PLOT
The Goodies each read a different newspaper that befits their social class ('The Sun' for Bill, 'The Guardian' for Graeme and 'The Times' for Tim), which all feature similarly gloomy news items (and the wildly-varying vital statistics of the shapely bikini-clad actress Julie Ege!) for them to mull over. Tim comes across an article on the withdrawal of the British team from the Winter Olympics due to the withdrawal of sponsorship (by a consortium that includes the Mafia and a whiskey company!) and the lack of decent training facilities, plus an advertisement placed seeking a new team. The Goodies are not the least bit interested in filling the void, as they are "fed up with getting rotten jobs, making fools of ourselves and getting hurt", so they tell the Minister of Sport to "push off" when he arrives at their office to seek their assistance. The Minister appeals to the Goodies' sense of national pride and tells them that "You would be representing your country", which draws a patriotic speech of sorts from Tim which ends with he and his fellow Goodies claiming that they will only do it for "a lot of money". The Minister spins the Goodies a heap of jargon and a "promise on his honour as a politician" (for what it's worth!) that they will get money and training facilities for the Winter Olympics, which are to be held at the North Pole.
The training facilities are in a top-secret location, so the Minister blindfolds the Goodies (and hands them a cactus as a map) and they somehow manage to ride the trandem to their destination. Graeme comments "The Minister said it was the coldest spot in Britain ..." and looks out the door; then adds "Oh yes, Bognor on a Bank Holiday!" Their Winter Olympic training facility is a rather spartan shack and Bill remarks that it's "no wonder they keep it a secret", but Tim thinks that it's just what they need to toughen them up. Graeme reads through an official guide and demonstrates a secret new British invention - the all-in-one treatment centre, which consists of a roughly-vibrating bench, a shortwave (from a real hand that pops up along with a rather silly "Hellooooo" as accompaniment) for treatment of strains and bruises), a cold shower from buckets of water, liberal dousing with oil and finally a massage with series of thumping mallets. Bill just gets comfortable on an enormous fold-down bed when Tim starts to vigorously bounce up and down on it while exercising in preparation for the Goodies' first training session.
Graeme's skeleton key unlocks a cupboard that contains a series of training manuals ('Let's Go Skiing', 'Let's Go Skating' and 'Let's Go Home'!) and he continues to read the official guide which reveals that their disgracefully inadequate equipment for the training session is on the shelf (a pair of hobnail boots for skiing and a "grotty old orange box" as a bobsleigh, while the two shelves are used as the actual skis!) Graeme complains "How are we going to win the Winter Olympics with this load of old tat?" only for Tim to proudly respond with "We're British!" After Bill nails the skis to the soles of Tim's hobnail boots (to the nifty tune of 'Winter Sportsman' and several agonised shrieks from Tim!) and attaches the roller skates to the base, Tim is launched from the top of a slide in a children's playground, holding onto a rope attached to the back of the trandem. Bill and Graeme crash the trandem into the wall of a sandpit and Tim skis off rapidly along the street, with the others in pursuit aboard their orange box bobsleigh. They throw Tim a rope which he hangs onto grimly (bowling over a Salvation Army marching band in the process!) and after Tim is launched into the air, he lands on top of the bobsleigh in a less-than-successful first training session.
The Goodies' arrive at the North Pole Hilton (aboard the trandem which is being towed by a team of assorted mutts!) and find that the Minister of Sport is already there sipping on a cocktail. The igloo hotel is extremely cold with even the fire being frozen (as Bill is able to use the iced-up flames to play a xylophone tune on a line of icicles hanging from the roof), though Graeme feels comparatively warm (thanks to little smoking chimneys on the tops of his boots!) Bill finds that there are all sorts of whale blubber dishes on the menu, apart from the Chicken Surprise (where the surprise is that it's really whale blubber after all!) and a massive walrus pie with two huge tusks poking out from under the pastry. Tim's hands freeze up when he washes them in the basin and Bill's pursuit of Eskimo Nell (as he comments "Say, these Eskimos are funny fellas, aren't they?!" when she takes her fur coat off to reveal a sexy bikini underneath) soon comes to a halt when he cops a faceful of water from an American submarine periscope (after telling the sub "Oi Yank, if you're down there! Push off, I saw her first ...!"). The water on Bill's face quickly turns into an icy mask, and he and Tim beg to be allowed to go home, but the Minister firmly refuses, declaring "Now the British are very good losers; in fact we're probably the very best losers in the world. And so we should be; we've had more practice!"
A training session on the snow and ice is an utter disaster with none of the Goodies being able to stand up (let alone compete) and they return inside frozen stiff, although Eskimo Nell thaws them out very quickly indeed (after the Minister says "Nell, give them some of your clothes" and she starts to peel off her bikini top!) Graeme has a bright idea and declares that the Goodies would have a better chance of competing if they melted all the ice, as they did reasonably well in the practice sessions at home in England. He toys with the idea of using hot water bottles to defrost the North Pole (it would only take 178,000 years to do the job!) before the Goodies take to the sky on their balloon-powered trandem and attach a sun ray lamp to a large butterfly.
The heat generated from the sunlamp soon clears the clouds away and the big thaw starts to take place in the Arctic. The Goodies emerge from the hotel in bathing costumes and stand in an ever-deepening pool of water (with the igloo hotel shrinking and floating away behind them) as the opening ceremony gets underway. The Eskimo Royal Family members feel the rising heat, while the brass band and the other competitors gradually become totally submerged, but the Goodies triumphantly coast along on their inflatable dolphins. They win a swag of medals in the figure skating, ice (water) dancing and ski jump events (finding that playing sport in water is a breeze compared to competing on ice) and triumphantly head back to Britain.
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Upon their return, Tim proudly displays all of the medals, but Graeme realises that the Goodies have left their sun ray lamp still dangling from the butterfly and starts to panic about the rise in global sea levels from the melting of the ice cap. Tim reckons that it will improve the North Pole anyway by creating beautiful lakes (and prophetically remarks that there will be "a flood of tourists") while Bill feels sorry for the butterfly, then dismissively says that the sea will only rise by "a couple of inches." However the explosion of Graeme's computer while it calculates the rise in sea level and Graeme's horrified cry of "It can't rise by THAT much!" tell the real horror story. A knock at the window of the office reveals the fully-submerged Minister of Sport holding his breath underwater outside and Tim gets ready to let him in until Bill and Graeme bellow desperately at him not to do it.
CLASSIC QUOTES
* Bill (annoyed): "We're not daft, you know."
Minister of Sport: (disappointed) "Aren't you really? I was told you were!"
* Tim: (patriotic speech about competing in the Winter Olympics): "Remember friends, we are Englishmen. We'll do it. Not for reasons of personal pride. Not for the glory. Not even for the thrill. We'll do it for one thing and one thing only ... (turns record off) ... a lot of money!"
* Tim: "We're in training. From now on there'll be no more drinking, no more smoking and no more ... (watches Bill suspiciously) holding hands with girls."
Bill: (moves towards Eskimo Nell): "I wasn't gonna hold hands with her! Ahahaa!"
CLASSIC SCENES
* One of the signs on the outside of the secret training facility reads "Please Do Not Peep", but a man has lifted a woman up on his shoulders so that she can have a stickybeak over the fence. He sees the blindfolded Goodies coming towards him on the trandem and leaps out of the way, leaving the woman holding onto the top of the fence, while the Goodies plough straight through the fence at the spot where he had been standing, causing the woman to spin around on the fence paling several times
* the portraits of the past British winter Olympians on the wall of the shack; including ice dance champions with their arms in plaster casts, the ski champion leaning on crutches and the British 3 man bobsleigh champs - three coffins draped with Union Jacks!
* the mock ad for Soft Golden Dairy Margarine with Tim dressed as a housewife opening up the fridge and getting swept off his feet by a torrent of runny margarine.
GUEST STARS
Peter Jones
GOODIES SONGS
Winter Sportsman
Goodies Theme
MOCK ADVERTISEMENTS
Heanz Meanz Beanz - "When I Go Home From School"
"Soft Golden Dairy Margarine
MY 2 CENTS WORTH
This episode just seems to plod along at a rather pedestrian pace with few really memorable scenes or funny quotes. The overall concept of melting the ice to be able to compete on a level footing in a nice Goodies-inspired concept, but it isn't one of the Goodies' stronger episodes by any means.
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