The Goodies: The Goodies And The Beanstalk

Created, written and performed by comedians Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor, 'The Goodies' was a very zany hit BBC comedy that ran for nine seasons until 1981. In the show the trio set themselves up as an agency for hire and call themselves 'The Goodies' (as they were supposedly the good guys), with the motto `We do anything, anytime'. To quote TVTome: "Using a unique blend of sketch comedy, slapstick and almost cartoon-like humour the show was often outrageously madcap, and only rarely failed to hit the mark". During their BBC years The Goodies twice won the Silver Rose of Montreux (Europe's top comedy TV award) - one was for 'Kitten Kong' on this DVD set. Conspiracy theories abound on why none of 'The Goodies' hit episodes were ever re-run by the BBC.I bought this 2 DVD Goodies set for my daughter (11) after she watched a 'The Goodie years' documentary on TV recently and really seemed to like the humour. She is very very taken with the eight episodes here on the two DVDs (Amazon forgot to mention the 'Gender Education' episode in their review). I told her that around a hundred Goodies episodes were actually made. Her comment after viewing the few here throughout the weekend was 'Why don't they release all the episodes on DVD, anyone would be stupid not to buy them'. She likens the Goodies to the single 'Monkees' NTSC DVD she has that she also likes (Monkees - our favourite episodes). So we have bought 'The Goodies - a second helping' (another 2 DVD set) and the 'Complete Goodies LWT series [one season]'. As I write my son (10) is now sitting down with her in her bedroom laughing at the Goodies antics. My daughters favourites here are Kung Foo Capers, Lighthouse keeping Goodies and Saturday night grease (although she hasn't actually seen Grease). My son thinks the Goodies are 'very funny and stupid'. They obviously really go for the childish humour and visual gags, as my family and I did 30 years ago.Picture quality is good if slightly noisy on the older 1970's episode but seems to improve as the episodes go toward 1980 (and they are all in colour). Sound is fine (mono on my five quid Amazon resellers set). I don't actually find the Goodies that dated, as well as a lot of clever 'panto' slapstick, they had a sharp script, lots of boyish enthusiasm and a pretty unique visual style, although naturally some aspects are very period like the cars and BBC presenters. The humour has nothing much in common with the more cerebral 'Monty Python' and was probably evolved from the likes of cult UK 1960's kids TV show 'Do not adjust your set' [that introduced 'The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band' and starred many of the Monty Python team], Spike Milligan's Q-series, and zany BBC radio comedy such as 'I'm sorry I'll read that again' (that starred all The Goodies cast and John Cleese) - plus there's a bit of the cast's childhood Warner Brother's 1950's TV cartoons thrown in as well. As such the slapstick gags are probably more accessable to a non-UK audience than Monty Python. So great value laughs for the kids, and highly recommended. Now mum and dad are looking forward to watching them again - goody goody dum dum.

Happy to finally be able to obtain this series!

The Goodies on the BBC ran from 1970 to 1980, and includes the first episode. I do not know if the 1980 episode is the last one they did with the BBC. There are 8 episodes, and those of the right age will remember many of them, esp the giant kitten and Ecky Thump. I only had vague memories of them, so enjoyed different aspects of them rather than the nostalgia aspect. I find it hilarious that Mary Whitehouse was satirised so early on in Gender Education (Beryl Reid 1972) and yet MW approved of The Goodies at one point! Clearly she had not seen this episode.(I saw Scatty Safari on another compilation, and it is omitted from this version, which for me is a plus as I found it cringingly bad. And The Goodies did black up right up to 1980 - that is not comedy I really appreciate, though I am not suggesting that it is intentionally racist. It just seems wildly inappropriate.)I think that the episodes are well varied. The Saturday Night Grease episode is funny, but was 18 months after the Grease/ SNF craze, which doesn't matter now, but gives you an idea of how The Goodies had flagged by the end of the decade.My kids like it, so it can win new fans, but is going to appeal most to those who were there first time round.

We ejoyed this until we suddenly got a series that was written by the goodies, which incidentally wasn't funny. We had been expecting the whole DVD to be of the goodies, Tim, Bill and Graham.

The Goodies were in most people eye's a kids version of Monty Python - (including John Cleese)- zany, groovy! wacked out silliness! And bloody funny!Grab these discs while you can- (know this is the LWT series) but the BBC in their wisdom left the original films to literally rot in the archives and not many episodes survive. Even the bbc dvd releases are rumoured to have been put together after they sought out collectors and remastered old videoed episodes for their release as they didn't have the originals. So unless they do this to the other 'old video copies' doing the rounds on P2P shares- it's going to be hard to see this classic comedy in it's entirety on dvd unless you show an interest and buy the dvd's.Bring back those memories-

Out of the seven episodes i do not like Animals or Football crazy that much but they are ok.My favourite episode is Holidays because it is really funny when Graeme dresses up as a crane, when Bill plays spat and when Tim sings "Oh i do like to be beside the seaside".I also like Robot especially when Bill dresses up as a girl.The second disc of extras is interesting. I love watching Funky Gibbon, it is funny to see Bill and Tim really enjoying themselves but poor Graeme, my favourite Goody, looks a bit embarrassed and does not really want to be there!All in all a lovely present from my Daddy which i watch over and over again driving him mad!!Lucy W. Age 9

This is the only official complete series of the 'GOODIES',and contains the usual mixed bag of out-and-out gems, with one or two reheated themes........overall, the standard is high enough to warrant purchase; picture/sound quality is fine, gag-quota is high, with many elaborate visual stunts of which this team is celebrated.One episode: 'HOLIDAY' --is studio-only, which affords textured interplay within the team.Apparantly, this series of 7 25-min shows reportedly cost as much as the entire BBC output of 70 shows.....GO FIGURE!VISUALLY impressive as ever, with only token ITV 'forced laughter' from the studio audience. This show translates to the commercial channel far better than other COMEDY exports. ----FINE.

Takes me back but does seem terribly dated now! But we were young!