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» #1 Nov 1995
THE GOODIES CLARION AND GLOBE
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Issue No. 1 30th November 1995
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to The *NEW* Goodies Fan Club. There has been a bit of confusion about this club, largely due to me getting the wrong idea. We are a separate club to the former one, which was run by Melinda Casino. However we are similar in structure and aims, indeed we have the same Procedures Document and Mission Statement. So really, it is easy to view this club as a new version of the old club. Whatever we are, I hope that this new club will be as enjoyable for you as the former one or if you are a first time member, as it is most convenient to call you, I hope it lives up to your expectations.
To begin with I hope that we will be able to carry out some of things that we wanted to do in the old club. In that club, Melinda contacted Bill Oddie, who sent a very positive response. I will write to him again on behalf of this new club, the letter will be cc.ed to you all first though. Also I will try again to contact Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden. There are several other things from the former club on the agenda, which are outlined below.
Of course there is always the opportunity to start other projects too and I'd like to hear from anyone with any ideas.
At the moment however, I am concentrating on getting new homepages (more on that later) and of course signing up new and old members. At the last count we have 23 members, I'm sure more will join in time. But now, on with the business.
CONTENTS
1. WHO THE HELL IS ALISON?
2. I KNOW WHAT A GLOBE IS, BUT WHAT ON EARTH'S A CLARION?
3. WHAT SHALL WE NAME OURSELVES?
4. HOMEPAGES AND MEMBERSHIP PROFILES.
5. BOFFO IDEAS.
6. SPOTTED!!!
7. GOODIES-L
8. BUYERS TIP
1. WHO THE HELL IS ALISON?
Alison Bean was Vice-President of the previous Goodies Fan Club. When not surfing the net or watching her collection of over 50 Goodies episodes, she gets into all sorts of other British comedy like ISIRTA, ISIHAC, Monty Python, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Mr Bean, The Young Ones and Ben Elton. Besides watching too much British comedy, she pretends that she is an Arts student at the University of South Australia where she is majoring in Professional Writing and Communication. She also, *unfortunately*, works as a Waitress at Pizza Hut, mainly because she keeps crashing her car, The Crappy Corolla. Other than that she enjoys drinking, writing, acting, wearing 70s clothes and listening to 70s music (not necessarily in that order). She is currently writing a programme guide type thing on The Goodies, which will be available on the net soon. Her e-mail address, as if you didn't know, is: <carrot@olis.mtx.net.au>. You can mail her about Anything, Anytime!
2. I KNOW WHAT A GLOBE IS, BUT WHAT ON EARTH'S A CLARION?
When thinking of what to change the newsletter's name to, I kept in mind that it had to be as appropriate as the one from the previous club, Goody Goody Yum Yum. I thought of the episode Cunning Stunts (Series 5, Episode 10), where The Goodies set up their own newspaper called The Goodies Clarion and Globe. This seemed the most appropriate, so here it is. You can shorten it to the C&G if you want.
But what's a clarion? Well according to the Collin's Australian Pocket Dictionary, a clarion is 'a high-pitched small-bore trumpet'. Kind of appropriate when you consider that this e-mail newsletter is a really little more than a high-pitched sound that travels around the globe.
Incidentally special announcements, which in the previous club were known as Big Bunny Speaks are now known as Prune Flashes, which is an I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again (ISIRTA) reference.
3. WHAT SHALL WE NAME OURSELVES?
Members of the previous club will remember that we were having a vote to see what we would name ourselves. Well, we never got around to finalising it, so we'll have to start again. The suggestions were:
* The Super-Chaps
* The Ecky Thumps
* The EBGB's
* Goodies Rule - O.K.?
* The Yum-Yums
* The Funky Gibbons
* The Crazy Teapots
* The Plague of Rolf Harrises
* The Giant Kittens
* The Flying Dodos
* The Puppet Government
* The Potholing Goodies
* The Frankenfidos
If you've got any further suggestions, then I'll add them to the list. They will then appear in the next issue where I will explain how to vote.
4. HOMEPAGES AND MEMBERSHIP PROFILES
Getting new homepages may be difficult and costly. OLIS, my net provider, wants to charge me $30 a month; an amount I can't really afford. To alleviate this sorry state of affairs, I would ask that you contact your service providers (and any others you know of) and find out if either you or I can put up the homepage there for free.
The homepages should be on the net soon. You will be sent an announcement about this. They won't be as fancy as the previous ones (now The Goodies Archives), so let me know if you can provide me with any pictures or scannings of The Goodies logo to brighten them up a bit.
Also if you could please send me new member's profiles so I can put them up eventually. (The old ones were a bit of hassle for Melinda to send to me, after all, they were quite long!) The format is still pretty much the same. I look forward to reading them.
NAME:
E-MAIL:
IRC NICKNAME:
HOMEPAGE:
COUNTRY:
ABOUT YOURSELF:
FAVE GOODIES EPISODE(S):
EPISODES NEVER SEEN:
FAVE GOODIES QUOTE(S):
OTHER INTERESTS:
Send profiles to <carrot@olis.mtx.net.au>
5. BOFFO IDEAS
Boffo ideas refers to Bill and Graeme's boffo ideas for bob-a-job week in Scoutrageous. If you have any Boffo ideas please send them to me.
T-SHIRTS AND BADGES
This subject continues to generate much interest. I received the following e-mail from Jane Hornbrook, <jhorn@charney.metr.uoknor.edu>:
'T-shirts can be fun to do, but also a BIG pain in the butt on a large scale. One of the problems you can run into is if you sell them for a profit. If you use copyrighted material, then you must get permission from the owner of the copyright before printing. On a small scale, and selling the shirts at cost, they probably won't care. The main problem you run into is choosing the design. Either somebody has to make an executive decision, or members can submit designs and have a vote. Or someone can be responsible for the design, and it can be accepted or rejected. The key is to find one that is liked by most all members so you will have enough orders to get the cost down. If you have two designs, and the vote splits 60/40, then the 40 who liked the other design will probably not order. This comes from my experience with the clubs I have been involved with at the universities where I have attended.'
Also Nik Whitehead <nwhitehe@mic.dundee.ac.uk> suggested that a committee be formed to organise the manufacture of T-shirts.
'In my view the most popular designs would be the ones that were worn by The Goodies in the TV show. The one in the early shows which read "I'M A GOODY" or the ones in latter shows with the three Goodies on the trandem. If we could get permission from the BBC to use these logos we could print them on yellow T-shirts to be as authentic as possible. That is only my view. Others will, of course, be discussed.'
If anyone knows about silk screening we could make the t-shirts ourselves to keep the cost down. Other than that, we would have to contact a t-shirt manufacturer and find out about printing costs. T-shirts would be sold to members and anyone else interested at cost price, with extra for postage. We are after all a non-profit organisation.
Badges or patches was another suggestion raised in the previous club. Again I would assume that the most popular design would be one like that which Graeme wore on his tie in early episodes and that Bill wore on his purple suit, which read 'I'M A GOODY'. Again we would have to contact the BBC about this. However badges would be a lot easier to make; badge machines can be hired or borrowed and are easy to use. They could be made in a day and be sent off fairly cheaply. Again they would be sold at cost price with extra for postage. Patches could either be silk-screened by us or printed by a manufacturer.
The first step would be to form a t-shirt and badge committee and appoint a t-shirt and badge co-ordinater who would be responsible for organising the production of t-shirts. If you are interested in joining the t-shirt committee please let me know. There will be regular updates on their activities in this newsletter.
POSTAL MEMBERSHIP
This idea is my own and is based on the query of Renee Strong, <strong_ra@uncl04.ntu.edu.au> in GGYY no. 7. Her question was:
'Got a new member for you, but she doesn't have an e-mail account...what to do?'
Melinda suggested that any new members could join by post by sending her a stamped self-addressed envelope to cover the cost of sending out a newsletter. The idea of postal membership is one that could possibly be expanded. There could be two types of postal member.
The first would be the friend of an internet member without an e-mail account. The friend with the e-mail account could send their friend copies of the newsletter and print-outs of the homepages for whatever monetary compensation they may wish to work out, but *NOT* for profit. These new members would be given the opportunity to have a membership profile on our homepage if they wanted to. As with other member profiles, address would be optional.
The second type of postal membership would be one where a person who is not the friend of a member joins by sending monetary compensation of say $A8 a year to cover the cost of sending them newsletters and print-outs of web pages about The Goodies, eg. program guides available on the net, provided their authors didn't mind! $A8 a year buys 17 stamps for postage within Australia. I would estimate that there would be 12-14 C&G's a year, the remaining money would cover print-outs and envelopes. If this idea were to go, ahead there could be a Postal Membership co-ordinator in each country who would organise this and to keep the costs down. The price for membership outside Australia would be based on a similar cost of 12-14 stamps, plus a bit extra to cover print-outs and envelopes. Ideally postal membership would enable postal members to take part in all club decisions and activities, though this may be a bit difficult.
RE-SCREENING CAMPAIGN
Again this is an issue from the previous club. Several people expressed interest in lobbying TV channels to get The Goodies re-screened. Melinda made the comment, if I remember rightly, that a national network would be preferable and of course it would be important that they didn't run ads, as they would cut bits out of the episodes like the dreaded Summer '91 screening by Ch. 10 in Australia. In Australia the ABC would be the ideal network or even possibly SBS. Pay TV may show it, but hardly anyone has Pay TV yet so it would be a total bummer if they did. Someone contacted the ABC about this but they said they didn't have the rights any more, which probably means that Ch. 10 has them. :((((((
Matthew Sharp <kirseval@werple.net.au> told me that Ch. 10 might be replaying The Goodies this summer, but I hope not. Of course some Goodies is better than none, but I just hate the way they butchered them last time. If Ch. 10 did replay them we could always get them to run the specials, The Goodies And The Beanstalk and Goodies Rule - OK? They probably wouldn't need to cut them because with ads they could go for an hour. Anyway let me know what you think about this idea and that goes for people not in Australia too.
ADVERTISING
I am planning to advertise this club in the following places:
* alt.comedy.british
* My uni's newspaper.
* The Australian comedy magazine, Feral Funsters.
* Laugh magazine (if we can get a free ad).
* in all the net search engines.
If you know somewhere where we can advertise for free, let me know where and what you intend to say. Though please don't get an ad until we have had a vote on postal membership or until the homepage is up.
A MEETING?
The above ideas and views are mainly mine. I'm sure that other members will have some too. Other ideas in the pipeline include changing the Club Procedures Document and Mission Statement and a possible social gathering/video night in Melbourne in early February (if you want to arrange one anywhere else let me know and I'll advertise it in the next C&G). The way to make decisions on these ideas would be to have a meeting and vote on them.
The one meeting we had in the previous club was lots of fun, but only 6 people there out of a membership of 100 people was perhaps a little disappointing. It was held on IRC, on a Sunday at night in Australia and afternoon in UK, I think it was early morning in USA. Perhaps the reason for the low turn-out was that many people's accounts are at uni or work and they can't get to them on the weekend or perhaps the time was inconvenient or perhaps it was because people had trouble with IRC, which isn't surprising.
Whatever the reason, it would be nice to see lots of people there if we had a meeting, so if you could all let me know when a good time for you is then I'll come up with a tentative time in the next C&G. Voting at the meeting will be on any issues on the table except for t-shirts, which has so much support that there doesn't seem to be much point delaying it any longer. Remember if you're interested being on the t-shirt committee, let me know.
Other than voting at meetings, we could have a postal ballot, like we are having for the new name of the club. Meetings on IRC could still be arranged for social purposes though.
6. SPOTTED!
* I remember Tim Brooke-Taylor appearing in a sitcom set in an Advertising Agency called, I think, Eyecatchers. He played a wimpy type of guy (typically) and the show last screened in Australia about 10-15 years ago. Does anyone know the name of this show?
* In a catalogue for British comedy videos, I came across a video called Harry Hill. The Harry Hill logo uses the same lettering as The Goodies logo. My question is: Who or what is Harry Hill and why is/are he/them using The Goodies' lettering?
* Apparently Bill Oddie released a book called The Toilet Book a few years ago - can anyone provide more information about it? - or where you can it get it?
7. GOODIES-L
Goodies-L is owned by Melinda Casino and is courtesy of America On-Line's Listserv. It provides a forum for discussion of The Goodies, but it has been a bit empty recently. If you are already a member, I urge you to keep it alive as it is a useful forum for discussion, though not really for club related matters. Please note that if you join you are asked not to discuss tape swapping etc.
To join, simply e-mail <listserv@listserv.aol.com> with SUBSCRIBE GOODIES-L FIRSTNAME LASTNAME in the body. You should receive e-mail within minutes asking you to confirm your subscription, you then reply to it and you're signed up.
Joining Goodies-L was difficult for me - after repeated attempts I gave up, but thanks to Daniel Frankham, <danielf@senet.com.au>, I eventually succeeded. What I was doing wrong was, when I received e-mail asking me to confirm my subscription, the To: prompt contained more than just the e-mail address. Thus when I used the reply function, this extra stuff was included and confused the computer. What you do is delete all this extra information and it should work. If you've got any problems I'd advise you to contact either Listserv or Melinda Casino <goodies@badger.idiscover.co.uk>.
One final tip, make sure you don't include you signature when subscribing, it messes things up a bit!
In the soon to be unveiled Fan Club homepages, you can join Goodies-L through the homepage, if you want. It will be in the Links section.
8. BUYER'S GUIDE
Several people have e-mailed me about getting hold of episodes of The Goodies. There are two videos - The Goodies and the Beanstalk and Kitten Kong which were released last year. You can get these through many mail order companies, but one I have found reliable is the British firm, Video Plus Direct. I ordered The Goodies and the Beanstalk video from Video Plus Direct, as far as I know it has not been released in Australia. They also have an extensive catalogue of other videos.
Their relative company, Talking Tapes Direct also has an extensive catalogue, of cassettes and CD's. Currently available are 3 ISIRTA cassettes, 2 ISIHAC cassettes and a tape of Cambridge Circus, the 1963 Footlights revue, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie's big break.
These companies aren't all that cheap, postage is UKP5.50 overseas, but they are reliable, helpful and have an extensive range.
You can snail mail them at:
Video Plus Direct (or) Talking Tapes Direct
PO Box 190
Peterborough PE2 6UW
UNITED KINGDOM
Their phone number in the UK is: 01733 230645, fax: 01733 238966. They will happily send you a catalogue. (These are separate companies even though they share the address.)
THE END
Well that's all. There was lots to say which is why this newsletter took a while to come out. Tell your friends about us and anyone you meet on or off line, the more the merrier, as they say. I hope to hear from you all soon.
Cheers!
Alison Bean
<carrot@olis.mtx.net.au>
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DISCLAIMER
This is an archive newsletter of The Goodies Rule - OK!
International Fan Club (copyright The Goodies Rule - OK! 1995). Some of the information in this newsletter may now be incorrect. Current information can be obtained from http://www.goodiesruleok.com
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