THE MISSING “rude bits” from an early episode of 70s BBC comedy classic The Goodies have been discovered filed away in an Australian archive
GOODIE GUMDROPS: A still from The Goodies episode "Commonwealth Games". L-R Reginald Marsh, Tim Brooke-Taylor
The near-legendary ‘Sex Test’ scene from season two’s “Commonwealth Games” (aka “Sporting Goodies”), tx 8/10/71, features a group of geriatric, bowler-hatted politicians lining up in front of a sexy young woman’s bedroom for one-to-one examinations of a very personal kind!
It forms part of a greater storyline where The Goodies – Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden – are asked to train the British Commonwealth athletic team for the next Commonwealth games. Being wholly comprise of superannuated MPs , the team fails its training tests and is replaced by the super chaps three.
The black and white 1″ VT, which lasts for approximately 40 seconds, was located in the National Archives Of Australia by ABC researcher John Williams.
John, who has previously uncovered missing footage from such shows as At Last! The 1948 Show, says he first became aware there was missing material from the archived episode of “Commonwealth Games” after visiting the Goodies Rule OK website.
He explained: “I am indebted to the Goodies Rule OK site for alerting me to the fact that the only surviving copy of this episode (the BBC had wiped the original tapes) had been returned to the BBC by the ABC some years later, and that there was a segment cut from this story.
“This episode was cut for the family afternoon/early evening viewing time-slot that the Goodies occupied in Australia for many years on ABC TV.
“The physical cut material was sent to the Censorship Board, much akin to the Doctor Who censor clips recovered in Australia by Damian Shanahan that eventually made its way to the NAA (a repository for Government records, military records, photographs, and ex-censor’s material). It was a legal requirement to deposit cut material (from movies/TV) with the Censorship Board.
He continued: “This surviving copy of “Commonwealth Games” has a pretty drastic looking cut. It got me thinking about the possibility of the missing ‘rude bits’ from this episode being held at the National Archives!
“After some searching for any material relating to The Goodies at the NAA, I narrowed the search down to a few compilations and amazingly the cut footage was on the first compile that I looked at!
PHYSICAL SEXERCISE: The British athletics team, surrounding Graeme Garden, prepare for the 'Sex Test'.
“The material shows a queue of bowler-hatted, elderly politicians lined up outside a bedroom (curiously situated in part of the British Minister For Sport’s office – the minister being played by Reginald Marsh). The minister’s secretary (dressed in a revealing negligee) invites the politicians into a chroma-key/CSO bedroom; sometime later, the secretary gives a whispered report to the minister about the ‘performance’ of the geriatric pollies, then infers that she had also tested the performance of the Goodies.. an indignant Minister then mutters “And I didn’t even get a cup of tea this morning!”
“It’s a great thrill to find this footage, let’s hope it sparks some further DVD releases.”
According to Goodies Rule OK, Tim and Graeme spoke about the discovery during an interview on 702 ABC radio. The footage was given its first public screening in over 30 years during Sydney’s World’s Funniest Island festival, held last weekend.
The website has temporarily uploaded a copy of the radio interview, which can be found here.
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