The Official Goodies Rule - OK! Fan Club Website

PLOT

The Goodies' office is closed for redecoration for a six month period, so they wait patiently near the outside door (with tally marks on the wall rather like those in a prisoner's jail cell!) and put up with all of the ear-splitting construction noise. Bill discovers that this horrible racket actually stems from a tape recorder placed near the door by the builders before they entered the office. The workers have only been asked to install new bookshelves and wallpaper; but despite them being in the office for the full six months, things are deathly quiet once Bill switches the tape recorder off. Tim bangs on the door, pleading to be let in ("I want to see it (the renovated office) before I die!") and Bill threatens to belt him one if he doesn't calm down. Amid their carrying-on, Graeme burns the last bean from the Goodies' food supply (causing Tim to blubber that "We're all going to die!), so they all start to bang on the door in a bid to find out what is actually happening inside their office.

Once inside, the Goodies find the builder and his workers sitting around reading magazines (amid a huge pile of tea mugs and general clutter) and none of the requested work has even been started. A cheesed-off Bill shapes up to belt the building boss in frustration only to be stopped by Tim, who is promptly told to "Get stuffed!" when he tries to ask the builder why nothing has been done yet. The obnoxious builder tells the Goodies that his men do one week's work then have six month's tea break ("Well I can't help it if it happened to be your six months, can I?!) and claims that rules like this are in place to stop people like the Goodies exploiting his workers. The builder gets his "master craftsmen" to utterly destroy the office upon a command of "Go!" (as his workers smash holes in the walls and doors and rip a window out in a few seconds of frenzied activity) before they walk out the door and he claims that they will be "back to finish the job later" after they have tended to other customers first. The builder also demands payment immediately ("a 50% deposit and the rest right away!") and when Graeme politely objects that this seems "not quite fair", he throws a tantrum and storms out of the office (crashing his way through the main door after the doorknob initially comes off in his hand!); vowing never to return.

The office is a wreck, though Bill is quite happy to stay there ("It's informal; I like it!"), but Graeme rightly points out that "It's a terrible image for the business." The Goodies head to Gazump, Grasper, Meanie and Snatch estate agents to buy a new office, but seeing as they have little money, they need to win some sympathy from the estate agency staff. Graeme is dressed as a poor old man in a trench coat and beret, Tim as an old woman with a shawl and glasses, while a rather reluctant and humiliated Bill is a baby, complete with pink bonnet, orange jumpsuit and big teddy bear in tow!

The Goodies watch house prices go up every few seconds on a display board and give the maniacally-cackling Mr Snatch (who bears an uncanny resemblance to the builder) a big sob story (complete with sad violin music played on the same tape recorder that the builders left behind at the office!) that they are homeless and living out in the cold snow. Mr Snatch initially appears to respond to their plight ("Stop it. You've moved me!") but merely offers them a dodgy deal of 25,000 pounds for a model house. A suspicious Bill claims that he recognises Mr Snatch's face; to which Mr Snatch hastily responds "Oh no no no, I'm not the builder" and tells them that a lot of people are converting disused railway stations to live in - although he can't build them one himself as he has to declare once again that he is not the builder! Mr Snatch eventually manages to con 100,000 pounds from the Goodies (mostly from Bill, who conveniently carries 99,999 pounds and 36 1/2 pence with him in his jumpsuit!) for his very last piece of land; a dinner plate-sized chunk of turf, then flees for the south of France with the proceeds and his receptionist, Miss Lushboosie.

The Goodies decide to find "somewhere nice and quiet that nobody knows about" and build their own disused railway station as a replacement office. After all sorts of crazy construction work (detailed in 'Classic Scenes'), the Goodies' new office is finished and they tow it behind the trandem to a peaceful countryside location. Graeme has designed the interior of the office so that each Goody has their own particular section, though there is immediate friction when Bill heads straight to 'Chez Tim' (a regal-looking area with fancy desk, throne, British flags and a gold phone) and starts bouncing up and down on Tim's throne. After being told by Tim in no uncertain terms to "get out", Bill wanders into 'Graeme's Den' (which has the computer and various bits of scientific apparatus) and gets a similar hostile reception from Graeme; to which he snaps "Oh, you two make me cross!" and saunters into 'Bill's Bit' to lash out at his Tony Blackburn punch ball before he sprawls into his sag bag (commenting that "It fits the contours of my shape. Come to think of it, it is my shape!") Tim starts to unpack all of his knick-knacks in his divided office section - which include a photo card of Prince Charles with fold-out ears, the Goodies' Silver Rose awarded for 'Kitten Kong - Montreux 72' (which Tim firstly waters, then starts to daub with gold paint!) and an elephant's foot umbrella stand (which brings a three-legged elephant to the door in search of it!) – while Graeme has a plant which climbs up the office wall upon his command, pot and all!

Suburbia rapidly catches up with the Goodies however, and they soon find that their railway station is quickly surrounded by train tracks, motorways and city buildings. This forces them to again tow the station away on the back of the trandem (as bowler-hatted businessmen vainly chase along behind) and they take a turn to 'Miles from Anywhere' to find a location completely surrounded by paddocks and open woodland. Their new location seems eerily quiet though until the silence is shattered by loud roaring noises. Tim initially thinks it's just a cow, but a peek outside reveals several huge dinosaur-like bulldozers and construction machines moving around the adjacent paddock with nobody driving them. Graeme wants to preserve the machines and make contact with them (in the hope of winning a Nobel Prize!) but Bill just wants to destroy them; a sentiment shared by Tim in another rousing patriotic speech - though he is quite relieved to lock himself in the office and leave Bill and Graeme to do the fighting until they come back and haul him outside too.

Some of the monster machines graze in the paddock and on a nearby hedge, but most appear to be carnivorous and launch a counter-attack against the Goodies; whose brave pitched battle appears fruitless when they are eventually cornered at the door to their office by a looming throng of lethal construction equipment. However Bill has a bright idea just in time and he quickly ducks inside the office and re-emerges with a saxophone, trumpet and drum. Working on the 'music soothes the savage beast' theory, the Goodies play a jazzy conga rhythm, which lures the machines to initially follow them in a conga line and then to continue over the edge of a cliff to crash heavily to their doom in a quarry below.

CLASSIC QUOTES

* Tim (regarding the lack of work by the builders): "Let me handle this. I know how to talk to workers. (abruptly) Ahem. Now look here, my good man ..."

Builder (angrily): "Get stuffed!"

Tim (retreating): "Yes, sir!"

* Builder (bombastically outlining the renovations): "Tell you what; we'll strip down, knock through, knock up, lower the ceiling, plaster up, paint the joint and push off!"

Tim (innocently): "All we want is new wallpaper."

Builder (roaring): "You'll get what you're given!"

Tim (retreating again): "We will, we will ..."

* Mr Snatch: "I tell you what, I could build you a completely new disused railway station … (hastily) oh no no, I couldn't, could I? … because I'm not the builder, am I?"

* Tim (referring to his throne): "She (the Queen) used to sit on that. I got it at the Balmoral jumble sale. It's almost perfect except for a little wet rot in the left leg where the corgis used it!"

CLASSIC SCENES

* The Goodies' crazy construction efforts while building the disused railway station; including Tim's helmet bouncing up and down every time that Graeme hammers a peg, Tim flying through the air like a helicopter when his drill gets stuck in a piece of wood, Bill and Graeme bouncing up and down while trying to subdue a stomping soil compactor, Tim and Graeme throwing away a fake panel of glass only for it to shatter with a loud crash, Graeme being unable to saw through a thick wooden peg only for the workbench underneath to neatly break in half afterwards, Tim accidentally knocking Bill and Graeme over several times each with a plank as they try to stand up, smoke coming out of a chimney placed on the ground, followed by the exit of an irate Santa Claus, and Bill drilling a series of small holes in the ground around himself with an out-of-control drill, then completely disappearing from view when the ground collapses.

* Bill taking his frustrations out on his Tony Blackburn punch ball after he has been kicked out of Tim and Graeme's sections of the new office.

* Tim producing a photo-card of Prince Charles with foldout ears, prompting Bill to hang up a hot poster of a topless girl on a motorbike. Tim then puts up a poster of the Queen sitting on a motorbike (fully clothed though!) and dutifully salutes it, while Graeme responds to all this by putting up the same poster as Bill's, except that the topless girl now has Einstein's face (which draws a derisive but rather stunned "Very sexy!" from Bill)

* The Goodies riding their trandem along a country laneway with the disused railway station in tow on the back and a stream of bowler-hatted businessmen running along behind, but gradually dropping off with exhaustion as the Goodies ride further away from civilization.

* Tim unleashing perhaps his most inspiring patriotic speech urging the Goodies to get out and fight these horrible machines ruining England's verdant greenery ("Are we going to stand by and watch England's green and pleasant land get defaced … (B&G: "No!"), desecrated … (B&G: "No!"), raped, (B&G gasp with shock and cover their ears), no!"), His speech ends with a rousing call of "Onward!", so Bill and Graeme both shout "Onward!" and march out the door, only for Tim to close it behind them and heave a huge sigh of relief! However Bill and Graeme soon come charging back in to fetch him and chastise him for being so cowardly.

* Their epic battle with the machine dinosaurs, especially Graeme playing matador by using his jacket expertly to outmanoeuvre a charging forklift, Tim almost losing his crown jewels to a flying pneumatic drill, Bill getting hammered into the ground by a stomping soil compactor, then unsuccessfully playing conkers with a wrecking ball, Graeme having to flee a pursuing excavator which is snapping at his heels and Tim being picked up by a crane and getting hoisted high in the air before being dumped unceremoniously on top of Graeme.

GUEST STARS

Joe Melia, Julie Desmond

GOODIES SONGS

It's My Home

The Goodies Theme

MOCK ADVERTISEMENTS

Football Stars Movil Petrol Giveaway

Heanz Meanz Beanz - "My Favourite Supper"

MY 2 CENTS WORTH

An interesting change of direction for the show, with the new mobile office and the dinosaur-like machines attacking it providing heaps of wonderfully amusing visual material to kick off the new series. The advent of the disused railway station also perfectly sets up several storylines for future Goodies episodes as well.

BLACK PUDDING RATING.