The Goodies - Cultural Influence

Cultural Influence

The Goodies appealed to adults on an intellectual level, and also had a level of appeal to children as a consequence of its visual humour and slapstick.

It may be argued that The Goodies' antics brought the traditions of The Goon Show to the television screen without diverting into areas of coarseness or topical satire to the same extent as other British television series like Till Death Us Do Part, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Not Only But Also, Not the Nine O'Clock News or, much later, The Young Ones. There were satirical episodes of The Goodies including: "South Africa" (apartheid) – "Punky Business" (punk) – and "Gender Education" (satirising Mary Whitehouse's influence on television).

The Official Goodies fan club's (Goodies Rule-OK!) newsletter, is called the Clarion & Globe. It was named after the newspaper in The Goodies' episode "Fleet Street Goodies" (a.k.a. "Cunning Stunts").

During the 1970s, Cor!! comic, released by Fleetway publications, had a Goodies comics strip. When the comic later merged with Buster, the Goodies did not move across, although the TV show was still running.

Stella, an American trio, has a show on Comedy Central that is very similar to The Goodies in terms of basic plot line – with the trio even riding a trandem. The television series premiered in the United States on 28 June 2005.

Australian rock band Spiderbait released an album and EP that had a rocked up fast cover version of the Goodies song "Run".

Australian theatre company Shaolin Punk produced a short play titled "A Record or an OBE", written by Melbourne comedian and actor Ben McKenzie, and featuring Tim and Graeme as characters. Set in 1975, the two remaining Goodies struggle to carry on after Bill leaves the group to pursue a music career. The play premiered in the 2007 Melbourne Fringe Festival, where it was highly commended in the Comedy category. Later seasons were also performed for the Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2008.

U.S. rock band The White Stripes named their 6th album Icky Thump in reference to The Goodies sketch "The Battle of Ecky Thump". The name was changed from "Ecky Thump" to "Icky Thump" to make the title more palatable to an American teenage audience.