By Mark Braxton
The 1970s was a decade of great possibility in TV comedy, and three men embraced that potential with boundless energy. As The Goodies, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor summoned up stories and spectacles that hijacked the public’s imagination. A giant kitten called Twinkle roaming London and toppling the then Post Office Tower; Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout spearheading a puppet government and trashing Chequers; and black puddings being turned into lethal weapons.
And following the show for the BBC from day one in 1970 through to their final series in 1980 was RT staff photographer, Don Smith. “I thought it was very clever,” says Don, now 88, who took hundreds of photos of the trio and first met Tim and Graeme on the 1968 pre-Goodies series Broaden Your Mind.
“I remember they were both flattered that we had gone to take their picture because they were then at the beginning of what turned out to be very successful careers. We became good friends from then on. They always used to call me ‘Henri’ after the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.”
Don also remembers rescuing Tim Brooke-Taylor from a dangerous predicament, in December 1972, when they were shooting a sequence in which the Goodies were travelling to the Winter Olympics on their (balloon-powered) three-seater “trandem”.
The bike was about five feet up in the air when the rear suspension cable, which was attached to the back saddle, suddenly snapped. Bill and Graeme were able to step off, but one of Tim’s hands was caught up in the brake.
“He was left hanging by his hand,” says Don, “and I rushed forward, wrapped my arms around his lower body and legs and lifted him up, which then enabled him to free his other hand from the brake.”
Don also praises the show’s director/producer. “Just as George Martin was the fifth Beatle, I always think that Jim Franklin was the fourth Goodie because, long before computers, he was doing it the hard way with real props and optical illusions.”
How to enter:
To be in with a chance of winning a Goodies: the Complete Collection box set comprising all the episodes on 14 discs, drawn at random from the correct answers submitted, answer this question:
from Radio Times https://ift.tt/3kU0zJQ
