Index
» Introduction & Index
» 1 Lemon Sherbet
» 2 Newsreaders
» 3 Targets: Max & Des
» 4. Goodies Turning ...
» 5. Beanz Ads
» 6. Targets: Nichola...
» 7. Goodies In Love
» 8. The Trandem
» 9. Targets: Tony Bl...
» 10. Inventions
» 11. Tim In Drag
» 12. Targets - David...
» 13. Bill's Outfits
» 14. Live Music
» 15. Targets: Mary &...
» 16. Goodies Relatives
» 17. Tim's Patriotic...
» 18. Targets: Rolf H...
» 19. Bill & Graeme i...
» 20. Sports & Games
» 21. Targets: Lionel...
» 22. Guest Stars: Pa...
» 23. Graeme's Computer
» 24. Monty Python Re...
» 25. Targets: Eddie ...
» 26. Memorable Animals
» 27. Foreigners
» 28. Targets: The Ra...
» 29. Graeme falling ...
» 30. Targets - Royal...
» 31. Tim Crying
» 32. Baddies & Villa...
» 33. Targets: Ken Ru...
» 34. Quick Change Ca...
» 35. Goodies Deaths
A COLLECTION OF GOODIES THEMES #26
MEMORABLE ANIMALS
The old entertainment maxim of "Never work with children or animals – they will always upstage you" may have been partly observed by the Goodies, with 'Cecily' the only episode to feature a child in a major speaking role; but they were happy to take their chances with being upstaged by their four-legged, finned and feathered friends in many different episodes throughout the run of the show.
Any attempt to document the details of every animal that appears in The Goodies would be prohibitively long, so this article will focus on the most memorable animal guest roles; particularly the various giant creatures that the Goodies either happen upon in the course of their endeavours or that are created by one of Graeme's loony scientific experiments. However it also looks at some animals that are obviously of the stuffed variety, some that are puppets with a person inside them providing the animation and others that induce some rather funny dialogue from the Goodies so there is a wide spread of animal antics to cover.
The first giant animal that the Goodies encounter is a massive hairy spider that twice descends from the kitchen ceiling in cameo appearances in 'Cecily', causing Bill to pass out in fright during the late-night mayhem in the haunted house. However the first really substantial animal appearance comes in the opening episode of Series 2, 'Loch Ness Monster', where the Goodies are just about ready to pack it in after several months of fruitless searching for Nessie, only to find that they are sitting on top of her sizable humps in the water. The hulking Nessie takes a real liking to Graeme, almost devouring him, until she is knocked unconscious with a fake monster egg and then transported back to London in a series of baskets on the back of the trandem (with an adventurous loo stop along the way) and eventually by a stylish motorcade befitting her status as the amazing new attraction for the previously-empty Snowdon Monster House at London Zoo.
All of these grand plans go awry however when the zookeeper's suggestion of mating the Loch Ness Monster with Russian monster Pi Pi causes a wee Scottish voice to pipe up inside and the Scottish tourism operator emerges from a zip in the flank of the fake Nessie. The Scotsman's confirmation that there never was a monster at Loch Ness and that the whole sham was only perpetuated to attract the tourists and their money forces the shamed zookeeper to again jump from the same bridge that the Goodies had rescued him from earlier. However when a lively little Nessie hatches from the supposedly fake monster egg, the Goodies are forced to frantically yell "Come back!" to the drowning zookeeper.
The Montreux '72 special of 'Kitten Kong' is choc-full of interesting animal roles, including an immense python that gives Tim a torrid time when he tries to shove it into a basket on the back of the trandem during the pickup of problem animals, Graeme's 'Pets Corner' performers (such as the depressed mongoose, dark-fearing vampire bat and ubiquitous clingy bushbabys), the two singing dogs who perform a wonderful rendition of 'Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better' (thanks to Jim Franklin's brilliant film editing skills and a supply of rather sticky toffees to generate the right expressions from the dogs!) and the freaky giant mice that dramatically crash through the office wall in horror movie-style at the end.
However there can only be one true star of the show - and probably the most memorable Goodies animal of all - which happens to be Twinkle, the tiny 23 year-old kitten that just hasn't grown properly and needs a good solid workout in the park to build his puny strength up. While the park session doesn't do much for Twinkle's stamina, Graeme's newly-invented enhanced growth formula is far more successful to the extent that when an irate Tim returns to the office (after "four ruddy days" stuck up a tall tree in the park) and threatens to wring the kitten's neck, Bill cautions him that "He's not a kitten anymore." Graeme opens the shutters of the enclosure to reveal that Twinkle has in fact grown to massive proportions, which draws a Psycho-like scream of terror from Tim; who then demands that Graeme must get rid of this furry monster immediately. Graeme produces a vitamin pill the size of a car tyre to feed to Twinkle; however the still-growing moggy isn't in his cage and a contrite Bill owns up to having foolishly "put the cat out" for the night while Graeme worries that "We've got to find him and catch him before he eats someone he shouldn't."
The panicking Goodies pedal along on the trandem loudly calling out to Twinkle, but only come across wild stampedes of fleeing people and dogs and eventually find a monstrous Kitten Kong terrorising central London. Twinkle knocks over a lamppost that almost crushes the Goodies as they sit astride the trandem and they hurry back to the office in time to see a news bulletin of Twinkle's destructive rampage (including the memorable footage of the kitten toppling the Post Office Tower and lifting the dome on St. Pauls) which ends with reporter Michael Aspel crushed by a huge paw just as he is signing off! Disguised as mice (in order to attract Kitten Kong's hungry attention), the Goodies eventually administer an antidote by syringe to Twinkle after some rather hairy moments aboard the airborne trandem to reduce the monster moggy to a tiny harmless kitten again, though there are loud shouts of "FEED THE CAT!!" as the Goodies grab Twinkle out of his cage and try to get him to tuck into the growth mixture again in order to bring the supersized mice under control.
Lou the vulture provides an entertaining cameo in Series 3 episode 'For Those In Peril On The Sea' when Bill emerges from the quick change cabinet as a pirate. Spying the vulture perched on Bill, a shocked Tim gasps "What's that on your shoulder?!", only for Bill to ruefully reply "Oh, he hasn't done it again, has he?!" An equally surprised Graeme remarks ""Aren't you supposed to have a parrot?", to which Bill laughingly retorts "I have. It's in the vulture!" After forty days becalmed at sea, Lou is still perched on Bill's shoulder but is now merely a skeleton as Graeme and Tim have relieved their own hunger for meat by eating him on the sly the previous night, much to Bill's fury. Tim defuses the situation by saying "You were very lucky, I reckon. He was giving you some pretty funny looks. It was either him or you!" to which Bill replies "Oh well in that case I'm glad it was him.", though he does still care enough about Lou to shout a cheery "Vultures first!" when the Goodies abandon ship to swim to the nearby oil tanker.
The next big animal – in name and attitude, if not in actual size – is Big Bunny in the Series 4 episode 'Invasion of the Moon Creatures'. Graeme helps the British government to join the space race by sending intrepid astrobunnies Flopsy and Spiro to the moon in a rocket that is launched from the front lawn outside the Goodies' office (to Tim's sheepish exclamation of "Oh that's what it's for. I've just posted two letters in that!") After six whole months of no contact with his lunar rabbits, Graeme forces Bill and Tim to go on a perilous journey of their own to the moon, where their discovery of "primitive vegetable life of some sort … lettuces and carrots" and a bumper batch of bunny rabbits on the lunar surface helps them to determine that Flopsy and Spiro have indeed made it to the moon and are – as would be expected – "breeding like rabbits"!
Unfortunately for Tim and Bill, the rabbits suddenly turn ferocious and overpower them before carting them off to the space burrow, where they are held as prisoners. A bemused Bill comments to Tim that that "this isn't normal behaviour for rabbits … I used to have a pet rabbit once, you know, when I was a little kid, and at no stage did he ever strap me to the couch and stick carrots in my ears!", as the image of Flopsy appears on a video screen beside the two captive Goodies. Tim starts to tell Flopsy off as being "a very naughty boy" for not making contact, but Flopsy proclaims that he is now called Big Bunny and that thanks to Graeme "expanding our bunny brains", he and his followers now plan to "conquer space" and "boldly go where no rabbit has gone before!" in true Star Trek-like style Big Bunny insists that Tim and Bill will "return to Earth as our spokesmen, so now you must learn the only bunny talk that humans will respect"... watch and copy. Say it after me. Nyaaah. What's up Doc?!" Tim and Bill initially refuse to co-operate, but after they receive an electric charge, they start to munch on carrots willingly and by the time that they land back on Clapham Common, they shock Graeme and the other boffins present by having now turned into oversized rabbits themselves.
As the rabbit invasion of Earth gathers pace (with even Patrick Moore and the Prime Minister falling victim to the rabbit space virus) Big Bunny appears on Graeme's computer screen to exhort Tim and Bill to go "out, out, my fluffy brothers (for) a touch of way-hey-hey and a spot of bunny fun!", which they merrily do in rampant Clockwork Orange-fashion until they are eventually cornered in the sand dunes by the Queen's Own Highland Ferrets. In time, Graeme suspects that the space virus that afflicts Tim and Bill is wearing off (despite their protests that "We're still the sworn servants of Big Bunny!") and when he ultimately tempts them to have a slice of yummy rabbit pie in defiance of their boring old carrot and lettuce diet – making them cannibals in the process – even the appearance at the office door of Big Bunny ordering them to "Stop, stop" merely raises a hearty roar of "DINNER!" from Tim and Bill as they chase their dear leader up the street with knife and fork at the ready.
'The Stone Age' also features a rather large and memorable animal, though most of the time we only get to see its stomach, with a short glimpse of vocal chords, teeth and eyeball thrown in – the long-extinct Tyrannosaurus rex that the three Goodies end up trapped inside after Graeme falls down a deep pothole under the Goodies' office and Tim and the "reckless loony" (aka Bill) have to venture down to rescue him. All of the fooling around by the Goodies inside the dinosaur's stomach (including Tim sulking "in the spleen" after a bitchy argument with Bill and also Bill's lousy prehistoric ventriloquist comedy routine) eventually succeeds in waking the T-rex up and although this allows the Goodies to finally escape out through its mouth during a series of big yawns, there is finally a full view of the T-rex as it raises itself up to a mighty height on its hind legs and pulverises the disused railway station office to pieces.
The Series 4 special 'The Goodies and the Beanstalk' is also notable for a flock of memorably large and aggressive animals – the squadron of giant geese that attack the Goodies on the orders of the giant (with surreal help from Alfred Hitchcock) as they descend Mount Everest with their haul of ill-gotten gold eggs from the giant's castle. The giant geese attack the fleeing Goodies with an impressive arsenal of weaponry including heavy solid gold eggs, exploding eggs and a 'bouncing bomb egg' in homage to 'Dambusters'. Bill gets some measure of revenge as he pounces upon a stormtrooper goose and plucks all of its feathers off and Graeme shoots another goose down in a smoky spiralling nosedive before the Goodies roll part of the way down the mountain inside a huge eggshell.
'The Movies' at the start of Series 5 features a memorable animal cameo when director Graeme seeks to inject a bit of "family interest into this pretentious drivel" that the Goodies are about to film with a change to "Macbeth Meets Truffaut The Wonder Dog"! Unfortunately big Truffaut only adds to the litany of disasters that beset the filming session by being lazy and unresponsive until finally he launches an attack at Bill (who has had a piece of meat tied to his wrist in a bid to spark the dog's interest), eagerly pursues the trees of Birnam Wood to relieve himself and ultimately slobbers all over the camera from close range.
The Goodies have more mayhem with dogs a few of episodes later in 'Frankenfido", with Graeme's dog breeding kennels creating all sorts of unusual mutts, including Rover (the long-haired pug) for Tim and Bill. However Graeme's loony breeding program soon extends to the mating of dogs with other animals (including a Great Dane/mouse cross that won't come out of a massive hole in the skirting board – "Thank God!") and even with items of furniture (such as a union between a dog and a Chippendale chair after providing soft lights, romantic music and a big spray of hormones!) Naturally Tim and Bill are appalled at Graeme's efforts ("The miserable breeder!") and decide that they don't need one of his loony mutts to have a big win at the Crufts dog show, so Bill dons a dog suit and enters the contest as Cuddly Scamp Hairylegs of Cricklewood. Cuddly Scamp not only wins the Obedience & Intelligence prize at Crufts ahead of Graeme's entry, but also cleans up big on 'Mastermind' after correctly answering a set of general knowledge questions (with convenient answers such as "arf", "owwll" and "ruff") from host Magnus Magnesium.
A cocky Tim (with trophy in hand) enjoys gloating over Cuddly Scamp's triumph to a scowling Graeme and he brags that "Cuddly Scamp will be the champ" in Crufts Champion of Champions parade the next day, answering Graeme's suspicions about Cuddly Scamp's legality with a retort of "Can you see Bill winning an obedience and intelligence prize?!" Tim taunts Graeme further by claiming that "even you" can't breed up another dog that quickly, only for Graeme to reply "Well of course I can't breed anything, but I can make something!" and the stormy night coupled with a "chopping list" of body parts from the likes of Nicholas Parsons, Robin Day and Yul Brynner (as Tim gasps in horror "You ... you've been using people! ... And Donny Osmond!" when he spots the set of teeth) lead to the manufacture of Graeme's shaggy monster mutt, the awesome six-legged Frankenfido.
Cuddly Scamp doesn't take kindly to the last-minute arrival of Frankenfido at Crufts and a huge dogfight erupts at the Champion of Champions parade before Frankenfido takes off along the street with Cuddly Scamp, Tim and Graeme in hot pursuit. Frankenfido soon manages to commandeer the trandem and Graeme tries to lasso his dog in vein before Cuddly Scamp eventually mounts Frankenfido like a jockey and rides 'her' back to Graeme's kennels, where the two dogs are locked up together in the lab for "three days and three nights". A year later, Tim and Graeme finally twig as to what Cuddly Scamp and Frankenfido actually got up to while locked up together just as there are scratching and whining noises at the door outside. The long-traumatised Bill (still in his Cuddly Scamp suit even after Frankenfido has been dismantled and the parts returned to their rightful owners) gets up and goes to investigate, only to find his Cuddly Scamp / Frankenfido-cross puppy excitedly yapping "Dadda! Dadda!" at him on the doorstep.
A few other fun animal cameos pop up in Series 5, such as the sheep in 'Rome Antics' which is happily nibbling fruit on the floor of the Coliseum until Graeme sends it into full attack mode by jabbing it in the bum with a pitchfork, causing it to leap high in the air and take out its fury in a wrestling bout with the hapless Tim, much to the displeasure of the po-faced Roman crowd (actually an encore of sorts as Tim has a similar wrestle with a bad-tempered baa lamb way back in 'The Lost Tribe of the Orinoco' in Series 2.)
'Bunfight at the OK Tea Rooms' features several cameos by a very stubborn (and obviously rather stuffed) mule that Graeme has supposedly purchased to help cart all of the prospecting equipment, but it ends up being the mule itself that gets carried on Tim's shoulders in pursuit of a carrot lure that is being brandished by Graeme as the posse head west in search of gold. There is later a cry of "He's taken the mule!" by Tim when Graeme has snuck out of the tent early in the morning to file the cream mine claim solely on his own, though he ends up having to carry the mule all of the way into town on his back as some kind of hidden karma. The mule also serves as a vantage point from which Graeme can spy on his "strawberry jam and scones"-finding colleagues as they desperately try to plug the spurting jam holes from his view, which also leads to another classic scene where Graeme takes a spectacular tumble backwards off the mule after his sign-off of "See ya, suckers!" when challenging the Tim and Bill to the card game at the OK Tea Rooms.
Right in the thick of the black humour of 'The End', there is a memorable animal cameo involving Tim's pet mouse Gilbert where even the loving bond of pet ownership is sorely tested by the fact that the starving Goodies have finally run out of food after a year of being trapped in a block of concrete. Tim reaches the point where he toys with the idea of eating Gilbert, holding the mouse up to his mouth and threatening "One step closer and the mouse gets it!" as Graeme slowly and gently talks him out of it. A contrite Tim says "sorry" as Graeme firmly says "I should think so too!", taking Gilbert out of Tim's clutches only to quickly pop the mouse into his own mouth momentarily before it scurries away to safety.
'The Goodies Rule – OK?' special at the end of Series 5 also contains a number of notable animals, though they are actually all puppets, including Prime Minister Sooty and Chancellor of the Exchequer Sweep who form the new government after the Standing Party is finally toppled, and the oversized Wombles who indulge in an energetic wrestle with Bill while Graeme and Tim are having a swordfight with Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men. The main one that stays in the memory of all Goodies fans however is the giant Dougal (the dog from 'The Magic Roundabout') that relentlessly pursues the Goodies through the grounds of Chequers before it goes berserk and repeatedly crashes through the walls of the mansion with help from a huge Zebedee puppet as the Goodies hide in a manhole below.
Series 6 kicks off with another of Graeme's loony creations in 'Lips or Almighty Cod'. Having foolishly cast all of Britain's cod stocks off to the cheeky Eskimos early in the episode, the Goodies steal one cod back again on a sneaky snatch-and-grab mission to Eskimoland under the guise of a cricket tour and it soon grows to the staggering size of "22 feet 9 3/4 centimetres!", according to a chuffed Graeme. This is exciting news for Tim, who is "handling the distribution side of things" ("nice bit of rump for Wales, this lot's for Bradford – put in their curries ... the tail Birdseye can have as a consolation prize!"), but Graeme is mortified that Tim is talking about harming his precious pet cod, Brian and is even more aghast when Bill enters the room waving a gun around and declaring that it's "slaughtering day down at the old fish farm" and merrily singing "Oh sizzle sizzle, yummy yummy yummy yum, here I come! Mr Cod, get ready to die, I'm gonna get ya! Mr Cod, get ready to die!"
Graeme promises that he'll find some more fish for the customers in order to protect his "brave boy" cod and complains that the Eskimos are still hanging around and need to be scared off. Tim's conveniently-located Eskimo phrase book and a scary Nicholas Parsons mask regrettably don't do the trick so Graeme comes up with the loony idea of annoying his fish so that they will chase the Eskimos away, though Tim sarcastically sneers "And how do you propose to turn that camp cod into a fearless killer of the deep?!" This also proves unsuccessful (though rather a lot of fun for all concerned!) so Tim and Bill grumble that "We don't need him and his mincing great poofy cod!" and head out to scare off the Eskimos themselves.
Meanwhile Graeme also gives up trying to annoy his fish and decides to "relax with a nice spot of soothing music" from Max Bygraves on his gramophone, only to joyously discover that the mere sound of Max is the secret trigger for making his cod and other fish thrash around furiously in their tanks. As 'Tulips from Amsterdam' endlessly croons from a gramophone on the pier, Graeme opens the gate and releases his killer cod, which promptly sends the frightened Eskimos packing at last. However Graeme's delight is soon tempered when he sees that Bill and Tim are in deep trouble, being circled by the enraged cod in the water (to the appropriate 'Jaws' theme music in the background) and Bill yells in desperation for him to "turn off the music", but he trips on the pier in his haste and the cod also lands on the pier with a hefty thud and devours the gramophone before Graeme can remove the record from it. Finally after further dramas, as an endless Max Bygraves record churns away deep inside it, the cod surfaces and crashes heavily into the pier; which tips over the drums of batter and oil, and sends a burning light tumbling into the water as well. There is an almighty explosion, followed by a great shower of fishfingers which rain down on the Goodies, and although Bill holds his hat over his heart in memory of Brian the cod, the Goodies are all soon tucking into the fishfingers with plenty of help from the hungry Eskimos.
Also in Series 6, the episode 'Black & White Beauty' features a rather memorable horse which is obviously of the stuffed pantomime variety as it ends up with "gypsies" Tim and Graeme inside it for the running of the Grand National steeplechase. The pantomime horse is originally sent to Graeme to look after (a bad move considering all of the various other old retired animals named Kenneth that he treats so callously in the early part of the episode!) by rich owners who promise to send him their life savings if he can somehow train it to win the Grand National. Tim gets all carried away with the excitement of owning a horse and breathlessly channels Liz Taylor from 'National Velvet' while a disbelieving Bill calls Tim and Graeme "a pair of nutters" and sarcastically dismisses Black & White Beauty as a "old heap of compost", before wanting to buy Beauty himself when taking over the neighbouring farm and ultimately gaining possession of the horse when it blows over the boundary fenceline in strong winds and lands on his head.
Bill's despicably cruel treatment of Beauty leads to Tim's epic teary run across the meadow with the theme music of 'Black Beauty' playing in the background, with a sympathetic Graeme being shoved into a pile of rubbish bins by the distraught Tim and then angrily shaking his fist at Bill afterwards. Graeme and Tim pose as gypsies ("We are the gypsies! Coming to steal the horse!") in a bid to "steal the beggar back", but Bill has seen them sneak into the stable and comes after them with shotgun in tow. There is just one place left for Tim and Graeme to hide - inside Beauty himself - with Tim at the front and Graeme at the back and when Bill enters the stable (loudly threatening to do terrible things to the gypsies when he catches them), he prepares the trembling horse for a "greater shock" when he reveals that he will ride Beauty in the Grand National tomorrow.
At the race track, an uncooperative Beauty refuses to come out of his horse float and is promptly posted as the 10,000-1 rank outsider by the laughing bookmakers. However his odds are trimmed significantly when a devious Bill nobbles all of the real horses in the stables with funny cigars containing "certain substances" and buckets full of Tequila Sunrise. Tim and Graeme finally reveal themselves to Bill and inform him that "We're not even going to amble the Grand National!"; but Bill insists that they must run because he has put all of their money on Beauty winning - a task that is much harder now that he faces a challenge from several other pantomime horses in the field. Despite all of the dramas during the race, Beauty comes back strongly and is involved in a head-bobbing tussle with another horse along the straight which concludes in a photo finish (with both horses and riders posing for a spread of photos just before the winning post!) while all of the other horses overtake them and go past the post in the mean time. Bill is then pictured aboard a grocer's cart and he grumbles "You lost it - you're gonna have to earn it!", as Tim and Graeme inside Black & White Beauty are forced to provide the 'horsepower' at the front.
One of the most bizarre creatures that the Goodies have to contend with makes its appearance in 'Dodonuts' where Graeme has bought a present for "loony conservationist" Bill from the local pet shop – a dodo that is "the last one in stock - a discontinued line." Rather than "going cheap" at the pet shop, Graeme claimed it was "going ERRRKKK!", but Tim doesn't find Graeme's supposed joke the least bit funny when this awful noise continually wakes him up during the night. Graeme is awake anyway, as he paces the floor with a book in hand, keenly "trying to figure out why the dodo became extinct" in the first place. Little clues to why that might have been the case soon become evident, with Graeme hastily warning Tim not to sit on his throne on account of "dodo doos" (as Tim rages "That is my best throne! And look at the size of it! I thought it was a new cushion!") and raiding Tim's supply of baked beans to satisfy the fussy dodo's "eccentric diet", plus Tim's misery is compounded when he roars that "There is some sago pudding in one of my jubilee sneakers!", only for Graeme to tell him that the "sago pudding" is actually a pile of beans that the dodo has regurgitated after a bout of tummy trouble.
Bill suggests that the dodo may have become extinct as "baked beans hadn't been invented yet", while Graeme continues "Of course, with beans, there would be other attendant problems …", and is promptly interrupted by a huge fart from the dodo, much to an appalled Tim's chagrin. Graeme's theorising is also brought to a rapid halt as the dodo grabs him by the hand and drags him to the floor for a protracted wrestle behind the sofa and he angrily claims that extinction occurred because "the character of the bird was so totally and utterly obnoxious!" Bill comes to the defence of the dodo, but is soon sent packing with bird in hand by Graeme and after a disastrous, messy streetwalk, he is forced to retreat to a small cabin in the grounds of the bird sanctuary in order to protect the dodo's wellbeing from Tim, Graeme and their fellow loony hunters who are keen to pot the last surviving member of an endangered species. Bill finds that living in close quarters with the selfish, smelly, flatulent dodo isn't easy and when the dodo gobbles the last of his supper, he rants "How a greedy, obnoxious, bad-tempered, filthy berk of a bird with bad breath, B.O. and a beak like a battleship ever lasted ten seconds on this planet absolutely beats me!" and corners it, with a tomahawk held above its beak, snarling "Right, you just get out that door! Otherwise Uncle Bill severs the snout!" (though this threat merely brings on another bout of flatulence from the dodo, much to Bill's disgust!)
The dodo still refuses to set foot outside the cabin, so Bill finally resorts to dressing up as a dodo himself to prove that it's perfectly safe for his feathered friend to pop his own "handsome hooter" out there. The dodo gives a randy squawk when it sees Bill in the dodo costume, to which a concerned Bill says "Here, you can take that look out of your eye! You randy little devil!" (though he does promise the dodo that "if I spot any little lady dodos out there, I'll pull one for you!") Tim has the same idea of dressing up as a decoy dodo to lure the real one towards the hunters, so he and Bill caper around and dance beak to beak until a puzzled Graeme eventually swoops in and traps the two squawking dodos in a large net; however he and Tim faint in shock when they realise that the other 'dodo' is just Bill in costume. Upon return to the cabin and its awful smell, Tim finds that the real dodo throws itself at him (to Bill's cry of "Listen, I did not get you a mate! It's just Tim!", followed by an amorous squawk from the dodo – and Bill noting "You're in luck, he's not fussy!") Graeme diagnoses that the "hooligan dodo has an inferiority complex" which would be cured if it was able to fly, but despite the best efforts of all three Goodies (with Tim and Graeme only helping out because they want a moving target to shoot at!), the dodo still can't get off the ground. After Bill sees both Tim and Graeme sneakily trying to dispose of the dodo, he declares that he knows how to get the dodo airborne without their help and he promises them that the dodo will take its maiden flight at 3pm the next day.
Tim, Graeme and their fellow hunters gather in position with their guns at the ready, but after a briefing from Bill, the dodo takes to the skies in an old biplane and proceeds to blitz the hunters into submission with a volley of shots and missiles as it loops-the-loop above them. Graeme and Tim eventually take to the trandem and fire shots at the plane using a gun on the back and Graeme eventually manages to score a direct hit on the biplane, which smoulders as it descends and finally erupts into a huge fireball when it ploughs into the small cabin. Bill sits deep in thought in the smoking ruins of the hut and the remorseful Tim and Graeme wander over to console him, only for him to reveal that "I've just discovered the real reason why dodos became extinct - they're absolutely delicious!" 'Finger Lickin' Good' in fact, as Tim and Graeme happily have a feed as well!
The final Goodies episode to feature several animals in cameo roles is – naturally enough – the 'Animals' episode in Series 8. The very last Goodies episode made for LWT is also titled 'Animals' though it is more a case of people dressing up as animals rather than using actual animals like in the earlier episode. The BBC 'Animals' features the likes of Tim's trained dog "Terence the tap-dancing tyke", Buster the bike-riding budgie, the Patagonian nose bulb that gets around several different schnozzles (including Graeme's), Marlon the 3-toed sloth (and nifty peg bag!) and Henrietta Hedgehog, who unfortunately gets a handle stuck on her by Graeme in order to function as a loo brush! The line between humans and animals also gets rather blurred in this episode as Bill acts like a randy dog at one stage (pretending to cock his leg on Tim's throne, with Tim yelling "That's it, I'm going to have you doctored!" and threatening Bill with a huge set of scissors!) and the Goodies watch a series on wildlife presenters where the animals are the presenters themselves (including a seagoing colony of Cousteaus and a destructive tribe of Bellamys).
Bill then does an about-turn to become an advocate for the rights of vegetables and he appears on the 'Rabid Frost Program' to promote his cause, along with a white rabbit as the leader of the opposing 'Animal Revolutionary Party'. After Bill has already upset animal members of the studio audience (by thanking Rabid (a black Labrador dog) for the opportunity of "eating your guest ... er, meeting your guest, sorry, sorry!", he explains that he sees the whole country as "one great big melting pot" and then produces a large cooking pot, in which he puts the rabbit and several vegetables. To the horror of Tim and Graeme, Bill then heartily scoffs meat off the bone afterwards, which sets off an angry attack from the dogs and other animals present. The Goodies and the wildlife presenters are all forced to flee into the costume department of the TV studio as the door is quickly clawed apart by the furious animals and their only avenue of escape is to dress up as rabbits and "get away from this terrible place", so the Goodies and presenters escape through a trapdoor and a series of burrows.
The rabbits hop along on the night horizon and try to keep quiet so that the animals won't hear them (although this is difficult with Patrick Moore throwing a hissy fit when a hawk swipes his telescope and Bellamy noisily destroying everything!) When they wake up the next morning, they all go in search of "Bell-amy", who has found a beautiful flower to destroy, as a line of camera lenses jut out of a grassy bank and train their sights on him and the other presenters. The Goodies calls "Look out, it's a trap. Stop! Don't trust those cameras!", but they are too late and the cameras blast all the rabbits with artillery fire. The sad ending is followed by an announcement from a white Labrador that "That is the the last in that series. Next week, a brand new series - The Doggies" This features three small dogs sitting on the trandem - a poodle in a Union Jack waistcoat at the front (for Tim), a terrier with glasses in the middle (for Graeme) and a rather scruffy, shaggy pooch at the back (for Bill)
While Graeme claims in the BBC 'Animals' episode that animals have "had it cushy for far too long" and should be made to do "a hard day's work for a fair day's bowl of whale meat and slops", the animals from The Goodies (real, fake, stuffed and otherwise) deserve a far better reward for all of the enjoyment and laughter that they have added to many of the storylines. Certainly the oversized animals such as Kitten Kong, Frankenfido, the Almighty Cod and the Giant Dougal form some of the most memorable and iconic images of the entire show and deserve their exulted status in comedy history.
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1/6 Cecily
Bill is attacked by a giant spider
2/1 Loch Ness Monster
Nessie takes a chomp at Graeme
Captured and heading for London
Special – Kitten Kong
Tim in a tangle with a giant python
"Anything you can do, I can do better …"
"He's not a kitten anymore!"
Kitten Kong on the Post Office Tower
Kitten Kong flattens Michael Aspel
Look out, behind you!
The Goodies try to get near Kitten Kong
Giant mice after eating the growth mix
3/5 For Those In Peril on the Sea
Bill the pirate with Lou the vulture
4/2 Invasion of the Moon Creatures
Tim and Bill have been captured by Big Bunny
Time to demonstrate "Wabbit Power"!
4/4 The Stone Age
The T-Rex destroys the Goodies' office
Special – The Goodies & the Beanstalk
The Goodies battle the giant geese after leaving the castle
5/1 The Movies
It's Truffaut the Wonder Dog!
Truffaut attacks Bill, who has a piece of meat tied around his wrist
5/4 Frankenfido
Frankenfido on the run
Frankenfido commandeers the trandem
Cuddly Scamp Hairylegs of Cricklewood on 'Mastermind'
5/9 Rome Antics
The sheep mauls Tim at the Coliseum after a bit of provocation from Graeme
5/12 Bunfight at the OK Tea Rooms
Carrying the stubborn mule to Cornwall
Graeme takes a tumble from the mule
5/13 The End
Tim is tempted to eat Gilbert
Special – Goodies Rule OK
Beware of the Giant Dougal
Bill has an all-in wrestle with the Wombles
6/1 Lips or Almighty Cod
Tim is in dire straights as the cod attacks
The cod just prior to becoming fishfingers
6/4 Black & White Beauty
Bill belts Beauty at the stable
Bill aboard Beauty in the Grand National
7/2 Dodonuts
Bill takes a smelly streetwalk with the dodo
The dodo gets randy at the sight of Bill in dodo costume
Graeme prepares to launch the dodo by catapult
8/5 Animals
David Rabbitborough amid a family of Bellamys
Graeme with his Patagonian Nose Bulb
The Goodies disguise themselves as rabbits
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