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Newsletter enquiries: clarion@goodiesruleok.com
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'The Goodies Rule - OK!'
P.O. Box 325
Chadstone VIC 3148, AUSTRALIA
THE LADS AND LASSES OF THE C&G
EDITOR
- Brett Allender
ACE REPORTERS
- David Balston
- Kay Dickinson
- Lisa Manekofsky
CROSSWORD WHIZ
- David McAnally
CONTENTS
1. QUIZ & QUOTE - Goodies brainteasers for you and you and you.
2. BOFFO IDEAS - Club happenings and ideas.
3. SPOTTED!!! - The latest Goodies sightings
.4. 2001 AND A BIT – Tim, Graeme and Bill sightings post-Goodies.
5. GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARY - Hospital For Hire.
6. QUIZ & QUOTE ANSWERS
7. THE GREAT GOODIES CROSSWORD SOLUTION
.
.
1. QUIZ & QUOTE
(by "Magnus Magnesium")
QUOTE: "Sandwiches?! You mean food?! We allow no voluptuous indulgences of the carnal appetites."
(a) Which guest star makes this quote?
(b) Which other classic tv role is he most famous for?
(c) Which episode is this quote from?
QUIZ: This month's questions are from the episode "Frankenfido"
(d) What kind of novelty dog does Graeme breed for Tim and Bill?
(e) What name does Tim give it?
(f) Which classic Goodies song is used as backing music for sequence where the Goodies try to catch the runaway puppies?
(g) What is the name given to Bill when he is dressed in a dog costume?
(h) Whose teeth does Graeme use when creating Frankenfido?
The answers are listed at the end of this newsletter.
2. BOFFO IDEAS
You can make it happen here. Liven up the club with a boffo idea for bob-a-job week. E-mail <clarion@goodiesruleok.com> with your comments, ideas or suggestions - meanwhile these are the boffo ideas which our club has been working on this month:
FAREWELL BIG BUNNIES
In the past week, two of our long-serving and dedicated "Goodies Rule-OK" committee members have announced their resignation from their official roles.
Tracey Baird has been our Projects Officer since 1998 and put a massive amount of her own time and effort into coordinating the first-ever Goodies Convention - Kitten Kon - in Melbourne at Easter last year. The enormous success of Kitten Kon and the fabulous time had by all those who attended was a fitting tribute to Tracey's dedication and hard work in getting the convention off the ground. Tracey has also been responsible for the reproduction of the fabulous Goodies t-shirt which so many of us now wear with great pride after ordering them via the fan club.
Richard Nolan has been club Treasurer since the original committee was formed in 1998 and has done a sterling job of keeping track of all the money which flowed in and out of the club in the leadup and aftermath of Kitten Kon. Richard also did much of the early work to put our club constitution and bank account in place, organised a brilliant Trivia Night for Kitten Kon and has handled most of the orders for club merchandise for the past year or so.
The remaining committee members would sincerely like to thank Tracey and Richard on behalf of all club members for their excellent input to the "Goodies Rule OK" over the past three years, particularly for their enormous contributions to the success of Kitten Kon, and wish them both all the best for the future.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Seeing as the C&G is going out so late this month, it's only fair that I pass on our Goodiest birthday wishes to Tim Brooke-Taylor who is celebrating his 61st birthday today.
I also should mention that Bill Oddie had his 60th birthday on July 7th, so our congratulations and best wishes to both Bill and Tim on their latest milestones and we hope that they received something more exciting than an armadillo skin posing pouch or a self-inflicted cake in the face!
3. SPOTTED!!!
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:
IT'S A GAS
(by Kay Dickinson - posted to Goodies-l on June 11th)
If you look in the MP3's section of the Goodies Sounds through the "Stuff" link on the GROK site, you will see a newly uploaded MP3 called "potterton_boilers.mp3"
This cheerful little ditty was a promotional jingle recorded for Potterton Boilers in 1974 and the sleeve of the actual record has a note saying "Potterton thank you for attending the 1974 presentation of their new wall-mounted gas boiler - The Potterton Netaheat" - so presumably was only available at this presentation.
The jingle is only 25 seconds long, is entitled "It's A Gas" and was never released commercially, therefore, unless it was actually used on a TV campaign, will probably never have been heard by any Goodies fans before.
Tim Brooke-Taylor has confirmed that it is the Goodies, but even his memory seems to have blanked it out completely - he says, "I simply cannot remember this recording, but it's definitely us".
So there you have it - an exclusive, rarely heard and previously unavailable Goodies song - get downloading!
BILL MAKES A SPECTACLE OF HIMSELF!
(contributed by Lisa Manekofsky)
An article about Bill Oddie appears in the Summer 2001 issue of Specsavers Opticians in-store magazine, "View". The article contains two recent photos of Bill plus two publicity shots of the Goodies from the mid-1970s.
Following is the text of the article:
Birds, Bikes, Bins and Bill
Bill Oddie rampaged across our TV screens throughout the 70s as the small, hairy one in the cult comedy series 'The Goodies.' More recently, he has enchanted a new generation with his fascinating birding and British wildlife series. An enthusiastic birdwatcher himself, Bill has not only shared his hobby with thousands of families of armchair naturalists, but in such a way that many have felt the urge to get out and do it for themselves.
You won't see much if you go birding without binoculars. But how can you look through binoculars and your glasses at the same time? Take your glasses off to look through your binoculars and you'll be forever putting them on and taking them off again. Wear your glasses, and the area of view through your binoculars can be reduced to a small circle, surrounded by black. By the time you've sorted yourself out, that interesting specimen of wildlife has long since disappeared.
Bill wasn't faced with this problem until his mid 40s, when he first started to need reading spectacles.
'It was a bit of a shock at first, not being able to see clearly. The first thing I noticed was that my vision was blurry early in the morning. Once I'd been to the opticians and worked out what was the best for me and my lifestyle - including birding! - I was surprised how quickly I got used to wearing them.'
'First off, I tried contact lenses. I found them really fiddly, and sometimes I had difficulty getting them out of my eyes. I persevered for a while, but contact lenses were certainly no good if I was in a hurry.'
'When I went back to the my opticians the girl was quite surprised that I was giving up on contact lenses and that I had problems using them. But as I pointed out to her, I've got quite small eyes, and she had eyes like Bambi!'
Finally, Bill settled for a pair of bifocals for everyday wear, and a pair of reading glasses that he uses instead of his bifocals when he expects to be reading for a long period of time.
So how does he cope with his binoculars and his specs?
'Make sure you get a pair of binoculars with retractable eyecups, and push them in when you are using the binoculars. If you don't wear glasses, the eyecup is there to ensure the lenses in the binoculars are positioned at the correct distance from your eyes. If you wear glasses, you don't need it. You can get binoculars with rubber eyecups that you can fold back, but these tend to get distorted or cracked with use over time, so your best bet is retractable eyecups.'
Bill also finds it more comfortable to wear glasses with small frames, and has a scratch-resistant coating on his lenses to reduce the damage done by contact with his binoculars.
Bill Oddie's lifelong fascination with birds began in his childhood. 'I'm afraid my first interest was as a delinquent schoolboy egg collector - my excuse is that back then, every boy did it and we weren't as environmentally conscious as we are today. Fortunately I soon realised I was more interested in the birds themselves, and my dad bought me my first bird book and pair of binoculars when I was about ten. I've been at it ever since!'
Born in Rochdale, Bill moved to Birmingham as a small child and after studying at the University of Cambridge he moved to London, where he has lived ever since. With his hobby being so rooted in the natural world, this may seem a bit surprising, but with Bill's work as a writer and actor, London has always been his obvious base. His hobby has taken him all over the country and the world at weekends and on holidays. In recent years, thanks to his highly popular TV series on birding, he has been able to combine work with pleasure.
'We've done three series of "Birding with Bill Oddie" and each one got bigger and bigger, with more exotic locations' says Bill. 'It was all tremendous fun, and thanks to the programme I've had some unforgettable birding experiences. After the last series, we wanted to do something different, and that's how "Bill Oddie goes Wild" came about. Our working title at one stage was actually "anything but birds"! I wanted to keep it simple, show people how to spot our own wildlife for themselves. I'm no expert on other species so I was on a learning curve myself - and it was hugely enjoyable.'
Britain's favourite birdwatcher has been involved in radio and TV all his working life. In the early 60's he was part of the vintage crop of comics at Cambridge University that included John Cleese and fellow Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden. His first work was writing scripts for such classic BBC TV and radio comedy shows as 'That Was The Week That Was' and 'I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again', before 'The Goodies' first pedalled onto our screens in 1970.
'That three-seater bike is still around somewhere,' says Bill. 'The last I heard of it, it was used on a charity bicycle ride across Africa. I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up in Australia - 'The Goodies' has a real cult following there.'
'The Goodies' has never been repeated on terrestrial TV in the UK since the last series finished twenty years ago, although a whole generation grew up giggling through each episode and at the time they attracted larger audiences than their contemporaries, 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'. In Australia, there are regular Goodies repeats and Bill recently took part in a video link to a Goodies convention: 'It was amazing - a hall full of people dressed up in tank tops and flat caps, like we used to wear on "Top of the Pops" doing the "Funky Gibbon".'
'The Goodies' had a strong musical element, contributed by Bill himself. This included several songs that were released, and successful, as pop singles. So were the Goodies actually the first British boy band, brought together and manufactured for TV?
'When we were first putting the programme together, there was a "manufactured" boy band already on the scene, albeit an American one. "The Monkees" was a music show with comedy, and "The Goodies" was more a comedy show with music. We both used fast-moving sequences with music behind them, like the old silent comedies. One of the things I really hated at the time was the typical "TV comedy show" music, like they had on programmes such as "Terry and June", so I wrote the music myself. Graeme Garden described it as "country rock". We didn't set out to do it that way, but it was only one step further to record and release the singles.'
Sport, music and his family are Bill's abiding passions. He has no family left - 'apart from what I've grown myself' - lives in North London with his wife Laura and has three daughters. The youngest, Rosie, still lives at home.
'She's a really talented singer songwriter - but she listens to some very odd stuff,' says Bill. 'Still, it must be quite difficult for her to find a type of music that I don't like - after all, you have to rebel to some extent when you're fifteen. How do you compete with a parent who has the hi-fi on at full volume, blasting out anything from 70s rock through jazz to Prince?'
And what next for Bill Oddie on TV? Another wildlife series perhaps? ('I'd like to go back and track down all the creatures I couldn't find in the first one!') A Goodies revival? More 'Birding with Bill Oddie'?
Bill shrugs. 'Who knows? Even in the 70s, when "The Goodies" was immensely popular, we were contracted series by series. They'd say things like "I expect we'll do another one next year," but we never knew for sure.'
'One thing's for certain,' he adds with a grin. 'I need a new hobby, now I've done so much on birds!'
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.
BEDSIDE MANNERS
(by Kay Dickinson - posted to Goodies-l on July 1st)
Tim Brooke-Taylor will be touring this autumn in a farce called "Bedside Manners" - he is apparently playing the owner of a hotel where the couples that are staying have secrets. I've attached the tour dates, in case anyone would like to go.
O3.09.01 Hall for Cornwall, Truro
11.09.01 Everyman theatre, Cheltenham
17.09.01 Orchard Theatre, Dartford
24.09.01 Theatre Royal Northampton
01.10.01 Cliffs Pavilion, Southend
08.10.01 Theatre Royal, Norwich
15.10.01 Theatre Royal, Plymouth
22.10.01 Devonshire Park, Eastbourne
29.10.01 Lyceum Theatre, Crewe
05.11.01 Yvonne Arnaud theatre, Guildford TBC
12.11.01 Kings Theatre, Edinburgh
19.11.01 Theatre Royal, Nottingham
26.11.01 Opera House, Buxton
LITTLE'UNS
* A repeat of 'The Natural World' was screened at 9am BBC2 Monday 2nd July. It was all about ducks and was narrated by Bill. (David Balston)
* Upcoming "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" recordings:
Wolverhampton Grand, Wolverhampton, 21st October, 2001.
Theatre Royal, Brighton, 11th November, 2001.
Theatre Royal, Bristol, 25th November, 2001. (Lisa Manekofsky)
* 'The Complete and Utter History of Everything' involving Tim in a sketch
with Harry Enfield was recycled and edited into a one hour show Saturday
14th July at 10.30pm on BBC1. (David Balston)
5. GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARY
(by Brett Allender)
HOSPITAL FOR HIRE
Series 4, Episode 3.
First transmitted: 15th December 1973
PLOT
Bill is wheeled into the office with a huge plaster cast on his leg after he has waited at the hospital for three weeks. Even then, the cast has been put on the wrong leg - it should have been on Graeme's, but his sprained ankle got better while they were waiting! Tim gets hopping mad about it (just like Bill!) and rings the Minister of Health, who gives him a very short, sharp and rude reply, as he claims that the health department is so slow because they keep getting pestered by sick people and that as the Goodies do "anything, anytime", they should become doctors by filling out an application form on the back of the Radio Times.
Fortunately there are a few pages of the Radio Times left (still hanging on the hook in the toilet!) and the Goodies are subjected to an intensive exam (which mostly tests their beer drinking and nurse chasing capabilities!) before they become doctors and patrol the wards. Tim shows the others the ropes (which are used to hang oneself when the fire alarm goes off!) and gives them a guided tour of the dilapidated overcrowded hospital ("you should have seen it before it was modernised!"), where patients are only fed once a week (on bones and scraps), the pigs have been evacuated by the RSPCA because it's not fit for them, the doctor collapses from exhaustion and the patients are controlled by bursts of music from Little Jimmy Osmond.
Graeme comes up with ideas for a mobile travelling hospital, so the Goodies pay a visit to the Minister of Health's office. The Minister is not exactly in the best of health himself, as he forces them to step in disinfectant before they enter and also suffers terrible hayfever at the mere mention of the word "hay"; however he gives them a chance and they soon perform operations and deliver an instant football team to one lucky young couple in their travelling hospital.
The Minister soon complains that the Goodies are curing people so quickly that they make the National Health Service look incompetent, but they ignore him and hit the road, spruiking Graeme's new magic all-purpose elixir in an evangelical healing sideshow. Tim is a "poor sufferin' boy" miraculously cured by the elixir and even the intervention of the Minister and his flunkies who try to strike them off the register fails to stop the hoedown, especially when Graeme realizes that the elixir actually works!
Despite all of the sick people being under armed guard in government hospitals, the Goodies strike as outlaws, gradually free them all and cure them with swigs of the elixir in the process. In the rush to free everyone, there is a hair-raising cavalcade of wheelchairs and trolleys down a steep slope which results in a huge pile-up that pushes the Goodies through a wall at the bottom.
Eventually every sick person in Britain is cured - except for the bandaged and plaster-clad Goodies themselves. However after they have treated 3 million people, there is no elixir left for themselves, so Graeme attempts to call an ambulance only to find that his own elixir has put the National Health Service out of business. Tim and Bill are so furious that they overbalance their traction weight and swing precariously upside-down in mid air from the ropes attached to their legs.
CLASSIC QUOTES
* Bill (reading application form): "Don't forget, medical students qualify for an annual government grant, free beer and all the nurses you can ...!"
Tim (hastily clamping his hand over Bill's mouth): "Hey, hey, hey ... We'll do it!"
* Bill (examining the Health Minister's foot): "It's a corn."
Bill & Tim: "Oh, no!"
Minister: "A corn!"
Tim: "Wheat!"
Graeme: "Barley!
Bill: "Rye!"
All in unison: "Hay ... YATCHOO!!"
* Graeme (spruiking his magic elixir): "My friends,this here bottle contains a guaranteed all-purpose remedy for prostration, inflation and frustration ... pneumonia and old monia ... distemper, dat temper and bad temper ... sunburn, heartburn ... and Tony Blackburn!" (to much hootin', hollerin' and hat throwin'!)
CLASSIC SCENES
* The Goodies rigorous medical exam involving running laps of an athletic track chasing a nurse as a lure while continually skulling ever-increasing amounts of beer (including draining a bathtub of beer with straws and Bill having to drink from his plaster leg cast). Other tests include burping into a belchometer (which struggles to record Bill's hiccups), pinching nurses on the bum causing them to leap into a long jump pit (with Bill being flattened after pinching a big fat matron with a pair of tongs!), climbing over the wall of the nurses home (or in Bill's case, being bulldozed straight through the wall by the matron) and finally, receiving gymnastics scores from the judges when collapsing in drunken exhaustion on the ground.
* Tim ending the cacophony in the hospital ward by forcing the rowdy patients to don headphones. He flicks a switch and they all scream in agony - from listening to Little Jimmy Osmond!
* The two ads; firstly with several folks (including a pepperpot Tim) seemingly munching away on lifesavers ("it's round with a hole in it") until Bill exclaims "I fink I'll have anovver one!" and starts munching on a car tyre! The second ad features Tim as a schoolboy "listening to breakfast" and almost getting his head blown off by a bowl of exploding rice crunchies.
* The Minister of Health using a box of disposable Sooty puppets to blow his nose with during his blubber over the phone to Tim ("Ya great cloogie!") about the Goodies successful travelling hospital system, with Tim then dropping the magic word ("hay!") and hanging up the phone, which is promptly blown off its hook by a huge sneeze from the hayfever-stricken minister.
* Their wild-west evangelical medicine show offering a magic cure for all of the world's ills (even Tony Blackburn!) and their subsequent freeing and curing of every ill person in Britain, including catapulting old grannies over a wall and bringing a mummy and a corpse back to life before there is a huge pile-up of trolleys, wheelchairs and patients against a wall at the bottom of a steep hill.
* Tim and Bill swinging precariously upside-down from their traction ropes after overbalancing in anger at Graeme having run out of elixir curing every other patient before themselves.
GUEST STARS
Harry Corbett, The Fred Tomlinson Singers
GOODIES SONGS
Doctor
You're Gonna Be Cured
MOCK ADVERTISEMENTS
Goodlop QP Radials
Rice Crunchies
MY 2 CENTS WORTH
Tremendous sendup of all things medical (maybe it is based on some of Graeme's own real-life medical schooling and training! ) with clever incorporation of other themes like athletics tests, travelling evangelists, wild west outlaws etc.
RATING
IIII Officially Amazing
BLACK PUDDING RATINGS SYSTEM:
IIIII - Superstar.
IIII - Officially amazing.
III - Goody goody yum yum.
II - Fair-y punkmother.
I - Tripe on t' pikelets.
July Summary
"Hospital For Hire"
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Whack the diddle-o blue! Pull up a jumbuck and take the weight off ya billabongs 'coz THE GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARIES book is still available! Even thicker than the SleepalongaMax volume 98 record collection and far easier to comprehend than Eddie Waring's rugby scores, THE GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARIES is jam packed with gibbon-loads of Goody things such as:
* detailed summaries for each of the 75 episodes of the show (including fully revised versions of the first 10 summaries printed in the newsletters)
* the lyrics of some classic Goodies songs.
* heaps of cool photos from actual episodes and publicity sessions.
* an episode guide/contents page and signed author's introduction.
* alphabetical indexes of guest stars, songs and mock advertisements.
Each book is spiral bound with a plastic cover and costs $20 plus postage of $7 within Australia and $18 overseas.
Details of how to place orders can be obtained by e-mailing Brett Allender at bretta@netcon.net.au All profits from the book will go towards club activities such as the staging of future Goodies conventions, so why not be a sport and do yourself and the club a favour by ordering your copy of THE GOODIES EPISODE SUMMARIES today. You know it makes sense!
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6. QUIZ & QUOTE ANSWERS
(a) Jon Pertwee as Reverend Llewellyn Llewellyn (etc)
(b) As one of the Doctors in Doctor Who.
(c) Wacky Wales
(d) A long-haired pug (which looks more like the head of a mop)
(e) Rover
(f) Come Back
(g) Cuddly Scamp Hairylegs Of Cricklewood
(h) Donny Osmond
