's a bird ... It's a plane ... (Graeme:) It's a nun!" - Supernun in fact, who detonates with an almighty explosion and puts an end to all life in the universe in the process.

* Graeme (to Tim): "Your problems are solved. This machine can do everything that Bill does. On the other hand, it has its compensations!"

* Graeme: "In fact, I could sell you a few dozen of these (EBGB's). You could open up a string of cafes up and down the country."

Tim: "Oh, like McDonalds hamburgers?"

Tim: "Neither do I."

* Tim (re Bill's theory that all the missing people played the trombone): "What about the man in the bog?"

Bill: "Hmm ... poetic licence!"

* Park Warden (announcing into megaphone): "All right you druids. Times up. Druids off. Have you druids got no homes to go to?! It's flashers hour as from now, 9 o'clock. Come on you flashers, let's have you!"

* Graeme: "EBGB, how do you speak to aliens?"

EBGB (as a Dalek): "Exterminate, exterminate!"

* Graeme: "Suppose they (the aliens) got their whole idea about what human beings are like from watching television?"

Bill: "Good grief, they probably think we're a race of Nicholas Parsons!"

(huge 'raspberry' blast from the trombone on the alien ship)

The Goodies (in unison): "Fair comment!"

* Bill (angrily): "Come on, own up. That nun was loaded!"

Graeme: "Well yes, a bit."

Bill: "How much of a bit?!"

Graeme: "Quite a big bit. That there is a five megaton nun, son!"

* Bill: "Isn't there any way we can stop them (Supernun and the alien ship) colliding?"

Graeme: "None ... nun! Ha!" (ducks for cover)

* The opening sequence with Bill witnessing the strange alien abductions of trombonists from a Salvation Army band and a jazz group (where they are lifted skywards towards a foggy green light), then seeing a man blowing off merrily in the outhouse after a feed of baked beans (Wife: "Dad, have you got a trombone in there?!" Old Boy: "No my dear!") suffering a similar fate, although the man's wife is quick to blame the beans, casting the empty tin into the rubbish bin in horror as he goes crashes through the roof of the bog!

* The various scenes with Graeme's robot, the Electronic Brain of Great Britain (EBGB!), especially where it gives Tim a hand (a round of applause followed by the first of many kicks and thumps from a rather cruel and detached Graeme) and also suffices as a rubbish bin for scraps, a tea maker (with it rather distastefully piddling the tea into a cup from a suspicious-looking little tube!), a vacuum cleaner, a clothes dryer and also a very suitable Dalek for good measure!

* Bill sitting at the wheel of his ute in the moonlight staring at the Salvation Army hat and pondering the connection between all of the disappearances, with a set of headlights coming ever closer down the hill in his rear vision mirror. There is a brilliantly realistic collision, with Bill spookily discovering that a van carrying the Torquay Trombone All Stars has crashed into the back of his ute because all of the trombonists have been abducted by the aliens.

* The entire scene with Bill practicing his trombone in a dimly lit park which has designated times for its various users (kite fliers, grass skiers, druids, flashers, UFO-logists, dirty persons and tramps!), with a warden ensuring that the druids and flashers are changing over at the correct time! Bill's tromboning upsets several flashers (one even screeching and flashing to the camera while still fully clothed!), with his desperate plea to the aliens of "take me, take me!" only succeeding in gaining some unwanted affection from a poof who rapidly departs in terror (along with several flashers, including one who dutifully gives Bill an eyeful on the way!) as a weird alien being wanders out of the mist, later proving to be Graeme out UFO spotting with his special apparatus, much to the disgust of a petrified Bill who is hiding under a table along with the panic-stricken Tim after EBGB has blown the door to Knutters Knoll off its hinges (upon Bill's command to "open the door" after a very cowardly Tim has refused to let him in).

* Tim and Graeme acting as loony UFO-logists and blabbering away about "mode reversal thrust indicators" while Graeme's UFO detection apparatus is going berserk (because Bill is being lifted through the roof by the alien ship while playing the trombone), before they finally think that they notice a little flicker on the detector ("yes ...yes ...... no!") and Bill comes crashing back through the roof with a bent 'bone and 'reject' stamped on his forehead because he can't play the trombone well enough, according to the aliens.

* Various cameos in the sections about making contact with the aliens and impressing them, including Tim freaking out with another "I'm a teapot" routine, Patrick Moore's hair turning shuttle-shaped, Graeme lighting a rocket attached to Superman Tim's nether regions (causing him to quickly sprint and plunge into a pond for relief!), Bill getting cross with Graeme for loading Supernun with a nuclear warhead and the intergalactic tennis match on Graeme's computer screen between Superman Bill and the alien ship with Supernun being used as the ball.

* The superb final sequence with the huge disco globe-like spaceship landing on Knutters Knoll, Bill communicating with the aliens by playing the Goodies Theme on his trombone followed by the Monty Python theme, the huge portal opening in the ship and Bill delivering a stirring speech about them being the only surviving aliens and this being the greatest moment in the history of the entire universe until he is stopped in his tracks by the crash landing of Supernun, who wipes everyone out upon impact.

Roger Brierley, Marcelle Samett, Ernie Goodyear, Richard Smith, Patrick Moore

Watching 'early days' sci-fi shows and movies has never been quite the same for me since I first saw this 'Close Encounters Of The Goody Kind'. Even after all these years, its classic visual sequences and super script ensures that it remains as one of the great comic sci-fi sendups.

BLACK PUDDING RATINGS SYSTEM:

IIII - Officially amazing.

III - Goody goody yum yum.

II - Fair-y punkmother.

I - Tripe on t' pikelets.

September Episode Summary –

6. GOODIES COR COMICS SYNOPSIS #32

11th August, 1973 No. 55

There's no doubt the Cor!! comics borrowed heavily from classic comic situations as did the Goodies. The difference is the Goodies usually created a witty parody which made the stories uniquely theirs. Cor!! sometimes succeeded at this as well ... and sometimes not so well.

Header: THE GOODIES ARE "THRONE" IN AT THE DEEP END, TRYING TO RESCUE A PRINCESS!

The Goodies are in their office and Graeme is reading to Bill and Ted from the Daily Drivel newspaper.

GRAEME: Hey, listen to this! Sheikh *Mustapha Bundle* has captured Princess Nocknees of Efgenistan and had locked her away in his *harem*! That gives me a great idea ...

TIM: If we rescue her ... we'll not only be *world famous* but *rich!*

The next panel finds the Goodies dressed in Arab women's clothes and boarding a single prop plane along with their trandem.

GRAEME: We'll have to get *inside* the harem itself ... these costumes should do the trick!

When their plane is over the desert near Shiekh Mustapha's palace, the Goodies parachute to the ground (the trandem is also attached to a parachute and thrown from the plane).

They land with a splash in the water of an oasis.

TIM: *GLUBB!* With all the desert to land in ... we had to choose the middle of an *oasis!*

As they move to get out of the water, they are faced with a man holding a gun on them; one of Mustapha's thugs.

THUG: Ah, ha! More ladeez for Shiekh (sic) Mustapha's hareem! Come wiz me, you are *officially captured!*

The Goodies pedal their trandem up a dune as the thug sits on the back seat and prods them on with his gun.

AND SO, THE GOODIES GOT TO SHIEKH (SIC) MUSTAPHA'S PALACE ...

A second, larger thug kicks the Goodies into the harem room.

TIM: I say ... this is no way to treat up well-brought-up ... er ... ladies! *Giggle!*

BILL: *Oooh!* You great big hefty thing, you! *Tee hee!*

Graeme contemplates their next move as a woman wearing a veil approaches Tim.

GRAEME: Now ... all we have to do is *find* the princess!

PRINCESS: Princess? *I'm* the Princess! *Princess Nocknees!*

BILL (thought balloon): This all sounds like a *pantomime* I saw once!