Worst to Best
The Goodies

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58 Playgirl
Club (1.4)

One of just two episodes (along with series two's Commonwealth Games) to exist only in black and white, Playgirl Club (AKA Caught In The Act) largely centres around Tim in drag trying to investigate a strip club for women. The use of male strippers and a female stand up comic give the episode a commentary on gender politics, but this is still an episode that features rear female nudity and sexual harrassment, so the message is somewhat lost in the mix.
     It's always important to remember the age of The Goodies, and how some of the material will naturally be dated, even sometimes offensive, to today's audiences. Although often slighted as a kid's show, this is a particularly rude episode, including references to S & M, though it does feel like the series trying to find its feet rather than really breaking new ground. Note also that the characters are still being worked out, with Tim having overt heterosexual urges in this early one, removed from his later persona, and none of the three regulars are expressly politicised.

57 For Those
In Peril On
The Sea (3.5)

A somewhat flat and lifeless episode, with only a few surreal gags that raise the pace. Unusually it's a sequel episode, though at this stage in the series The Goodies was still acknowledging continuity. It presents guest star Henry McGee, returning as the Music Master from series two's The Music Lovers.
     Oddly, the realisation of the Goodies that he's the same person is dealt out in a rushed, understated way, as if they're worried that people won't remember him from 17 months earlier and so try to satisfy both conventions - those who want the explanation for his return, and those who couldn't care either way.
     The title of this one is, like many early Goodies episodes, open to question: although titled as here on the camera script, time clock and (eventually) DVD release, some paperwork shortens it to just For Those In Peril, while an alternate title (used on the Internet Movie Database) is The Lost Island of Munga.

56 Wacky Wales (5.4)

While The Goodies and half of their Monty Python peers were quite anti-establishment for the time, they still came from a Cambridge Footlights background, and so there is an unavoidable parochialism with a section of their work. In particular, both teams indulged in stereotypes of the Welsh and Scottish, which, while fine to a point, does highlight how Londoncentric the BBC could be: Scotland and Wales combined had a population of around eight million in 1975, many of which would have been TV licence payers.
     However, there's a gentler, more affectionate take from The Goodies. Whereas a first series Python sketch could arguably be cited as somewhat mean-spirited (complete with mention of a Scotsman's "inadequate brain capacity"), the Goodies tended to be kinder towards their two neighbours. Jon Pertwee gets a guest role here as a Welsh clergyman, and, while Patrick Troughton was arguably the better Doctor, Pertwee seems to have greater rapport with the Goodies, and his style lends itself more naturally to the somewhat OTT antics on display.
     Speaking of Python, the cruellest critics of the series deride The Goodies as "Monty Python for Kids", and while such allegations are unfair, Wacky Wales would be Exhibit A for the prosecution. The Goodies doing various stage routines to an indifferent audience is basically Confuse-A-Cat revisited, while the Ecclesiastical Rugby Tournament is the kind of mockery of religion that the Pythons did in their sleep. There's also a reference in there to a team that don't want to play facing away from Mecca... what with that and The Goodies under threat of beheading by religious fundamentalists, it's quite a racy episode in 2018.

55 Bigfoot (9.4)

The Goodies had traditionally gone out on BBC2 in the evening, often post-watershed, with edited versions being shown later on BBC1 in a more family-friendly timeslot. Series one had been as late as 10:50pm, though some later episodes had been as early as 8pm due to their wide crossover appeal between generations. What the Goodies protested against was ITV's decision to screen the programme in a Saturday teatime slot of 6:45pm, and then, for the second half of the series, to bring this forward to 6:15pm in an attempt to get ahead of those tuning in for Jim'll Fix It on the other side.
     The irony is that, despite a higher discussion of sex than usual in some episodes, such objections were largely irrelevant with series nine, a series that had become the very "kid's programme" they'd long argued it wasn't. Bigfoot, with its singing animals, sing-a-long bigfoot song and bizarrely childish visual effects is the most juvenile of all, one that can appeal to the smaller audience without ever having to prove itself to adults or offer any real satirical merit. All this said, if watched purely as a children's television programme, and with no other expectations, then Bigfoot can actually be pretty amusing on its own terms.

54 Dodonuts (7.2)

Before its 2018 DVD release, the copy of Dodonuts doing the rounds on video streaming sites was a heavily censored, butchered cut that had nearly two minutes removed. Once slated on this site as "possibly the worst of all the BBC episodes", a rewatch for this updated article has seen it rise around twenty positions from where it was due to be placed.
     It's not that the uncut version makes it a wildly different viewing experience, more that, perhaps, with a shrieking Dodo (voiced by Percy Edwards), and constant explosions and shouting, this may well be the noisiest episode, meaning you really have to be in the mood. And, in a direct contradiction of No.66's write-up, some of the mock animal cruelty in this one is pretty funny in its operatic style.
     In regards the footage that got removed from Australian broadcasts and became the most-seen version before the box set came out, then less than two minutes of footage doesn't seem like much. However, apart from the Dodo constantly farting, it features a scene where Tim and Bill, dressed as Dodos, unwittingly try to mate, and the Dodo later tries to mount Tim. While still clearly very childish, even by the usual standards of the series, having such adult content makes some of the weaker, more basic jokes seem tempered to something aimed at an older audience. And, while still perhaps no great, it takes a hard heart not to smile when the Dodo pilots a spitfire...

53 Hunting Pink (3.2)

As touched on with Robot, Bill Oddie struggles to keep a straight face during most of the episodes, and can often completely crack up on camera. Hunting Pink isn't a great episode of The Goodies, but does contain a great moment, as pictured, where Graeme and Bill slip over on a rug and Bill has to use his hat to stop himself from laughing. It's consistent throughout much of the episode, as Tim's over-the-top performance and ad-libs have Bill ready to go throughout.
      One notable moment is where Bill and Graeme join in a series of bold exaggerations with Tim in a dual role as his uncle. It seems a considered reprise of the Four Yorkshiremen Sketch, which, while most famous for its use by Monty Python, was originally performed by Tim with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman for At Last the 1948 Show in 1967. With Tim having co-written the sketch, it's definitely one instalment where he earned his "with" writing credit on the Goodies.
      In terms of trivia, then only three episodes of series three utilise the spoof commercial breaks... Hunting Pink is the first Goodies episode to discard them. It's also the episode to introduce the enduring song "Run"... an incidental track that's so effective it was reused in Way Outward Bound, as well as later series episodes Goodies In The Nick and South Africa.

52 Cunning
Stunts (5.10)

Series five generally featured The Goodies' best work, and only the first three S5 episodes in this ranking are perhaps below par. Cunning Stunts features the Goodies setting up their own newspaper, with the deliberate spoonerism of the title being the most daring thing about this generally lightweight and childish episode.
     Yet it's one that is elevated by its second half, in which Bill enters a death-defying competition in an attempt to commit suicide. Bill has suffered from mental health issues in real life, and, without wishing to trivialise his condition, it's curious how it leaked into his work during the series. Oddie has remarked how he unwittingly used the series, unconsciously, as anger management, and that a doctor told him his bi-polar was obvious from just watching the programme.
     While it's not suggested that Bill was making a conscious effort to feature these darker impulses seriously in the programme, any artistic work is borne out of the creator's unconscious desires. Having such a dark ending to the episode (played out to his own composition "Crazy Man") perhaps illustrates that Bill was unconsciously influencing the direction of the show.

51 Football Crazy (9.3)

Perhaps the only LWT episode that can be realistically compared with any of the BBC material, Football Crazy offers satirical commentary on the rise of crowd hooliganism in football.
     There are real signs that this is The Goodies reworking their past; series six's 2001 and a Bit had given us the concepts of ball-free football and allowing viewers to vote for their favourite foul, while mixing ballet with an incongruous sport had been something tackled as far back as series two's Come Dancing. Such criticisms aren't perhaps to be held up to too close a scrutiny; after all, by this time the series had been made for over eleven years, and a certain amount of repetition and self-referencing was inevitable, even unconsciously.
     One of the few LWT episodes to have the regulars in opposition, with Tim as policeman and Bill as a hooligan, it produces some rare laughs in the weak ITV series, though the second half with the ballet section does drag somewhat. Later series of The Goodies had seen the tensions between Tim and Bill's characters as an increasing focal point, with Graeme becoming more of a sidelined character, so Garden here has a special section where he gets to impersonate three football pundits on a split screen.
     Football Crazy is also largely unique for the LWT work in that it features guest stars, including Wayne Sleep, Fred Dinenage and Kenneth Wolstenholme. Although the series had, in fairness, been largely starved of major guest stars for a number of years at the BBC, the LWT run is a curiously claustrophobic experience, the feeling of The Goodies being cast out into the wilderness and no one wanting to play. Football Crazy manages to buck this trend, and, perhaps coincidentally, is the best of the run, on a par with one of the weaker BBC offerings.

50 Chubby
Chumps (5.3)

Chubby Chumps can be something of a childish episode, opening with giant spoons and Bill dressed up as a man-sized carrot, the show playing directly to its child audience. Yet the episode has decent points to make about body image, and there's something of a unique surrealness in an episode that ends with the Goodies being chased by obese women, and having a flattened Bill that is rolled up, then inflated and used as a human hot air balloon. The final resolution is a spoof of Benny Hill, not the last time an episode would end in such a way, and it's not altogether clear whether it's tribute or mockery.

49 The Loch Ness
Monster (2.1)

The Goodies helping a man to commit suicide is nicely macabre, and there's the amusing presence of a Scottish bagpipe spider, but generally this is a slow trudge through Scottish stereotypes. The Goodies are perhaps best remembered for their manic pace, and while even the most high velocity episodes can seem slow-paced by today's standards, series two is notably glacial at times. This can lead to episodes that have to time to let their ideas breathe, and will charm you with storylines that don't have to lend themselves to a "gag a minute" framework. But in other instances it will leave you with episodes that drag, as here.
     In terms of trivia, then The Loch Ness Monster is one of firsts for the show. In the first series finale Graeme had delivered a speech to Land Of Hope And Glory, with Tim briefly joining in. Seemingly having decided that Tim's character doing it was far funnier, they reprise it with him here, and in two more series two episodes, along with many more in future years. Also look out for the first spoof Heinz ads, with Tim as a little boy advertising beans. The first four series of The Goodies contained mock "commercial breaks", this being the first of nine instances of the gag.