Series / The Goodies

We do anything, anywhere, anytime.^note (l-r: Tim, Bill, Graeme)

"Goodies! Goody-goody yum-yum..."

A groundbreaking 1970-82 British comedy series, born from the same generation of comic talents that infused British TV in The '60s and The '70s with such innovative work as Monty Python's Flying Circus. Not nearly as well-known outside the UK as its contemporary Python (some view it as The Monkees to the Pythons' Beatles, others as the Beatles to the Pythons' Rolling Stones, and to overextend the metaphor, sometimes The Hollies for The Goodies as against Procol Harum for the Pythons), The Goodies was far more plot-oriented — it was nominally a Sitcom when it premiered — but at the same time it was also far more anarchic and surreal.

The Goodies starred Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie as three flatmates who run an agency that promises it can do "anything, anywhere, at any time". A riotous mix of sketches, sitcom, comically overambitious special effects and nonsense, The BBC's own historical reference for the show describes it as a "live action version of a typical Warner Brothers cartoon" — which is quite accurate, although sidestepping completely much of the thinly veiled social satire the show was inclined towards. Entire episodes were devoted to poking fun at topical subjects as diverse as TV censorship Nazis like Mary Whitehouse, nuclear testing, police brutality, Saturday Night Fever, and the general crappiness of the British postal service.

Central to the show were the exaggerated versions of themselves that the leads played: conservative royalist Tim, twisted gadgeteer Graeme, and Earth-child proto-hobbit Bill. The intersection of these three personalities generated as much comedy as the increasingly bizarre situations that they found themselves in. Their trademark was the "Trandem", a bicycle-built-for-three which they invariably mounted and fell off once per episode before riding to their next adventure.

More inclined to slapstick and vaudeville-like humour than the Pythons, the Goodies never quite got the respect they deserved — despite the fact that they lasted at least three times as long on the air. The series can be found — albeit rarely — on public television in the United States and Australia (being considered more as a children's show there), as well as on YouTube; and some of their recordings (such as "The Funky Gibbon") can occasionally be heard on the Dr. Demento show.

The show is notable for having someone die laughing whilst watching it.

The trio also lent their voices to the cartoon adaptation of children's comic favourite Bananaman in The '80s. Perceptive viewers will know Tim Brooke-Taylor from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, where he played the computer operator trying to get the location of the golden tickets from a computer that refuses to tell him. Both he and Graeme Garden have been panellists on the Long Runner BBC radio comedy show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue since it debuted in 1972 until Tim's death in 2020. Bill Oddie, a dedicated birder and naturalist, largely sidetracked away from performance after The Goodies and is better known to more recent generations as a TV presenter on birdwatching, wildlife and conservation in many shows such as Springwatch.

In 2019 the trio reunited for an hour-long special audio episode released on Amazon's Audible service called "The Big Ben Theory". According to Graeme, more episodes were planned, however this was sadly cancelled due to Tim tragically passing away from coronavirus on April 12, 2020 at the age of 79. In 2022, the first in a planned series of novelisations of the unproduced episodes was announced.

Not to be confused with The Goonies.

In the mid-'70s the Goodies had a brief but surprisingly successful foray into the UK pop charts — Oddie is genuinely a talented musician — and charted five comedic singles including Top Ten hits in "The Inbetweenies"/"Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me" and the enduring novelty classic "Funky Gibbon". Tropes for their music can be found here.

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Any tropes, anywhere, any time:

A-M

• Accidental Unfortunate Gesture: Tim, as Winston Churchill, gives the "two-fingered salute" gesture when he was actually indicating that he wanted a cigar. Graeme then has the idea of turning his hand around to create the iconic "V for Victory" symbol.
• The Ace: Tim.
• Achievements in Ignorance: In "The Lost Tribe", Graeme builds a canvas television that works perfectly. Then he is told that a canvas television is a scientific impossibility so he throws it away.
• Acquired Error at the Printer: The tie-in book The Goodies File contains a shoddy brochure that The Goodies use to advertise themselves, full of spelling and lay-out errors. It is credited to
  Author: Bill Oddie
  Printed by: Tatty & Cheap (Prunter)
• Affably Evil: Played for Laughs with Dr. Wolfgang von Petal (Patrick Troughton), a Mad Scientist who just wants to be liked. Unfortunately for him, he seems to have a bit of a skewed idea of how to actually go about getting people to like him.
  Von Petal: All I've ever done is tried to help people! I helped the Russians with missiles, I helped the Americans with their H-Bomb, I helped the British with their biological warfare — Why, I even helped the Nazis! Now how generous can you get?
• Affectionate Nickname: When he is drunk in "The End", Tim calls Bill "Little Billykins" and Graeme "Gray-bags" and "Fuzzy Chops".
• Alien Episode: "U-Friend or UFO". As trombone players everywhere mysteriously disappear, the Goodies try to make sense as to what is happening. They realize there are aliens out there. Bill wants to talk to them, but Graeme wants to destroy them.
• And Zoidberg:
  • From "Frankenfido", when it's revealed Graeme has been gathering body parts from celebrities, following his "chopping list", to create the perfect dog:
    Graeme: Look. Teeth. You wouldn't find teeth like these on a mere dog.
    Tim: What are they? Horse, alligator, tiger...
    Graeme: Look at them.
    Tim: No! Not Donny Osmond!
    Graeme: Yep.
    Tim: You...you've been using people! ...And Donny Osmond!
  • From "Rome Antics", which opens with Graeme as The Narrator.:
    Graeme: The Roman Empire spreads itself across the civilised world. And England.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: From "Kung Fu Kapers", where Tim and Graeme are trying to provoke Bill.
  Tim: You nasty, spotty, unpleasant little dwarf!
  Graeme: Weirdo! ...Chelsea supporter!
• The Artifact: The Goodies started out as an agency that would do any kind of work. This was pretty much forgotten by series five, but the "Anything Anytime" slogan remained in the title song.
• Asbestos-Free Cereal: On "It Might as Well Be String" (a spoof of the advertising industry), their ad campaign for Sunbeam Sliced Bread claims that "nine out of ten doctors agree that people who eat Sunbeam Sliced Bread are less likely to be trampled to death by elephants". Graeme does mention that it was a struggle to find the right nine doctors, however. And the elephants.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Kitten Kong and later Dougal and Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout.
• Backwards-Firing Gun: In the movies episode, Graham Garden is making The Western. He kicks open a door holding revolvers Guns Akimbo, only for the door to slam back in his face. When he opens the door again, both barrels are bent upwards, causing debris to rain down from the ceiling when he fires.
• Baguette Beatdown: "Kung-Fu Kapers" has Tim briefly make use of a French martial art called Oh-Hon-Hee-Hon that involves hitting the opponent with a baguette... it has no effect whatsoever. There's also Ecky Thump, a "martial art" Bill learned when he was younger that basically revolves around hitting people with black pudding. It turns out to be a lot more effective.
• Bait-and-Switch: An example occurs in "Cecily", after Tim and the titular girl get very scared down in the cellar. After the mock advert break, we see Graeme, with only his head in the frame, reassuring someone, who we presume to be Cecily ... but when the camera pans backwards, we see that he's actually comforting a crying Tim.
• Banana Peel:
  • In the episode "Cunning Stunts", Bill is seen throwing several banana peels on the floor just so he can slip all over them as part of his entry in the Eurovision Loony Contest. Graeme and Tim also slip all over the skins.
  • A mimed banana peel causes a nasty accident in "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express".
• Bar Slide: Occurs in "Bunfight at the O.K. Tearooms". The surly barmaid slides two dainty teacups down the bar to Tim and Bill, who fail to catch them.
• Bawdy Song: In "Wacky Wales".
• Bearer of Bad News: In the episode "Earthanasia":
  Bill: As you well know tomorrow never comes and do you know why? Because, little dewy eyed Timbo, tomorrow we'll all be dead! Dead, dead! D! E! D! D! DEAD!
  Graeme: You might have broken it to him gently.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: In "Bigfoot", it is revealed that Bigfoot is actually Tim with his foot swelled up to gigantic size (It Makes Sense in Context).
• Big "SHUT UP!": Graeme does one in "Kitten Kong", to quiet down Tim and Bill bickering Like an Old Married Couple.
• Big "WHAT?!": When their flat is encased in concrete in "The End", the Goodies are told that the Ministry of Works can only get them out once several different roads have been laid, starting with the Brighton to Birkenhead freeway. Then this comes up on the news:
  Newsreader; In the light of the increasing poverty of the nation, the government have decided that work on the new Brighton to Birkenhead freeway will be suspended indefinitely.
  Bill: WHAAT?!
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: The Goodies contains numerous swipes at the BBC, most notably in the episodes "Alternative Roots" and "The End", during which a service announcement warns of "cutbacks of a hundred percent" - and the screen immediately goes black. And in "Gender Education" they blow up BBC Television Centre.
  • Chubby Chumps sees Graeme returning to BBC Radio. He goes to what really amounts to a long-neglected crypt where everything is festooned with cobwebs and which reeks of long neglect. This of course allows him a vehicle to reprise all the voice imitations he used, such as Eddie Waring, Terry Wogan, or Tony Blackburn, where his comedy career started. On BBC Radio.
• Bitter Almonds: Played straight and subverted in "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express":
  Graeme: (sniffs a bottle) A characteristic smell of bitter almonds...
  Tim: That's cyanide, isn't it?
  Graeme: Yes. This bottle of arsenic's been poisoned!
• Blackface:
  • Tim in "South Africa". A somewhat unusual example in that it was being used to criticise racism (the joke was that no actual black people would be in a pro-apartheid PSA).
  • In "Kung Fu Kapers", Bill fights a black boxer played by Graeme as an obvious parody of Muhammad Ali.
  • In "The End", the Goodies all find religion; Graeme becomes a Christian monk, Tim becomes a Jew, and Bill enters the room covered in boot polish and announces, in an exaggerated accent, that he has become a Black Muslim.
  • In a parody of Roots (1977) we see the Origin Story of The Goodies, where their ancestors were cruelly kidnapped by the BBC and forced into blackface as cast members on The Black and White Minstrel Show. They eventually fought for equal rights, no matter what colour paint, be it black, white, green, polka-dot. The episode was actually labelled: DO NOT BROADCAST - RACIST in the BBC archive.
• Blood Sport: Cricket has become this in "2001 and a Bit".
• Boomerang Comeback: In the infamous scene in "Kung Fu Kapers", where Bill is proving "Ecky Thump" is superior to other martial arts. Graeme misses with a boomerang, but later after Tim has disarmed Bill with some bagpipes, it comes back and clouts Tim from behind.
• Bottle Episode: "The End" and "Earthanasia" feature very few special effects and no guest stars, and are performed entirely on one set (in both cases, this was a necessity because the location filming budget for the series had been completely spent). The latter episode in fact consists of one real-time 25-minute scene, and both are regarded as among the series' best moments.
• Brick Joke:
  • In "Kung Fu Kapers", the boomerang Graeme throws at Bill comes back later in the scene and hits Tim in the back of the head.
  • In "Bunfight At The OK Tearooms", Tim and Bill's argument about the pronunciation of 'scone' is referenced in the song at the end of the episode.
  • In "Kitten Kong", Graeme starts remonstrating with Bill over letting Twinkle escape, notices the overly affectionate bushbaby from part 1 clinging to his hand, then hurls it away before resuming his rant.
• Bring the Anchor Along:
  • In "Goodies in the Nick", the Goodies escape from prison with iron balls still shackled to their ankles. They proceed to disguise the balls in a series of increasingly unlikely fashions; including as a balloon.
  • In the King Arthur episode Graeme comes across the Excalibur in the Stone, so he picks it up like a giant mace and tries to clobber the villain with the rock on the end.
• Broke Episode: Several occasions.
• Buccaneer Broadcaster: "Radio Goodies".
• Butt-Monkey: Tim becomes this on occasion.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: In the episode "South Africa".
  Tim: Look at those stars. They look like hundreds of tiny little eyes.
  Graeme: They are hundreds of tiny little eyes...
• By Wall That Is Holey
• Calvinball: "Spat", which seemed to be made of rules that led to Bill always losing and being injured. Bill mentions in the commentary that he really didn't have any idea what the other two were doing.
• The Cameo: Plenty of celebrities spoofed themselves, and the series virtually invented the Newscaster Cameo. Averted with Prince Charles who considered it but had to decline, and Rolf Harris who was never asked to appear in the episode spoofing him, much to his disappointment.^note  Bill Oddie, whose personal contempt for Harris was part of the motivation behind the frequent mockery of him on the programme, assumed Harris would refuse if asked to appear in the episode, and so didn't bother to ask.
  • In one episode, John Cleese cameos, deriding the Goodies as a "kids' show." In real life, the Pythons and the Goodies were (mostly) friendly rivals.
• Camping a Crapper: In "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express", the Shafts are killed when the lavatory on the train blows up while they're using it.
• The Can Kicked Him: In "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express'', the Shafts are killed when someone blows up the lavatory on the train while they are inside.
• Cactus Cushion: The song "Cactus in My Y-Fronts" (from the Nothing to Do With Us album, and performed on "The Goodies Almost Live" episode of the TV show) tells the tragic tale of a cowpoke who relives himself behind a cactus and receives a nasty shock when he pulls his trousers up:
  I was down in Cripple Creek
  I was dying for a leak
  So I dropped my pants behind a cactus there
  
  When I fastened up my belt
  I can't tell ya how I felt
  But I knew the meaning of a prickly pear ... ouch!!
• Can't You Read the Sign?: In "Holidays", Bill pulls down a list of ridiculously strict rules on the wall of their holiday chalet. Underneath is a sign saying '250 pound penalty for removal of notice'. Bill hurriedly sticks it back.
• Captured by Cannibals: One episode had the lads placed in a native cooking-pot. They got out of it by encouraging the natives to cook "human clear soup" — the point being that when cooking clear soup you remove the meat before serving.
• Cardboard Pal: The fake Graeme in "Bunfight at the O.K. Tea Rooms".
• Cargo Ship: Graeme's relationship with his computer was a Running Gag that popped up occasionally, starting in "Women's Lib". In "2001 And A Bit", it's mentioned that Graeme was put away for having an "unnatural relationship" with his computer — also, this is scribbled on a note in The Goodies Book Of Records: invoked
  Dear Computer — have gone out for an hour or so. Your programme is in the safe. Love you! Graeme
  P.S. Hope your transistors are feeling better.
• Catapult Nightmare: In "Kitten Kong", Tim returns home determined to wreck vengeance on Twinkle the kitten after his disastrous attempt to walk the over-active purrball. Graeme and Bill caution him that it's not a very good idea, then open the door to reveal that thanks to Graeme's growth formula the kitten has grown to enormous size. Tim screams hysterically, and then wakes up in bed crying: "Get it off me! Don't lick me!" (Bill: "I'm not licking you!") Unfortunately it's not All Just a Dream.
• The Cat Came Back: Bill's attempts to dispose of the eponymous robot in "Robot". At one point he seals the robot in a box, which he places inside a larger crate suspended from a crane, only to turn around and find the robot is now driving the crane.
• Character Catchphrase: "Get it right!"
• Cave Mouth: In "The Stone Age" the Goodies go caving. They find a remarkable Cave Mouth, noting the curving rows of stalagmites and stalactites, and treat the odd red thing ^note uvula like a punching bag. The giant dinosaur, naturally, closes its mouth on them.
• Central Theme: While there is no real lesson to any episode, an overall anti-authoritian streak runs through the programme. Antagonists are frequently characters who have let power go to their heads, usually one of the trio.
• Chandelier Swing: Graeme attempts one in "Snow White 2" and ends up crashing into the wall.
• Chewing the Scenery: Many a guest star (and the leads on occasion), but the height of this is reached by Jon Pertwee playing somewhat against type in "Wacky Wales".
• Clown Car: In "Skatty Safari", the Rolf Harris plague has a take-off of the Pied Piper of Hamlin, which includes the Rolf Harrises "attacking the babies in their cradles". Later when the Goodies draw them out of the city by playing "Waltzing Matilda" on didgeridoos, an endless stream of Rolfs are seen clambering out of a single baby carriage.
• Clownification: In "Clown Virus", a job to dispose of a large container, with the words 'Tomato Soup' on its side for an American military base sees the whole British population turned into clowns and ripe for an invasion by US troops.
• Clueless Aesop: Parodied in "Gender Education" with their Mary Whitehouse Expy-approved sex education film, which avoids any mention of anything related to sex:
  Narrator: This is a man. And this isn't.
• Coat Full of Contraband:
  • Parodied in "Hype Pressure". Experiencing a 1950s revival, Tim turns into a zoot-suited quick-talking, quick-walking, shady spiv. "Wanna buy a nice pair of fluorescent socks?"
  • Bill is approached by a stereotypical trenchcoat-wearing flasher. After apparently flashing Bill, he turns out to be an example of this trope when Bill buys something off him.
• Comic Trio: Played with — usually someone would fill the roles, but no one character could or would have total claim to it.
• Commercial Switcheroo:
  • One of the fake advertisements features what appears to be a commercial demonstrating the effectiveness of a brand of petrol, up until the car crashes into a banner reading "20 Miles".
  Announcer: Robinson's Paper. The strong one.
  • A spoof of the "two chicks in a kitchen" type of ad has a housewife struggling to get her kitchen clean, when another woman comes in with a new floor varnish which she sprinkles all over the place, then taunts the housewife about the mess she's made. So the housewife produces a submachine gun and shoots her.
    Announcer: If someone comes in and fouls up your housework, try a Westminister submachine gun!
• Competition Coupon Madness: In "It Might As Well Be String", one of the violent advertisements the ad industry has sunk to at the start of the episode involves Captain Fishface (a parody of Captain Birdseye) announcing that he has your children and will only release them if you send in box tops from 10 packets of Fishface Fish Fingers.
• Compliment Backfire: The show was once praised by well-known Moral Guardian Mary Whitehouse. The boys took it poorly, making an entire episode spoofing her and, when she didn't rise to the bait, inserting rude gags until they finally earned her public disapproval.
• Computer Equals Tapedrive: Graeme's computer, naturally. Spoofed in the 2005 "Return of the Goodies" documentary where a now middle-aged Graeme tries to insert an enormous disk into his computer.
  Graeme: I'll pop it on the laptop. Hang on, it's not compatible. I shall give it an upgrade. (hits it with a mallet)
• Continuity Cavalcade: In "Change Of Life", the Goodies feel old and useless, and decide to do a Goodies standard test. It's filled with references to classic episodes, including Ecky Thump, Kitten Kong and even the old gag of getting on the trandem and falling over.
• Cowboy Episode: "Bunfight at the OK Tearooms"
• Creator Provincialism: Though a lot of this is satirical. See the song "Cricklewood" - after mentioning Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane, they sing about Cricklewood, possibly the most boring place on Earth, if you believe the song.
• Credits Gag: "It Might as Well be String" ends with the camera looking through the backwards credits on the TV screen at the Goodies, who are sitting on a couch making snide remarks about the episode they've just watched.
• Cross Dresser: Tim in quite a few episodes - to the point that, after the Goodies have taken over the film industry, Graeme says to Tim "You'll play the woman - you always play the women."
  • The other two also do this on occasion, most notably Graeme dressing in a very pink and puffy dress in "Saturday Night Grease".
• Cruella to Animals: The Endngered Species Club from "Dodonuts". They only hunt endangered species because their small numbers make them hard to find. Common species of animals and birds are too abundant and therefore too easy to hunt.
• Cryptid Episode:
  • In "Scotland", Tim, Bill and Graeme decide to go to Scotland, where they hope to be able to catch the Loch Ness Monster for the zookeeper to put into the Monster House.
  • In "Big Foot", The Goodies go in search of Arthur C. Clarke, who has gone missing, but get more than they bargained for when they find that Bigfoot is on their tail.
• Crystal Clear Picture: It makes heavy use of this. Though considering the 'TV' was 'actually' a super advanced projector thingy, which suspiciously worked exactly like a set of blinds, it was probably a tad less serious.
• Crystal Skull: A parody of Mysterious World had the crystal skull wishing everyone "Nighty night!".
• Dance Sensation:
  • Spoofed in "The Music Lovers" where they were being tasked — by a musical Mad Hatter, no less — with writing a hit song. They belted up a squaredance tune, and Bill improvised fairly ordinary squaredance lyrics which were being followed exactly by the Mad Hatter's goons, ending with this (paraphrased):
    Back to the windows, turn about,
    Are you ready, all jump out
  • Spoofed in "Saturday Night Grease", when Bill and Graeme create the "Disco Heave" which becomes instantly popular.
  • In-universe there is "The Bounce" from "Goodies Rule - Ok?"
  • The show also produced a real-life dance hit (for certain values of "hit"), "The Funky Gibbon".
• Darker and Edgier: Series 1 and 2 were much more adult in tone than later series, and featured explicit nudity, allusions to drug use and more swearing.
  • A lesser example with series 6-8, which were slightly coarser and cruder than previous series.
• Deadline News: In "Kitten Kong", newsreader Michael Aspel is squashed by Kitten Kong's huge paw.
• Deadpan Snarker: Bill and Graeme. Tim would snark occasionally, but he's usually playing it up too much for it to be deadpan.
• Dem Bones: In one episode the Goodies are operating their own hospital. Graeme gets a patient to step behind an X-Ray screen, which naturally displays his skeleton. The skeleton then walks out from the other side of the screen, causing Graeme to flee in terror (this scene is included in the show's opening montage).
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Rather hilariously done in the original form in the episode "Come Dancing". Graeme has built a gadget controlling their "dancing suits", and a female leader of a dancing mafia is hassling him about the importance of the Goodies losing the dance competition they've entered. Distracted, he mumbles that he wasn't listening, and then this ensues:
  Graeme: Look, I'm in a terrible hurry to set the control box...
  Leader: Set the control box?
  Graeme: Yes, the box that—the—uh—the suits, the settings, we—[makes vague hand gestures]—anyway, I must dash!
  Leader: [catching on somehow] ...But this is cheating!
  Graeme: Yeah, well, it is, a bit, but—[grinning]—long as nobody knows about it, eh? [thumbs up] See you later! [leaves]
  Leader: [stunned silence]
  Graeme: [just outside, stopping and staring into open space, realizing] ...WHAT'VE I DONE?!
• Die Laughing:
  • This is the fate of anyone who sees Bigfoot (Tim Brooke-Taylor with a foot that's swelled up to enormous size) in "Bigfoot".
  • In a rare case of this happening in real life, it was reported that "Kung Fu Kapers" caused Alex Mitchell to laugh non-stop for nearly a half-hour. The strain on his body was too much and he suffered a fatal heart attack. His widow sent a letter to the Goodies thanking them for making her husband's last moments so happy. Mr. Mitchell's condition was more fully explained recently, when his granddaughter had a narrow escape from a similar incident (she survived and has had preventative surgery since).
• Dodgy Toupee: Several appear in "Scoutrageous" when Graeme and Bill are trying to earn their Wig Spotter's Badge.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: A lot of Tim and Bill's arguments sound like a couple having a row.
  • In 'Earthanasia', Tim's belief in Santa and the way Graeme and Bill play along with it, complete with jingling sleigh bells, reminds you of the way parents play along with their children when they believe in Santa, and is actually rather sweet to see.
• Dog Walks You: In "Kitten Kong" Tim gets dragged along by a kitten.
• Dolled-Up Installment: "A Collection of Goodies", billed as a "Special Tax Edition", consists of five sketches originally filmed for the variety show Engelbert with the Young Generation with new linking material.
• Don't Be Ridiculous: Several times, such as when Tim plans to complain to "the highest authority in the country":
  Bill: Not David Frost!
  Tim: No, no, no, no, no. (Beat) Not that high.
• Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: This is played with in the very first episode, as the Crown Jewels have a sign placed by them reading "Please Do Not Steal". It doesn't do much good.
• Don't Try This at Home: "We would like to point out that Ecky Thump is the ancient Lancastrian art of self-defence. When practised by the untrained, it could be dangerous."
• Doofy Dodo: In "Dodonuts", Bill buys the world's last dodo from a pet shop and then attempts to teach it to defend itself against Tim and Graeme. However, he quickly learns that the bird has no survival instincts whatsoever.
• Dope Slap: Frequent — often in the visual gag sequences, one or two characters will make a mistake with comedic results, stand around looking sheepish for a while, and get slapped or shoved (usually on the arm or shoulder) several times by whoever of them watched the mistake happen.
• Downer Ending: A few episodes had these, but they were always Played for Laughs, so they only really occur to you as Downer Endings if you think about them. For example, "Kung Fu Kapers" ends with the Goodies (presumably) plummeting to their deaths off a cliff after an epic martial arts battle. At the end of "The End", they die of old age having never been freed from their office. "Earthanasia" ends with the world being blown up, killing everyone.
• Dramatic Drop: Parodied. Bill's not really shocked, he's just into loud noises.
• Drawing Straws: In "The End", the boys draw straws to decide which one of them will be killed and eaten after they are sealed inside a block of concrete. Bill, who does not know what they are drawing for, is the 'winner'.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Tim becomes one after joining the Salvation Army in "Scoutrageous!".
• Driving a Desk: "Punky Business" parodied this and then subverted it, the three Goodies are in the back of a van and we see the road in the vans back windows via backscreen projection, then it starts playing footage of punks. The subversion comes when Bill shoves Graeme and Tim out of the back of the van and we see a screen being watched by several policemen with the punk footage projected onto it.
• Drunk with Power:
  • In "Radio Goodies", Graeme's plan to set up a pirate radio station (and pirate post-office) and its resulting success soon turns him into a raging fascist dictator, complete with uniform and ranting Germanic accent, and he develops a mad plan to drag the entirety of Britain outside of the five-mile limit so that he can rule over it as a 'pirate state'. When Bill and Tim walk out on him in disgust, he eventually resorts to trying to tow Britain away single-handedly in a rowboat.
  • In fact this sort of thing happens rather a lot in The Goodies, for instance it happened to Bill in "Kung-Fu Kapers", Graeme AGAIN in "Bunfight at the OK Tearooms", and all three of them in "The Movies".
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Seasons 1 and 2 have a much different feel, featuring more adult humour (it aired on Sundays at 10pm), with episodes revolving around the lads having to help someone in need, and most villains being played by guest stars. From season 3 onwards, they started working more for their own benefit, until Season 4, where the "Anything Anytime" agency had almost been completely faded out, and the boys simply did whatever took their fancy (or whatever was profitable). The famous surrealism and 'human cartoon' aspects of the show really start to ramp up around series 4 as well.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: In "Earthanasia", the governments of the world agree to put the world out of its misery by blowing it up.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: Referenced in "Kitten Kong", where a black housekeeper (suspiciously similar to the one in Tom and Jerry, we even hear her shouting for "Thomas") jumps on the table and shrieks at the sight of the team dressed as mice.
• Edible Ammunition: The ketchup squeeze bottles in "Bunfight at the OK Tearooms".
• Edible Bludgeon: The black pudding used in the Lancastrian Martial Art "Ecky Thump".
• Egomaniac Hunter: "Dodonuts" has Tim and Graeme as leaders of the Endangered Species Club who hunt down endangered species, including a dodo protected by conservationist Bill Oddie.
• Eleventy Zillion: In the episode "Culture for the Masses" Tim buys a painting at an auction for "one million billion quintillion zillion pounds and two and a half new pence", which it goes without saying that he does not have. They leave thirteen pence as a deposit. By Contrived Coincidence, the National Gallery have all their paintings insured for exactly one million billion quintillion zillion pounds. Hilarity Ensues.
• The End of the World as We Know It: "Earthanasia" focuses on the impending destruction of the world and the Goodies' preparation for it.
• Enemy Mime: "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express".
• Epic Fail: Pretty much everything they do turns out like this.
  • When Bill and Tim are arguing Like an Old Married Couple in "Kitten Kong", Bill says: "What did we get last time you cooked supper, eh? A bowl of corn flakes! Yes, and they were burnt..."
• Exotic Entree: In "Dodonuts", Bill attempts to stop Tim and Graeme from hunting and eating the last dodo.
• Expository Theme Tune: In the later seasons; the earlier ones had a Surreal Theme Tune instead.
  G (Gee) You need a helping hand
  O (Oh!) You know we understand
  O — We'll be there to the end
  Everyone needs a friend!
• Eye Poke: In "Kung Fu Kapers", Tim is learning kung fu from a book and is instructed on how to perform this attack in a The Tape Knew You Would Say That moment.
• Facial Composite Failure: "Lighthouse Keeping Loonies" has two identikit pictures, identified as two people seen in the vicinity of the missing lighthouse, who resemble some high-up members of the Royal Family.
  • Then again, a few minutes previously the Royal Yacht had gone actually gone past the lighthouse. So it's technically correct as well.
• Fake Shemp: Along with the usual celebrity cameos in "Goodies Rule - Ok?", various other well-known entertainers of the time are represented by vaguely-similar figures whose faces aren't visible. Including "John" and "Eric", who are dressed as Gumbies.
• Fatal Family Photo: Parodied and Lampshaded in one episode. When a Nazi sentry starts showing his partner a photo of his girlfriend in Dusseldorf, the other starts telling him to put it away and ends up screaming at the top of the lungs to the British commandos he is certain are about to leap and murder them that he is not with this guy.
• Fauxreigner: Done more than once, usually as a part of a Zany Scheme. Lampshaded when Graeme is on the phone to Tim and pretending to be an Australian named 'Kerry Thwacker':
  Graeme: No! This is not Graeme doing a silly accent! Mister Garden would do a much sillier accent than this!
• Fauxtastic Voyage: "Daylight Robbery On The Orient Express".
• Finger-Snapping Street Gang: The final chase scene in the episode "Saturday Night Grease" features the "Mambo" music as the titular Goodies snap their fingers and pose just the street gangs do in West Side Story.
• Fingertip Drug Analysis: Played for laughs with smell instead of taste.
  Tim: Hang on a minute—(sniffs)—dang! That's certain substances, that is! How stupid...Graeme, have a sniff of that.
  Graeme: Huh? Oh, that's—(sniffs — collapses, then gets up, looking completely spaced out)—hooh! Where'd you get the stuff, man? Cool, baby, cool...
• Food Slap:
  • In "The Goodies and the Beanstalk", Bill has gone to sell the beloved trandem — however, it's rated as worthless by the bike buyers, who jokingly buy it for a tin of beans. When he comes back, Tim and Graeme inspect it, surprisingly calmly, before pouring all the beans over Bill's head.
  • In "Punky Business", Graeme has gotten to work as a waiter in a punk restaurant. When Tim orders the sauce, he gets it all over his head.
  • In "Black And White Beauty", there's a literal food slap. Exposition: Graeme's running a place that takes care of old animals. Bill, after watching some of their behaviour (nothing), starts doubting that they're alive. Bill watches a very unmoving cat, then this ensues:
    Bill: Alright, Graeme. (produces a fish) I want to see that cat eat that kipper.
    (nothing happens)
    Graeme: Er—yes—oh, look! (points) The hamster's doing a handstand!
    (Tim and Bill look away for a bit — when they look back, the kipper bone is sticking out of Graeme's mouth. Tim slowly pulls it out)
    Graeme: Er...(turns to the cat) I'm sorry, Kenneth, I was just so—(Tim slaps him with the kipper)
  • After the Goodies start robbing banks, a policeman comes to arrest them. The Goodies ask if he wants them to "spill the beans and hand over the dough." No guessing what happens next...
• Football Hooligans:
  • The Goodies had an episode about football hooliganism, in which ballet eventually replaced football as the national pastime but was then ruined by - yep - ballet hooligans.
  • They also had a milder parody in one episode, where Tim and Graeme ran in, cheering, chanting, and dressed in red-white scarves and woolly hats.
  Bill: So where've you two been?
  Graeme: The chess championships!
• Footprints of Muck: In "Kitten Kong", the Comic Trio follow the huge paw prints of Twinkle the Kitten across London on their three-seater bicycle, and keep running into things because the giant purrball can just step over objects they can't.
• For the Evulz: A rather light example in "Gender Education": Bill's just signed up to do a series of extremely violent shows for the BBC. Graeme and Tim, bewildered, simply ask why he'd join up for such 'immoral, gratuitous violence'.
  Bill: Oh, don't worry, I have a perfectly good reason.
  Graeme: Oh really? What's that?
  Bill: Because I like violence! (jumps Graeme, beginning to strangle him)
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • Bill: Sanguine/Choleric — very outgoing and easygoing, although rather short-tempered.
  • Graeme: Melancholic/Phlegmatic — eccentric and driven to the solution of the problem.
  • Tim: Leukine — neurotic, naive and social.
• Free Prize at the Bottom: Inverted. One of the spoof ads was for Goodies Plastic Spacemen, which came in a cereal box with a free corn flake.
• Friend to All Living Things: After Tim Brooke-Taylor becomes Bigfoot (his right foot has swollen from walking around the sides of mountains, looking for legendary creatures) he retreats to the wild (so people will stop laughing themselves to death over the sight of his enormous foot) and becomes friends to all the animals, who join him in a rendition of the "Bigfoot" theme song.
• Funny Background Event:
  • In "U-Friend Or UFO", Tim and Graeme discuss their sensitive UFO sensing equipment. Meanwhile, Bill is abducted.
  • In another UFO gag, Graeme (spoofing Arthur C. Clarke) completely fails to notice a UFO refueling behind him at Stonehenge or the Yeti eating his latest book.
• Fun with Acronyms: Bill runs for PM as the leader of "The Worker's Revolutionary Party...not just A Worker's Revolutionary Party, but The Worker's Revolutionary Party!" An unimpressed Tim notes that the acronym is "Twerp".^note There is a Viewers Are Geniuses -level Take That! here. At the time, a political party so far to the Left that it made the official Communists and Marxists look conservative actually was called The Worker's Revolutionary Party. It existed for real. For some reason it was the revolutionary left party of choice for many prominent actors and actresses in film, TV and theatre - Vanessa Redgrave and her brother Corin were members. One of the jokes about the WRP was that because it had so many luvvies in it, it should really be called The West End Revolutionary Party - TWERP for short. A TV personality joining a far-left party... hmmm.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Graeme. Sometimes verging into Mad Scientist territory as well.
  • Lampshaded after a fashion in "The Race". (Granted, he makes more of a simulation, but still...)
    Bill: There's still one problem. We don't have a car, do we?
    Graeme: That's no problem — get me a plate, a spoon, and a mirror.
• Garbage Hideout: In "Scoutrageous", Graeme and Bill hide in a pair of dustbins as they tailing Tim to his mysterious appointment. Unfortunately for Graeme, someone comes out and empties a bucket of food scraps into his.
• Gaussian Girl: Parodied, Bill and a woman are in soft focus whilst kissing, when he suddenly stops, runs up to the camera and wipes the petroleum jelly off the lens.
• Gay Cowboy: Tim as the Rhinestone Cowperson in "The Goodies Almost Live".
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Played for comedy in one episode. Tim is in hysterics. Graeme lightly slaps him. Tim is silent for about two seconds...and then slaps back much harder, sending Graeme tumbling into a nearby pile of boxes.
• Giant Foot of Stomping: In "Kitten Kong", newsreader Michael Aspel is squashed by Kitten Kong's huge paw.
• Giant Medical Syringe: In the episode "Kitten Kong", the titular trio have to resort to one of these to inject a kitten, who's grown to giant size after being fed a growth formula, with the antidote.
• Gibberish of Love: The first time the Goodies meet their dancing partners in the episode "Come Dancing", this ensues. Simultaneously. To both trios. How else to explain this exchange?
  Girls: We are Norma. We are a hair artiste.
  Goodies: We are Cyril. We are a bank clerk.
  Girls: That's interesting.
  (Beat)
  Girls: [awkwardly] Our vision is to own our own hairdressing salon.
  Goodies: How interesting. Our ambition is to own our own bank.
• The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: In "Punky Business", Graeme turns Tim into a punk by cutting his leg off. After reattaching it, he warns Tim that the catch won't last much past midnight. Tim goes to the Trendsetter's Ball, where he loses his leg at midnight. Caroline Kook vows to marry the man whom the leg fits. Cue punks cutting off their own legs.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: Cilla Black's singing in "The Stolen Musicians".
• Glass Slipper: Tim's leg becomes this when he loses it at the Trendsetter's Ball in "Punky Business".
• Goofy Print Underwear:
  • Tim's Union Jack boxers make several appearances, most notably in "The End" and "Scoutrageous".
  • And in "Saturday Night Grease" he dons a pair of underpants that have a large carrot on them (a scene which finally provoked the much-sought ire of Mary Whitehouse).
  • The others had them too, such as the scene where Graeme tries inflating a tyre and ends up blowing up his own trousers.
• Haplessly Hiding: In "Scoutrageous", Graeme and Bill are Bill are tailing Tim to his mysterious meeting. They hide in a pair of dustbins outside a restaurant, only for a restaurant employee to dump a pile of food scraps on top of them.
• Hat of Authority: In "Kung Fu Kapers", mastery in the Lancastrian martial art of Ecky-Thump is shown by the size of the flat cap worn by the fighter.
• Helping Granny Cross the Street: In the episode "Scoutrageous", Graeme and Bill, playing overage boy scouts, are trying to earn a proficiency badge for Helping Old Ladies Cross the Street. A sequence of madcap visual humour ensues, where Graeme is seen chalking a billiard cue and setting up trick shots involving Old Lady Number One with side-spin off the cushions into old Lady Number Two....
• Hilarious Outtakes: Included on the first DVD, showing several takes of the "breaking the record" scene from "The End". Notable among them is the one where Bill takes the record off and smashes it against the desk, and...it doesn't break. He smashes it against the desk four more times, then eventually throws it down on the ground and starts futilely jumping up and down on it.
• Hive Mind: In "Gender Education" all three Goodies disguise themselves as one person...all at once...and talk in synch. Something similar happens with both the Goodies and their dance partners in "Come Dancing".
• Hold Up Your Score: In "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express", the Goodies find their train has been hijacked as part of an attempt to win the legendary "Gold Bore" at the French "Le Boring" competition. An international panel of judges hold up cards showing how boring they felt each act to be, with the East German being the hard to impress judge. But, then again, the East Germans do know their boring.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Frequent.
  • In one episode, Tim and Graeme replace Bill with a robot, which they treat like a son, and end up acting like a dysfunctional married couple.
  • This often happens when Tim and Bill argue Like an Old Married Couple.
  • And lampshaded, notably in "The End", when they're concreted into their office.
    Tim: We shall make a new world...a better world for our children.
    Bill: What d'you mean, children—we're not going to have any children, are we? I mean, think about it, y'know...face it, from now on we three are doomed to be bachelors gay! (puts his hand on Tim's shoulder while Graeme starts stroking his hair) That's, uh...that's an idea, innit?
    Tim: (thoughtful pause) ...No! Get off!
  • Bill seems quite impressed to see Graeme in a dress in "Saturday Night Grease".
• Homicide Machines: In "Robot", Tim's impertinence causes the robot to order "OK lads, all out!", as all of the other kitchen appliances go out on strike and Tim has to chase after them. Tim is bombarded by toast fired from the toaster, gets a punch in the face from a boxing glove inside the robot's head and battles a vacuum hose (which rears at him like a cobra, spits a stream of chocolate milk in his face and tries to swallow him whole), before he is surrounded and charged at from multiple directions by the robot (who calls out "You've had it now!"), Graeme's computer, a kitchen stove and other appliances.
• Hope Spot: In "Earthanasia", the world will be destroyed at midnight. The Goodies' clock passes the hour... and nothing happens. Graeme bursts out laughing, delighted at his joke... which turns out to be that he'd put the clock forward thirty seconds. Then the world really does end.
• Hospital Hottie: Spoofed in "Hospital For Hire", where the nurse turns out to be a bearded man. Then they're informed she's not a man.
• I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: Bill's 'lemon sherbet' in the early seasons.
• Identical Grandson:
  • Tim plays his own eccentric, rich uncle in "Hunting Pink".
  • In "2001 and a Bit", all three Goodies play their own sons (by Raquel Welch) — except that Bill plays Tim's son, Tim plays Graeme's son, and Graeme plays Bill's son.
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: Bill cooks a healthy dinner for the others in "Farm Fresh Food". You could tell it was all natural because "it's all brown", namely brown wholemeal bread, brown rice, brown milk, and brown lettuce. Other dishes are a single roasted raisin for all three to share and seaweed salad. The recipes come from the Natural Health Cookbook printed on brown wholemeal paper with brown wholemeal ink (with Bill takes a bite out of) and the final special treat is simply pots of soil with a watercress garnish and plankton to drink. "It's very nourishing, this." When the Graeme and Tim leave in disgust to eat out, Bill realizes everything is terrible and follows.
  Bill: Health foods are alright when you're not hungry but I'm famished!
• I Know Kung-Faux: Ecky-Thump, the ancient Lancastrian art of self-defence. It involved the use of black puddings as weapons.
• Implausible Deniability: In "Scoutrageous", Graeme and Bill have been terrorising the country as 'the Lone Scout, Plus One'. When they are finally cornered by Tim and the Salvation Army, Tim orders them to take off their masks. Upon seeing their faces, Tim lets out a shocked "It was you all along!" Graeme and Bill look sheepish and Bill mutters "No". Tim then says "Oh well, that's alright then" and starts to leave.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Most of Tim's sobbing outbursts look like this, complete with tears and loud, hysterical sobs. In one case, he's crying so much that Bill has to wring his sodden handkerchief out into a bucket.
• Inept Talent Show Contestant: In "Hype Pressure" Graeme and Bill form a folk duo called 'the Twofolk'. They appear on Tim's cruel talent show New Faeces (a parody of the similarly cruel actual talent show New Faces^note  Judge "Tony Bitch" is a parody of the equally vicious New Faces judge Tony Hatch) and perform a hideous song called "The World Is Full Of Women and Men". Despite being booed by the audience, they are a hit with the supposedly unscrupulous panelists, who admire the song's naivety and purity. Tim's theatre of cruelty series is cancelled as a result.
• Inescapable Prisoneasily Escaped: In "Goodies in the Nick", the Goodies are sentenced to a long stretch in prison. Once they bother taking the blankets off their heads (which, admittedly does take several years) they almost immediately discover a means of escape, via a toilet that dumps them out through the wall.
• Instant Soprano: "Saturday Night Grease" has Tim talking in really high pitched voice that drops to his normal register as he unzips his ridiculously tight trousers.
• Institutional Apparel: The arrow variation uniform can be seen in the episode "Goodies in the Nick".
• Instrument of Murder: "The Stolen Musicians".
• Interrogation by Vandalism: In the episode "Scoutrageous", the two renegade Scouts whittle Tim's staves until he relents (they also damage his hat and threaten to take a Brillo pad (steel wool) to Tim's shiny shoes. They threatened the shiny shoes).
• Introduced Species Calamity: In the episode "Scatty Safari," the Goodies have started a celebrity zoo and are in search of a new star attraction. They eventually find it in the form of the last remaining Rolf Harris in Australia... and then pair it up with another Rolf kept in a Siberian zoo, resulting in the breeding pair and the resulting cub becoming their new attraction. Unfortunately, all three escape from the zoo, and due to their ability to both move and breed like greased lightning, they quickly overrun their new environment - resulting in a Pied Piper of Hamelin conclusion to the story.
• In Vino Veritas: Normally uptight Tim becomes affectionate and silly when he gets drunk in "The End".
• iSophagus: Graeme, unable to turn off a foghorn in "Lighthouse-Keeping Loonies", swallows the main component.
• I Take Offense to That Last One:
  • In "Kung Fu Kapers", Tim and Graeme are trying to provoke Bill. He brushes off being called a "weirdo" and a "nasty, spotty, unpleasant little dwarf", but nearly goes over the edge when accused of being a Chelsea supporter.
  • Subverted in "Caught In The Act". Context: Tim is in drag, calling himself 'Mitzi', and has gotten into a fight with a woman named Ms. Heffer regarding Graeme whom Tim pretends is his lover.
    Ms. Heffer: He doesn't want you! You're fat and old and ugly!
    "Mitzi": Fat and old I may be, but ugly—(hissing)—ugly... ...you're absolutely right, that's why he loves me. C'mere...
• It Makes Sense in Context: Graeme pulls this in "The Clown Virus" due to his less-than-helpful explanation of what's going on.
  Bill: (seeing the first signs of Tim's transformation into a clown) Hey, Gray, Gray...he looks like Coco the Clown!
  Graeme: Good grief, of course...that's it!
  Tim & Bill: What?
  Graeme: Wh—can't you see—Coco the Clown! The Americans! The tomato soup! Nerve gas! It all makes sense!
  Tim & Bill: ...No, it doesn't.
• It Won't Turn Off: A Rule of Funny version happens in "Lighthouse Loonies", with a foghorn which won't stop blaring even after Tim and Graeme have switched it off, pulled the plug, jumped up and down on it and swallowed the pieces.
• Kill the Poor: An annual cull of the poor was one of Tim's policies when running for Prime Minister.
• "King Kong" Climb: In "Kitten Kong", the giant kitten Twinkle the Post Office Tower, which topples under his weight.
• Knotty Tentacles: In "Scoutrageous", when the 'Lone Scout (Plus One)' (a.k.a. Graeme and Bill) are using their scouting skills to run a Protection Racket on a huge scale, one of their targets is the London Zoo, where they tie knots in a python and an elephant's trunk.
• Land in the Saddle: In "Animals", Graeme leaps out of the window of the farmhouse and lands in the saddle of his horse, who is actually a man (It Makes Sense in Context), before galloping off.
• Larynx Dissonance: Tim in "Cecily", talking on the phone (using the same voice he used for Lady Constance on I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again). It might not be convincing, but, credit where it's due, he slips into the voice like an evening gown (as he should, given how many years he'd been using the voice by then).
• Laser Blade: In "Snow White 2", Tim and Graeme have a duel with light sabers.
• Last Breath Bullet: "Bunfight at the OK Tearooms".
• Later-Installment Weirdness: A slight example. Starting with series 6, the humour got coarser and cruder, and Bill's songs becoming increasingly absent with each passing series, until by series 8 there was only one song per series.
  • This then happened again in a much more noticeable way with series 9, which returned things to the more rigidly defined plots of the show's early days, while dialling back the coarseness and crudeness of series 6-8, as well as the surrealism. Bill's songs also make a welcome return after a few series' relative absence, although they still aren't as prominent as they were in series 1-5.
    • On the downside, the humour becomes a lot more mainstream and less subversive, with less of the almost anarchic surrealism that had been a part of the series since the beginning, but particularly since series 3 and 4.
• Le Film Artistique: Ken Russell's outlandish composer biopics, especially Mahler, are parodied in "The Movies" with The Life of Pablo Casals. The film of a nun stripping to a frenzied cello accompaniment, but revealing a whiteface mime, is especially bizarre.
• Left the Background Music On: Tim's habit of giving inspirational speeches to a background of patriotic music — which he is seen starting up himself on a tape deck before beginning his speech.
• Lighthouse Point: The whole of "Lighthouse-Keeping Loonies", all because the advert said, "A little light housekeeping"
• Letting the Air out of the Band:
  • In the episode "Scotland" when they shoot the deadly bagpipe spider, with the air slowly leaking out of the bagpipes as it dies.
  • In the Christmas song, Father Christmas, Do Not Touch Me, Tim Brooke-Taylor carries on enthusiastically ringing the chimes and singing long after the others have packed in, and his jolly "ho-ho-ho!" descends into a bleating ''Hello?" as he realises he is alone in the recording studio.
• Lighter and Softer: The more mainstream humour of series 9 was this after the more crude humour of series 6-8, and indeed the less mainstream and accessible humour of all their BBC output, likely as a result of Executive Meddling after the move to LWT.
• Like an Old Married Couple: In "Kitten Kong" Tim and Bill bicker about dinner in this fashion, complete with snarky hissing and turning their backs on one another. Context: Bill was giving a gourmet meal to a guinea pig (It Makes Sense In...uh...further...contexty...things...)
  Tim: ...Ruddy 'ell!
  Bill: Surely you're not resentful toward a little kindness for one of our dumb friends?
  Tim: The only dumb friend I've got is you!
  Bill: Well, thank you, after I make supper for you—
  Tim: Look, we can hardly afford to feed ourselves, and you start giving four-course meals to flaming guinea pigs!
  Bill: [turns his back] Temper, temper...
  Tim: Well, since when have we eaten that well!
  Bill: Since when indeed, yes...what did we get last time you cooked supper, eh? [Tim turns his back as well] A bowl of corn flakes! Yes, and they were burnt...
  Tim: Well, better than your soggy lettuce and potato peelings...
  Bill: [turns back around, snapping] On the money you give me you're very lucky to get anything at all, I can tell you! [turning his back, hands on hips] Oh, I've a good urge to go back to mother's...
  Tim: Well go.
  Bill: I shall.
  Graeme: Now listen!
  Bill and Tim: AND YOU KEEP OUT OF THIS!
  Graeme: Tim, you are being very, very silly!
  Tim: Oh, you always take sides with him, don't you...
• Limited Wardrobe: Played straight with Tim and Graeme but averted with Bill, who had the same outfit for the first two seasons but went through several groovy outfits after that.
• Lipstick-and-Load Montage Tim getting ready for the disco in "Saturday Night Grease".
• Locked in a Room: "The End" features the Goodies' office being encased in a block of concrete — with them inside.
• Lost Tribe: In "The Lost Tribe of the Orinoco", the Goodies go in search of the eponymous lost tribe and find it in a most unexpected location.
• Lottery of Doom: When the Goodies are sealed inside a block of concrete in "The End", they draw straws to see which one of them will be eaten by the other two. Tim and Graeme don't tell Bill that this is what they are drawing for.
• Made of Explodium: Played for Laughs. In "Robot", the household appliances (the stove, computer, etc.) explode when they collide.
• Man in a Kilt:
  • The Goodies wore kilts in a totally failed attempt to blend in in Scotland in "Scotland".
  • In "Alternative Roots", the kilt is worn by the clan of Graeme's ancestor Keltic Kilty. The clan's initiation rite includes the joke "What's worn under a Scotsman's kilt? Nothing, it's all in perfect working order!".
• Master of Disguise: Nasty Person, who got his Master of Disguise from Sussex University, and claims to have done many naughty things in a variety of personae which included Richard Nixon, Enoch Powell, Idi Amin and David Frost. Later they fool Nasty Person's brainless henchman into thinking he's disguised himself as the Goodies — all three of them, at the same time.
• May Contain Evil: The 'tomato soup' in "Clown Virus".
• Meadow Run: Done between Bill Oddie and his new gal. Then done in the same meadow between Graeme Garden and...his computer. He also tries to push it on a swing, which...doesn't work so well.
• Media Watchdog: Parodied in the form of Mrs Desiree Carthorse, an obvious No Celebrities Were Harmed Mary Whitehouse, in the episode "Sex and Violence". The real Mrs Whitehouse had said how much she liked the show, and the boys took offense.
• Medicine Show: The Goodies performed a scene as part of "The Goodies Travelling Medicine Show" in the episode "Hospital For Hire". The scene included a plant from the audience (Tim) being pulled from the audience to 'prove' that the mystery elixir cured all ailments.
• Mega Neko: Kitten Kong a.k.a. Twinkle, an ordinary kitten who is fed a growth formula and grows to [[[[Kaiju}} behemoth size]] and goes on a rampage around London.
• Mental Picture Projector: Bill's brain hooked up to Graeme's computer. It took a sherbert fountain to make it work. Bill's train of consciousness lagely revolved around football and naked ladies (the picture cut out when he ran out of sherbert, or else Censor Boxes intruded), but generally managed a revelation of worth to Graeme and Tim.
• Merit Badges for Everything: The "Scoutrageous!" episode features the World Domination badge (up to that point only ever awarded to Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and David Frost. But Frost stole his). It also features a montage of two of the characters earning badges they are blatantly making up as they go, including the Wig Spotters Badge, the Stealing A Pair Of Margaret Thatcher's Bloomers Badge, and the Cheering Up Lonely Housewives Whose Husbands Are Away At Work badge.
• Mining for Cookies: In episode "Bunfight at the OK Tearooms", in which the Goodies find cream in an old tin mine in Cornwall, leading to a cream rush. They later strike strawberry jam. (It's also suggested that the old tin mine used to produce "old tins".)
• Mister Big:
  • "The Goodies and the Beanstalk" features a "giant" who is even shorter than Bill, despite his home and all his belongings being giant-sized.
  • Big Bunny in "Invasion of the Moon Creatures". On the moon, he communicates with Tim and Bill via a monitor that makes him look large. When he appears on Earth at the end of the episode, we see he is just an ordinary-sized rabbit.
• Monumental Damage:
  • The episode "Sex and Violence" concludes with the Crosses the Line Twice climax of Bill (accidentally) blowing up the BBC Television Centre.
  • Kitten Kong took down the Post Office Tower (now known as the BT Tower) in a clip that ended up in the Title Sequence of later seasons.
• Most Definitely Not a Villain:
  • In one episode, the Goodies ran a pirate radio station inside a submarine attached to a rowboat. The rowboat itself had a sign saying 'Not A Pirate Radio Station'.
  • In "The Greenies", there was a military base with a sign saying (paraphrased): "Not A Germ Warfare Station Or A Nuclear Weapon Testing Site Or A Place Where People Are Hurt In Any Way". And below it, a small sign saying "So There".
• Motorcycle Jousting: In "Camelot Capers", the Goodies have to joust with a knight on horseback while mounted on their iconic three-seater bicycle. It doesn't go well for them.
• Mundane Object Amazement: Graeme becomes enthralled by the process of making a cup of tea in "Holidays". This results in him making several hundred cups of tea.
• Mushroom Samba: In some of the early episodes Bill Oddie's hallucinations are crucial plot points. They are induced, to Graeme's loudly expressed disbelief, by lemon sherbet. Whenever the sherbet comes up, it's often mentioned that his grandmother sends him it. It's also described as "Not dangerous, but it turns him on".
• Musical Assassin: Everyone at the end of "The Stolen Musicians". The organ cannon. Or the orchestra using their violins as bows. And their bows as arrows. And finally, Cilla Black against the Goodies in the last scene.
• Music Soothes the Savage Beast: In "The New Office", the Goodies are attacked by dinosaur-like construction equipment. 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.
• Mystery Cult: Druidism is portrayed this way in "Wacky Wales". Strictly Played for Laughs, of course. (But, then again, perhaps it's rugby that's the mystery cult.)

N-Z

• The Natives Are Restless: In "South Africa", Tim observes that "the jockeys are restless tonight".
• Newscaster Cameo: BBC News presenter Richard Baker, Michael Aspel, Corbet Woodall, and Nationwide presenter Michael Barratt were among the more frequently seen guest stars to appear as themselves.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "U-Friend or UFO?", Graeme's robot EB-GB (a Captain Ersatz of R2-D2) ends up inciting the aliens the plot centres around to war when asked how to talk to aliens.
  EB-GB: Exterminate them! Exterminate them! Where are the aliens? We will kill them all!
• Nine out of Ten Doctors Agree: Parodied when The Goodies go into the advertising business in "It Might As Well Be String".
  Tim: Look at this! Nine out of every ten doctors agree that people who don't eat Sunbeam sliced bread will get squashed by elephants!
  Graeme: That's right. Mind you, it did take us a long time to find the right nine doctors, woo hoo hoo (makes loony signal) ... and the elephants!
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: There were several thinly disguised parodies of media personalities, usually with punny names.
  • Bill Grumpy
  • Mrs. Desiree Carthorse
  • Caroline Kook
  • Sir Reginald Wheelbarrow
• No More for Me: In "Frankenfido" a man walking out of an optometrist takes off his new glasses after seeing the giant mutant pup...and promptly walks into a lamppost.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: When the office is sealed in concrete in "The End", Tim and Graeme's thoughts immediately turn to cannibalism to survive, with Bill their intended target.
• Not What It Looks Like: In 'Come Dancing', Graeme walks in on Tim and Bill in an awkward tangled embrace, with Tim screaming "Look, I am the woman!", and, naturally, gets the wrong idea. He mumbles an apology and makes to leave quickly, until Tim explains that they were trying to learn to dance (Tim was doing the woman's steps, and Bill the man's, but they quickly got very confused).
• The Nudifier: In "The Lost Tribe", the Goodies enter their quick-change cupboard, and leave the cupboard in the correct type of clothing for their coming adventure. When Hazel enters the cupboard, she thinks that it is not working properly because, when she emerges from the cupboard, she is only dressed in a large-size bath towel.
• On the Money: In "Culture for the Masses", Tim buys a painting for one million billion quintillion zillion pounds and two and a half new pence. Looking for a way to pay this off, they later learn that the art in the National Gallery is insured for one million billion quintillion zillion pounds.
• Orgy of Evidence: "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express" where the evidence left behind by the murderers includes a Union Jack waistcoat, a pair of glasses and a beard...which Bill proceeds to put on.
• Orient Express: "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express".
• Our Slogan Is Terrible: Multiple examples.
• Overly Long Gag: The sound of Bill walking up the stairs in "Change of Life". It goes on so long that Tim and Graeme fall asleep in the middle of it.
• Overly Long Name: When the Goodies travel to Wales via train, the name of the station is seen outside the window continuing for the entire journey to their destination. This is a parody of the railway station at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch◊ (usually abbreviated to Llanfair PG), which is the longest train station name in the world.
• Overly Stereotypical Disguise: In "Scotland", the Goodies attempt to pass themselves off as Scottish is so over-the-top that the Scot they are trying to fool declares that they must be English tourists.
• Painted Tunnel, Real Train:
  • In "Invasion Of The Moon Creatures", Bill, dressed as a rabbit (It Makes Sense in Context, promise) runs next to a hole and jumps down the rabbit hole to get rid of Graeme, who is chasing him. Graeme attempts to jump in also, but hits the ground. Confused, he touches the hole, and manages to pick it up — it's just a piece of round, black paper. Frustrated, he throws the hole away as he stomps off-screen. When the hole lands, Bill crawls out of it again.
  • Taken to a truly manic extent in "The Movies": Characters jump in and out of the cinema screen, then in and out of the cinema screen which is on another cinema screen, then running off screen, appearing in the cinema screen inside the cinema screen, then jumping through all the cinema screens. The amazing thing is that it manages not to look obviously fake despite the episode being from 1975, and live action television.
• Pajama-Clad Hero: Happens in "Kitten Kong", when the Goodies have to rush off in the middle of the night to find Twinkle. Only Graeme gets dressed before they leave, so Tim and Bill end up cycling around the city dressed, respectively, in red and white striped pyjamas and a white nightshirt.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • At one point, all three Goodies disguise themselves as one man. No, they aren't wearing identical disguises — they're wearing one very large mustache and speaking all at the same time. When they take it off:
    Man: Good Lord! There are three of you in there!
  • This is inverted in another episode when they attempt to bluff a villain's henchman by pretending to be the villain disguising himself as all three of them at once.
• Parodies: Too many to list, so we'll just list Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World.
• Parody Assistance: R2-D2 operator Kenny Baker portrays Captain Ersatz robot EB-GB.
• Parody Commercial: From the start of season 1 to the end of season 4, episodes were split into two parts, divided by parody commercials. They made a return in the season 6 episode "It Might As Well Be String", which was a parody of the advertisement industry in general. The mock adverts include:
  • The recurring Beanz Meanz Heanz ads, which involve the boy (Tim) never managing to say his lines correctly, leading to the irritation and wrath of the director (Graeme).
  • An advert for Plastic Spacemen, which come with a free corn flake.
  • An advert for Butch Tobacco - the tobacco for men.
• People Farms: In "Animals", Graeme sets up a farm to breed humans so he can serve their meat in his restaurant after he runs out of animals.
• Pet Gets the Keys: In "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express", the Goodies escape their bondage by the getting the goat they happen to have with them on the train to eat the ropes tying them up.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: In reference to this trope, while on a desert island Graeme bites the top off a pineapple which then explodes for no apparent reason.
• Poke the Poodle: When the end of the world is nigh, Tim panics, worrying about his sins and the possibility he may go to hell. His sins, in the order he confessed them to Bill and Graeme: forgetting to put the turkey in for Christmas, tucking his shirt inside his underpants, and farting in the bath. When he has a Freak Out and tries to be sinful, he wears a t-shirt showing-off his belly button (and mocks Bill and knees him in the groin, which actually is pretty douchey.)
• Polka-Dot Paint: The Goodies acquire the nation's art collection to stop wealthy Americans buying it, but end up stuck with the bill. After all their efforts to foist the cost off to the National Gallery fail, Tim invites the Americans back in, but now they're only interested in a single painting, The Monarch of the Glen by Sir Edwin Landseer which Bill refuses to part with. Graeme then produces a roller brush which paints Monarch of the Glen over every painting they have.
• Pressure Point: Spoofed in "Kung Fu Kapers": Reading from a book of martial arts instructions, Graeme delivers a large number of light taps and pokes to various spots on Tim's body. After several seconds of nothing happening, Tim suddenly spasms and jerks back and forth before collapsing unconscious.
• Prison Episode: "Goodies in the Nick" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The Goodies spend several years in prison after committing a series of crimes for a police sergeant to solve so he can gain a promotion.
• Produce Pelting: Happens to the xylophone player in "Snow White 2".
• Projectile Toast: Tim is pelted by toast fired from the toaster when the household appliances rebel in "Robot".
• Pseudolympics: "A Kick in the Arts'' had Tim converting the Olympics from sports alone to a combination of sports and arts, leading to such events as the 'Snatch and Limerick' (combining poetry and weightlifting).
• Real Fake Door: In "The End", the Goodies open their front door only to run into a featureless wall of concrete, as their office has just been encase in a solid block of concrete (as a result of Graeme's architectural design).
• Real Vehicle Reveal: One of the early episodes has them leave their office and move behind a Rolls Royce, looking as if they are about to get in it. They then emerge from behind the Rolls riding their "trandem" bike.
• Repetitive Name: The Reverend Llewellyn Llewellyn Llewellyn Llewellyn in "Wacky Wales".
• Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!:
  • Spoofed in "Lighthouse Keeping Loonies". Seeing the fog closing in around the Jolly Rock lighthouse Graeme switches on the foghorn, startling an over-sensitive Tim who yells at him to turn it off. Graeme does so but the foghorn continues to blare, even after they repeatedly flick the switch, pull out the power cord, rip the foghorn to bits and jump up and down on it. Finally in desperation Graeme swallows the part emitting the most noise, whereupon silence ensues. Until he opens his mouth to speak.
  • In the second episode, "Snooze", with a radio. It seems that Graeme has built a hammer into his wall for the primary purpose of smashing his radio.
• River of Insanity: "The Lost Tribe".
• Rod-and-Reel Repurposed: In "Scoutrageous", Graeme and Bill use a fishing rod to snatch a toupee off a pedestrian while earning their Wig Spotter's Badge.
• Roguish Romani: In "Black and White Beauty", Tim and Graeme decide to steal Black and White Beauty back from Bill. Tim suggests that they should ask the friendly local gypsies ("good kind people") to help steal back Beauty, but Graeme suggests that they dress as gypsies themselves so that the real gypsies will get the blame when the horse goes missing. Tim and Graeme boldly attempt the heist while wearing an Overly Stereotypical Disguise and loudly singing "We are the gypsies! Coming to steal the horse!".
• Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts: Mad Scientist Rat Fink Petal tries to kill the Goodies with a simultaneous pair of deathtraps: a bathtub slowly filling with water in which sits a man-eating alligator, and a candle burning a rope holding a tub of concentrated acid, so they'll be tormented over which horrible death they'll experience. After a comical Cliffhanger Copout in which they make an unseen escape thanks to Graeme's fruit peeler, their escape is foiled by Rat Fink who's Genre Savvy enough to be waiting outside the door. He then straps them to an enormous Cartoon Bomb, which if moved will open a canister of poison gas.
• Running Gag: Many. They also had several that only lasted for one episode, such as Graeme always adding a deadpan 'boom' to their radio station's theme song (It Makes Sense in Context...ah...sort of...) in "Radio Goodies".
  • The Heenz Meenz Beenz ad, featuring Tim as a Butt-Monkey boy who keeps messing up an ad for baked beans.
  • Bill's "lemon sherbet" in early episodes.
• The Runt at the End:
  Head Dwarf: Sleepy. Happy. Grumpy. Soppy. Grotty. And Tim.
• Sad Clown: Years after the show had ended, Bill Oddie revealed that he had a lifelong battle with depression.
• The Secret of Long Pork Pies: In "Animals", Graeme runs out of animals to serve in restuarant and concocts a scheme to farm humans and sell their meat for human consumption.
• Security Cling: Bill and Tim have a habit of clinging to each other, and/or Graeme, when they are scared.
• Self-Soothing Song: Tim Brooke-Taylor's response to trauma or to imminent disaster is to dance around the room singing the Teapot Song.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Tim's sensitive guy to Bill's manly man. Graeme fits somewhere between the two.
• Sheet of Glass: In "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express", the mimes wreak havoc with a mimed sheet of glass that has exactly the same effect that real sheet of glass would have had.
• Shoot Out the Lock: In "U-Friend or UFO" Bill is being chased by what he thinks is an alien, but Tim won't let him in the door, so he orders Graeme's robot to open it. The robot promptly disintegrates the door, so Bill can't lock it after him.
• Shout-Out:
  • In "Invasion Of The Moon Creatures", there's a shout out to Doctor Who ("(while in space) I'll just step outside to the telephone booth." "What telephone booth?" "That one! (points to the TARDIS)"), Star Trek (Spock shows up on their screen briefly, and Graeme records his thoughts in a captain's log á la Kirk), and Monty Python's Flying Circus.
    Graeme: Captain's log...stardate, February 18th...time, 10:15...It is with deep regret that I—10:15?! Hey! [turns TV on, the opening titles to Flying Circus roll] Ah, blast! ...Missed Moira Anderson.
  • There's another Star Trek reference in "Farm Fresh Food", in which the automated farm's control room is a jaw-droppingly accurate copy of the Enterprise bridge set.
  • In "Goodies Rule - OK", the cast of The Sooty Show leading a 'puppet government'. And the giant Dougal and Zebedee...
  • They had another Python reference at the end of the beanstalk episode; after rubbing the empty bean tin that started the havoc, a genie (played by John Cleese) rises out and proclaims it to be time for Something Completely Different, before realising that he's in a "Kids' Program!" and disappearing.
  • In "Kitten Kong", the Goodies rush into an office dressed as mice, the cleaning lady leaps up onto a nearby stool and starts shouting "Thomas".
  • "Saturday Night Grease" is filled with references to musicals. At first, it's just Saturday Night Fever and Grease with Tim striking John Travolta's famous pose and a brief rendition of "Summer Lovin'". Then, at the end, there's West Side Story, Singin' in the Rain, and even a bit of The Wizard of Oz.
  • "U-Friend Or UFO" has Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, The Flying Nun and Star Wars.
  • In the "gymnasium" sketch from an episode of Engelbert and the Young Generation which was later gathered into "A Collection of Goodies", the trio set down a wooden vaulting horse when they hear knocking coming from inside. When they lift off the top of the vaulting horse, a series of six men in World War II POW uniforms exit with picks and shovels, followed a moment later by a German officer with a revolver. This is a reference to The Wooden Horse, the (mostly) true story of the second most famous mass escape from Stalag Luft III^note  after The Great Escape in which the entrance to the escape tunnel was hidden under a wooden vaulting horse (rather than the exit, as in the Goodies sketch).
• Showdown at High Noon: "Bunfight at the OK Tearooms" climaxes with a showdown between Tim and Bill on one side, and "Greedy Graeme" on the other, with ketchup squeeze bottles as weapons.
  • The entire showdown scene was originally written by Garden and Oddie for a sketch in Ronnie Barker's Hark at Barker.
• Sick Episode: Tim spends most of 'Lighthouse Keeping Loonies' sick with mumps.
• Signature Team Transport: The Trandem.
• Sinister Minister: "Wacky Wales" has the Reverend Llewellyn Llewellyn Llewellyn Llewellyn (played by Jon Pertwee) of he Church of the Seventh Day Repressionists. It turns out that his church is also a drudic cult that practices Human Sacrifice, and he attempts to sacrifice the Goodies for being too entertaining. Played for Laughs.
• Situational Sexuality: Discussed in "The End", when the boys are sealed inside a block of concrete. This leads to a hilarious sequence where Tim wants to exercise his right to have children, but Bill is more interested in them being "doomed to be bachelors gay! - That's an idea, isn't it?", with his camp petting prompting a very hasty "Get Off!" from Tim. Also Bill suggesting with a coy look at Tim that "Hey, I don't mind shaving, you know. Underneath this lot I look a bit like Liza Minelli", with Tim's unimpressed reply of "I often wondered why you grew it!" causing Bill to hiss "You bitch!"
• Snake Oil Salesman: In "Hospital For Hire".
  Graeme: 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!
• Sneaky Departure: Graeme does this in "Bunfight at the O.K. Tea Rooms", sneaking off to register the clotted cream claim while the other two are asleep. Tim and Bill spend some time talking to the Cardboard Pal he left in his place before they realise anything is wrong.
• Something That Begins with "Boring": While encased in concrete.
• Sound-to-Screen Adaptation: The roots of the show lie in manic 1960's ensemble comedy show I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, which starred the three Goodies with John Cleese and Jo Kendall, who both performed TV cameos in the series. Several ISIRTA sketches were recyled into The Goodies, and fans of the radio series can be heard in the studio audience, knowingly cheering mentions of Spot The Dog and all references to gibbons (funky or otherwise). The TV show also gave Tim Brooke-Taylor ample opportunities to reprise his Lady Constance deCoverlet voice. Bill Oddie's radio character of Rastus Watermelon did not stand the test of time, however.
• Special Guest: Among those who made guest appearances were Kenny Baker, Tony Blackburn, Bernard Bresslaw, Richard Briers, John Cleese, Freddie Jones, Patrick Moore, Jon Pertwee, Joan Sims, Patrick Troughton and Terry Wogan.
• Spin-Off: At the height of their fame, they had a comic series in Cor!! magazine — although it wasn't penned by them, it got their yea or nay as the 'final test' before publishing. A well-known fansite has some scans.
• Spiritual Successor: To I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again.
• Spot the Imposter: In "The Baddies", where robot doubles of the lads were made by someone trying to give them a bad image. Tim eventually yells that they should try and unscrew the doubles' heads, to which the inventor of the doubles panicked, revealing them, The Goodies then begin to chase the duplicates. Hilarity Ensues.
• Start My Own: The basis for several episodes, including "Radio Goodies" and "Hospital for Hire".
• Stewed Alive: The Lost Tribe of the Orinoco attempt to cook Tim and Bill in a pot. They escape by fooling the tribe into making "human clear soup", which involves removing the meat before serving.
• Stock Ness Monster: The Goodies get hired to capture the Loch Ness Monster in the episode "Scotland". They return with a man in a Nessie costume. And a real Nessie egg. Which hatches.
• Stop Motion: The Goodies often used the live action version of this effect during action scenes.
• Strange Salute: In the "Clown Virus" episode The Goodies are trying to sneak onto a US military base when they're confronted by a soldier. They brazen it out with a dramatic salute and end up thumping themselves on the nose. The soldier's return salute causes his helmet to spin around on his head.
• Strapped to a Bomb: In an episode, the Goodies fall foul of a mad scientist who ties them to a bomb (after they escape his first inescapable death trap, which involved rising water, an alligator, a candle burning through a rope, and an acid bath).
• Surrounded by Idiots: In "Radio Goodies":
  Graeme: (enraged) How can I create a new world when I'm surrounded by fools?!
  Tim & Bill: ...He's flipped. He's flipped, he's gone, he's completely gone...
• Surreal Humor: On occasion, the most notable occasions being the endings of certain episodes — "The Movies" (which ended with Tim, Bill and Graeme running back and forth between movie sets and into television screens in an epic battle between an epic, a silent comedy, and a western), "Daylight Robbery On The Orient Express" (which ended with Evil Twin Goodies entering the French Le Boring competition, and using the power of mime to stop the Goodies from interfering), and "It Might As Well Be String" (which ended with switches to several different commercials in which Bill and Graeme tried to stop Tim from telling the world that string was evil). None of these endings offered any attempt at closure, even for a show with Negative Continuity, all of them make just as much sense in context, and it was even lampshaded in the credits of "It Might As Well Be String", with Tim, Bill and Graeme looking at a television screen.
  Bill: ...Huh, I didn't quite get that.
  Graeme: Surrealism.
  Bill: Suh—what?
  Tim: 'Suh lot of rubbish.
  Bill: Oh.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: The episode "Saturday Night Grease" features a parody of British journalist and broadcaster Robin Day (played by Graeme), who is judging a mixed dancing competition, wearing a bag over his head and insisting that he is in fact Robin Yad, as Robin Day would never be seen judging something as filthy as a mixed dancing competition.
• Take That!:
  • They took a few playful shots at Monty Python.^note  The Pythons and the Goodies' 1960s careers have a lot of overlap. Graham Chapman, John Cleese, and Eric Idle had been in the Cambridge Footlights with the Goodies (Idle succeeded Graeme (who himself succeeded Tim) as Footlights president in 1964-65), and Chapman and Idle wrote for I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, while Cleese was a cast member. Graeme and Bill went on to appear in a (now wiped) sketch series called Twice a Fortnight with Terry Jones and Michael Palin.
    • In "Invasion of the Moon Creatures", Graeme switches on the television and sees the opening credits to Monty Python's Flying Circus. He immediately switches off again, fuming at having missed Moira Anderson.
    • "Scatty Safari" features four Gumbys as exhibits in the "Star Safari Park", accompanied by Sousa's "Liberty Bell" March (used as the Flying Circus theme tune).
    • In "The Goodies Rule... OK?", the down-and-out Tim and Bill pass two Gumbys rummaging through a dustbin; Bill addresses them as John and Eric.
    • Meanwhile, the Pythons returned fire in John Cleese's cameo at the end of "The Goodies and the Beanstalk". He appears as a genie from the tin of beans and declares, "And now for something completely different." An annoyed Tim snaps, "Push off!" To which Cleese sneers, "Kids' programme!"^note  A favourite term of derision for The Goodies by the Pythons' more militant fans.
  • DJ Tony Blackburn was a frequent target.^note  Bill in particular disliked Blackburn, but had to mend the bridge he was burning when he realised Blackburn was the Radio 1 DJ most likely to play the Goodies' music.
    • In "Chubby Chumps", Terry Wogan (voiced by Graeme) is announcing a contest, the Second Prize for which is a night out with Tony Blackburn, and the third prize for which is two nights out with Tony Blackburn.
    • In "Scatty Safari", Tony (who appears as himself) is the safari park's main attraction. He doesn't do well in captivity, and after Tim can't bring himself to put the poor fellow out of his misery ("I couldn't do it! Those big brown eyes looking up at me. I swear he could understand every word I said!"), they decide to release him into the wild, and he makes his glorious run for freedom... at which point he is promptly shot dead by a hunter.
    • In "The Goodies Rule... OK?", when the Goodies are driving through the streets rounding up the UK's now unemployed entertainers to stage a coup against the tailor's dummy government, they pick up Tommy Cooper, Ken Dodd, Rolf Harris (all seen only from behind, of course), and begin pulling up to Tony Blackburn (appearing as himself again), only to turn around and zoom away when they realise who he is. Tony takes out a hankie and begins weeping.
  • Frequently to Rolf Harris.
    • In "The Stolen Musicians", being locked into a cell with Rolf Harris is considered a Fate Worse than Death. Given his prison sentence in 2014 for historical sex offences, this bit did not age well.
    • They even devoted a whole episode to mocking Rolf Harris - in "Scatty Safari", they capture Rolf Harris, who becomes the star attraction at the Goodies' celebrity safari park. Unfortunately, their captive breeding program works a little too well, and Great Britain is soon overrun by a plague of Rolf Harrises.
  • Other favourite targets: singers Max Bygraves and Des O'Connor, journalist/comedian David Frost (fondly^note  Frost having given the Goodies some of their first breaks as television writers), then-Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher, "Clean Up TV" and "Festival of Light" campaigner Mary Whitehouse, actress and political activist Vanessa Redgrave, and television presenter Nicolas Parsons.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Practically a Characteristic Trope. Every time something is being read out or listened to, somebody (usually Bill) will pass a smartarse or confused comment, to which the tape, record, TV show or piece of paper will contain a response.
  • The height of the trope is reached when the characters are learning kung fu — Graeme is reading aloud from the book, Tim is trying what it says.
    Graeme: Now lift up your index and middle finger and make a V.
    (Tim makes the rude V sign)
    Graeme: (still reading aloud) No, not like that.
    (Tim flips his hand around to a less rude gesture)
    Graeme: Yes, like that.
  • In "It Might as Well Be String", Graeme and Bill have apparently planned ahead when recording the tapes to simulate their voices for the tailor's dummies of themselves they use to fool Tim. When he discovers the ruse, this exchange occurs:
    Tim: I should have known something was wrong when you didn't laugh at the Chelsea result!
    Bill: (on tape) How did they get on?
    Tim: Lost 3-0 at home to Derby.
    Bill: (on tape) HA HA HA HA HA!
• Tandem Parasite: The Trandem is a three-man variation of a Tandem. The original version was an ordinary (sic) tandem with an extra seat at the back. Tim and Graeme pedalled, Bill being shortest was at the back in the non-pedalling seat. Later on the BBC prop department actually built a version with three sets of pedals.
• The Teapot Pose: Tim Brooke-Taylor, usually the trio's high-camp member, does this in times of crisis. He puts one hand on his hip and another above his head while shrieking "I'm a teapot!", indicating that his sanity is vanishing.
• Ten Little Murder Victims: Parodied in "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express".
• Ten Paces and Turn: In "Bunfight at the O.K. Tearooms", Graeme tricks Tim and Bill into one of these, only for them to find that the eleven paces he has them take cause them to walk face first into a wall, giving him the advantage in the fight.
• They Killed Kenny Again: At least six episodes end with the Goodies dead, only to return unharmed the next episode without any explanation.
• Thief Bag: In "Alternative Roots", Tim's sheep stealing ancestor Kounty Kutie (and all the other men of his village) were shown in the traditional striped shirt and mask and carrying the swag bag.
• This Is No Time to Panic: Usually Graeme will say calmly, "Who votes that we should panic now?" followed by everyone putting up their hands, then Bill and Graeme start running about shouting hysterically while Tim pretends he's a teapot.
• This Is What the Building Will Look Like: In "The End", Graeme is commissioned by property magnate Harry Highrise to design a redevelopment scheme for the Kew Gardens. Graeme proudly shows Bill his scale model of the gardens in which the current lush oasis of greenery is to be replaced with a multitude of grey multi-storey office blocks and he reveals that the biggest skyscraper is just a 350 foot-high solid block of concrete as nobody can afford to pay the exorbitant rent to occupy it. The lack of rooms, doors and windows in the building is a deliberate feature to stop the squatters from moving in.
• Thriller on the Express: "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express".
• Title Montage: Updated almost every series with new clips from the preceding series, or with a new theme tune (or version of the existing one).
• Today, X. Tomorrow, the World!: Played chillingly straight by Graeme in "Radio Goodies", after he went Drunk with Power.
  Graeme: Today...the post office...tomorrow...the worrrld.
• Totem Pole Trench: In "South Africa" with a mannequin.
• To the Batpole!: The Quick Change Cabinet.
• Trading Bars for Stripes: In "Scoutrageous", Tim is arrested for being a scout, but is let off by the judge because he went to a good school. However, he joins the only organisation left for someone like him: the Salvation Army.
• Trash-Can Band: The boys form one in an attempt to relieve their boredom in "Holidays".
• Tribal Carry: After being captured by the huntsmen (who are all attractive young women) in "Snow White 2", the boys are carried back to the castle in this fashion.
• Trick Bomb: The Goodies once visited a U.S. Airforce base, where they were shown a large variety of trick bombs, including tear gas, laughing gas, sleeping gas, and clown gas.
  "This is the worst one."
  "What does it do?"
  "It blows their heads off."
• Tricked-Out Shoes: In "2001 and a Bit", while reinventing the game of cricket, Graeme's son Tim invents automatic cricket shoes that will carry the wearer between the wickets with no effort on the wearer's part
• Trouser Space: Tim in "Scoutrageous".
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: Mocked in-universe in "The Movies", where Tim eventually fires all the film directors for making films of this type. Specifically, he says 50% of them are either "very boring or extremely pretentious", and the rest are unnecessarily violent or sexy.
• Two Men, One Dress: In "Gender Education", the Goodies abduct a notorious MP and take his place on a chat show: all three of them. They do this by sharing one enormous moustache and speaking in unison.
• Universal-Adaptor Cast: In those episodes inexplicably set in alternate times or places, where the trio play different characters.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal:
  Bill: Tell you something, I'd rather have Edna Everage. At least she's a real woman.
• Visual Pun:
  • In "South Africa":
    Graeme: They'll probably send us a message on the drums. (promptly has a drum thrown at him with a message written on it)
  • In "The Goodies Rule - O.K.?", the Goodies set up a "puppet government", run by actual puppets. Specifically the cast of the then-popular series The Sooty Show.
• Wacky Racing: "The Race".
• Waxing Lyrical:
  • "Scoutrageous" started off by quoting the White Rabbit's song from Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Bill and Graeme are sitting around the office:
    Graeme: He's late.
    Tim: (walking in) I'm late.
    Bill: For a very important date.
    Graeme: No time to say hello.
    Tim: (leaving) Goodbye.
    Graeme and Bill: (together) He's late, he's late, he's late, eeh eeh!
  • And from an early season episode comes this exchange:
    Graeme: Well, that's love. Who can explain it? Who can tell you why?
    Bill: (singing) Fools give you reasons...
    All: Wise men never try!
    Tim: Some enchaaaanted evening—don't change the subject!
  • And all the time in "Saturday Night Grease"!
• We Can Rebuild Him: In "War Babies", Tim, Bill and Graeme parachute into Germany, and Graeme and Bill successfully land. However, Bill misses catching Tim, who is all broken up as a result. Graeme puts all of Tim's 'spare parts' into a pram, and then asks Bill for Tim's head (which is still in its bonnet) — however, Bill accidentally brings back a cabbage, much to Graeme's disgust. After further searching, Tim's head is found and Graeme then 'operates' on him — giving Tim a clock for a heart, and a toy voicebox and a wind-up key to make Tim move, thereby turning Tim into the "Six Million Dollar Baby".
• William Telling: The boys are challenged to a medieval battle by a team of black knights. One of them successfully shoots a melon off of Graeme's head, nailing it to the tree behind him. Bill then has to one-up them by shooting an olive off Tim's head — he does, but nails most of Tim's hair to the tree as well.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: When Moral Guardian Mary Whitehouse praised the show, they retaliated by making an episode mocking her.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: This is the primary weapon of the mimes in "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express". Mimed guns allow them to shoot musical instruments out of the Goodies' hands, miming carrying a sheet of glass across a road causes nasty accident, a mimed tack on the road causes a blow-out on a wheelchair, etc.
• You Say Tomato: A Running Gag in "Bunfight at the O.K. Tearooms" has the characters arguing over the correct pronunciation of 'scone'; with one pronouncing it 'sc-ON' and the other 'sc-OWN'. (In truth, both are accepted regional pronunciations.)
• Zeerust: in 1973, the 21st century was still 27 years in the future. Two Thousand And One And A Bit is a look at what the Goodies' world might look like in 2001. They get some bits eerily right - flat screen televisions, for instance. From 20222, the rest looks... well, stuck in The '70s.

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--And now, "A Walk In The Black Forest".