Bill Oddie, one third of the groundbreaking comedy trio The Goodies, has died – prompting not only tributes but a renewed question: why did the BBC bury a show that was once a ratings phenomenon?
For nine series and 76 episodes from 1970 to 1982, The Goodies – starring Oddie, Graeme Garden and the late Tim Brooke-Taylor – was a massive success. Merchandise included lavish best-selling books and Top 10 hit records such as The Funky Gibbon. The format was simple: the trio ran an agency that would "do anything, any place, anywhere, any time", unfolding in a surreal world with no constraints, closer to the Marx Brothers than to any contemporary TV.
“Bill Oddie, co-star of The Goodies, dies; the BBC rarely repeated the hit show despite its massive success.”
Despite its popularity – and the trio's status as big, mainstream stars alongside Monty Python alumni – the BBC almost never repeated the show after its final series. Oddie, Garden and Brooke-Taylor had moved to ITV (LWT) for that final run, a move that may have soured relations with the corporation. Yet the same BBC never consigned Morecambe and Wise, who made the same switch, to the same memory hole.
Revisiting the series recently, one critic found "levels of invention that are almost overwhelming" – expensive props appearing for two seconds, gags that played with the technology of television itself, and a constant engagement with live issues of the day, from politics to kung fu crazes. The characters, exaggerated versions of the performers – Tim the soft, Graeme the slightly mad, Bill the anarchic – gave it a timeless edge.
Fellow wildlife presenter Chris Packham, who replaced Oddie as the face of BBC Springwatch in 2009, remembered him as "an utter joy". Packham's tribute highlights the other side of Oddie's public life: his later career as a beloved naturalist and birdwatcher, a far cry from the manic comedy of his youth.
The Goodies was a peculiar kind of kids' show for adults, and it thrived. But for reasons partly lost to time, the BBC let it slip away. Oddie's death forces the question: what other comic treasures have we let fade into the archives?
