The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It

This essentially forgotten TV programme is a quite extraordinarily bad one-off ITV comedy from 1977, written by and starring John Cleese. In it, Cleese plays a descendant of Sherlock Holmes, and it co-stars Arthur Lowe and Connie Booth as descendants of Dr Watson and Mrs Hudson respectively. Lowe's portrayal is the archetypal Stupid Watson, putting even Nigel Bruce's origination of the trope to shame in how incompetent and oblivious he is. Also, Watson is partially bionic, because this was made in the 1970s.

It is hard to believe that this was made in the same era as Cleese and Booth were in the middle of making Fawlty Towers, so far apart are they in quality that it would take Michael Palin an entire series to travel between them. The theory that Cleese gradually lost his comedic sensibilities between Fawlty Towers ending and the present day is disproved by the existence of The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It, which shows he was just as capable of making missteps back then - and I'm not talking about the Ministry of Silly Walks there, mew!

The issue is that, even when it has a good gag (of which there are a few), just about every single joke in the film is laboured until it ceases to be funny, and is then laboured a bit more for good measure. It is dreadful. Quality guest stars are wasted, with most of them - such as Joss Ackland and Stratford "Belkov" Johns - enthusiastically overacting and chewing on the scenery in a way that would make Darrow proud, but the material just isn't there for them to make it actually any good. Denholm Elliott just about gets out with his dignity intact, but I'm not sure anybody else did.

One thing to praise it for is the lack of typical '70s blackface and yellowface. When representatives of the five continents gather, the Asian delegate is played by Burt Kwouk, and the African delegate by Christopher Asante - the latter of whom I most recently saw in Rumpole and the Golden Thread, one of the best Rumpole episodes. This small step in a progressive direction is then entirely undone by a terrible joke about simultaneous translation, where Kwouk's character hears the most stereotypical faux-Chinese imaginable, and Asante hears the sound of jungle drums!

The plot sees Cleese's Holmes gather together the world's greatest detectives as part of a plan to draw out the descendant of Professor Moriarty. This is a trope that was inexplicably popular around this point in the '70s, with resemblances to the film Murder by Death (1976) and a 1976 episode of The Goodies, Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express. Here, in addition to Poirot (called "Hercules Parrot," mew) we get send ups of contemporary detectives including Columbo, Kojak, and McCloud... No, me neither.

The ending sees Moriarty successfully bring about the end of civilisation as we know it, which fortunately prevented them from making any sequels. Cleese, meanwhile, should never be allowed to criticise anything other comedians have done (especially not Monty Python's Flying Circus season four, the one the others did without him) without having this immediately thrown back in his face. 

Although it's still a better version of Sherlock Holmes than the BBC's Sherlock.

The Goodies in Seth Efrica

South Africa was the episode I was most looking forward to now that The Goodies has been released on DVD. I had previously seen several of their most famous episodes that had been put onto certain streaming websites (You know the ones I mean), but had missed this one.

Perhaps the mannys that did the uploading were shy about this one due to its controversial subject matter and, these days, its even more controversial way of tackling it. South Africa is a vicious, scathing satirical assault on the racist apartheid policies of South Africa at the time this was made, exemplified in the form of guest-star Philip "Solon" Madoc (Brain of Morbius was made less than a year after this), who is so racist that he paints Graeme's tie white and has to replace his own set of dark glasses with white ones.

It isn't remotely subtle (although it is very, very funny) but, like Star Trek's Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, it isn't trying to be - and would most certainly have been less powerful if it had tried to be.

Supposedly the BBC didn't want to broadcast this episode at all. But then, the BBC has a long history* of objecting to entertainment TV programmes getting involved with political issues - especially when they take sides against the conservative status quo.

I for one am glad it did go out, and is available to be seen today, as it will remain relevant so long as manny countries institute racist policies that resemble apartheid. It is only a shame that now, due to the different attitudes of the 1970s (when it was made) from today, some of its message is likely to be missed due to the presence in the episode of racist language, Black-and-White-Minstrel makeup, and the fact that all the main cast are white mannys.

Nevertheless, it is tough to imagine a modern-day mainstream entertainment TV programme that could produce an up-to-date equivalent that would both be as powerful and have the same audience reach. The unique "anything, anytime" format of The Goodies allowed them to tackle this subject matter for a single episode before moving on to something completely different the following week.


* Footnote for the benefit of posterity: This refers to an event topical to the week this article was written, whereby the BBC cancelled an episode of Have I Got News For You because - and this is their given reason - it was due to feature the leader of the Change UK Party when an election was only two weeks away. This was in the very same week as it prominently featured Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party, on an edition of Question Time.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Goodies: Kitten Kong

The most famous and beloved (at least among cats) episode of The Goodies, the original version of Kitten Kong was wiped, in a similar manner to early Doctor Who stories such as The Hall of Dolls or The Savages. Fortunately we still have the special edition from 1972, which won an award, showing that mannys can sometimes get it right... or maybe cats were the judges for the award, as should always be the case, mew.

It starts with the inferior version of the Goodies theme song that they used for the first two seasons. Then Bill is making noms when Tim and Graeme arrive back from the chess match they have been watching. The noms that Bill is making are for Bunter the guinea pig, who Bill is looking after because Bunter is not very well. Bill thinks he is "fed up of his usual diet" of "soggy lettuce and potato peelings" so has made him manny noms instead.

Tim and Graeme are also hungry, so Bill gives them soggy lettuce and potato peelings, lol. The comic reversal inherent in this situation thematically foreshadows what will occur in the second half of the episode.

Bill is being paid £30 for curing Bunter, and this gives Tim the idea of getting lots of animals to cure so they can get even more moneys. They set up a "Goodies Animal Clinic," and this leads in to a montage of Tim and Bill collecting lots of animals, over which the song Needed plays as incidental music - this is an irritating song that was used far too frequently in the first two seasons of The Goodies, and now I need to visit the Goodies Animal Clinic because I am sick of hearing it.

They put all the animals in a big hamper. and there are a number of visual gags about the animals all fighting or noming each other, and Tim wrestles with a massive snake. One of the animals is a tiny and super-cute kitten who mews very loudly, d'awwwww.

Back at the Goodies' office, Graeme has some other animals, including a "bush baby" who keeps sticking to Graeme's hands, making for a lovely running gag, and a vampire bat that is afraid of the dark and who attacks Graeme even though he says it is "lovely."

There are also two doggys that sing, although this is quite poorly achieved by dubbing a manny song over some manipulated footage of the doggys (in a similar way to the notorious double-taking pigeon scene in James Bond), making it one of the few gags that fails to work in this episode. I could have done it better.

However, things move swiftly on as we are properly introduced to the star of the show when Tim brings out the kitten from earlier. Graeme says his name is Twinkle and he is 23 years old.

Bill takes a doggy for a walk on a lead. Tim takes Twinkle out for a walk, also on a lead. And Graeme has a tortoise on a lead, although it doesn't do much walking, in spite of Graeme's best efforts.

They each try to get their animals to do exercise, with varying degrees of success. When Twinkle runs off he pulls Tim around after him, including dragging him along the ground when Tim falls over. This is a great scene, employing a lot of the Goodies' patented sped-up footage and camera trickery to create a number of sight gags. Eventually Twinkle runs up a tree and stays there mewing loudly.

This is the end of part one.

We then see a couple of fake adverts satirising real adverts of the early 1970s. Since the originals are long gone, these would be very badly dated anyway, but the second of them is for "Butch, the tobacco for men" and the joke here is essentially just "lol teh gays" as the punchline is nothing more than the suggestion that the two "butch" mannys (one of whom is Tim) are really gay. While not actively homophobic (it is not saying gays are bad), it is thoughtlessly using the mere existence of gay mannys as a punchline.

The inclusion of this sort of thing in what is otherwise the best ever episode of The Goodies shows that the programmes cannot escape being 'of their time,' with this sort of material having dated even more than the idea of advertising tobacco on TV.

Part two rejoins the plot with Tim still unsuccessfully trying to get Twinkle down from the tree. Bill and Graeme help, first by trying to tempt him down with noms, and then using a ladder. Bill gets Twinkle down eventually, but leaves Tim stuck up in the tree instead, lol.

In the next scene Bill and Graeme are both back at the office when Tim comes in and says he was up the tree for "four days." They show Tim that, in that time, Twinkle has grown to become a giant kitten.

Tim is scared, but we think Twinkle is still super-cute. Later on, Twinkle escapes after Bill puts him out for the night. This leads to an amusing bit of dialogue that also sets up the next bit of plot:

Graeme: "We've got to find him, and catch him before he eats someone he shouldn't."
Tim: "Ah, you mean 'something he shouldn't.'"
Graeme: "I know what I mean!"

They cycle around looking for Twinkle, who has left giant pawprints on the ground. The song that plays over this scene is Kitten Kong which is a favourite among us cats, although I have a suspicion that if it had been used as often as Needed then we'd be just as tired of it.

They find some mannys running away in terror and ask one of them for directions, then they see some doggys running away and do the same with one of them. They hear Twinkle's mewing, and then see him being all giant but still super-cute.

Tim's expression here as he looks back at the camera is particularly good, and helps to cover for the slightly unconvincing back projection.

They cycle back to their office and watch the news, where "Twinkle the giant kitten" is the top story. Michael Aspel reports on "day two of Twinkle's occupation of the city of London."

Twinkle knocks over the Post Office Tower (possibly saving the world from WOTAN, I don't know) in what is arguably the most iconic single image from The Goodies - it would go on the be prominently used in the series' title sequence for the rest of the 1970s - and instantly made Twinkle into one of the most famous cats in the whole world.

Take that, Cybermannys!

Then Twinkle steps on Michael Aspel, lol.

Graeme has an antidote to his "growth mixture" in a giant needle. They disguise themselves as mouses for the next part of his plan.

"I expect this is a silly question, but why are we dressed as mice?"
"Because cats eat mice."

Graeme's right - we do. You can tell he's the clever one.

Twinkle sneaks up on them...

...and then chases them. They turn their trandem into a hot air balloon and fly up to Twinkle. Bill falls off and gets captured in a giant paw, a clear homage to the original King Kong, but then Graeme manages to inject Twinkle and he become little again. Aww. Twinkle's reign of super-cute terror was beautiful but, alas, all too brief.

The Goodies are celebrating when Graeme accidentally punctures their balloon with his needle and they go out of control, then they get stuck on the nose of a plane until it lands.

The next scene sees them back in their office, where they discover mouses have been noming the growth mixture while they were out dealing with Twinkle, and then giant mouses break through the walls to scare them.

The episode ends with them desperately shouting "feed the cat!" as they try to get Twinkle to be giant again so that he can pounce on the mouses, lol.

The Desiree Carthorse Experience

In their second season episode called Gender Education, The Goodies meet a character called Mrs Desiree Carthorse (played by Beryl "Connie" Reid) who is obviously based upon the real-life person of Mrs Mary Whitehouse, only with the character traits for which she was famous being very slightly exaggerated for comic effect.

Mary Whitehouse, and her organisation the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (or NVLA for short, which isn't a very good acronym really, if you were going to do it properly it should have been called something like the Clean Up National Television Society) had been a thorn in the BBC's side since the mid-1960s, attempting to impose her views on what was and was not suitable for broadcast upon the corporation.

Unfortunately, Mary Whitehouse's views were founded in her extremely old-fashioned, conservative, reactionary religious beliefs, and if they had gone unchallenged could have held up or even reversed the progress that the BBC was making in depicting the liberalising culture of the 1960s, '70s and '80s. For example, as hard as it is to believe now, it was still illegal for mannys to be gay in Scotland until 1981, largely because of bigoted, intolerant people like Mary Whitehouse, and that is why the gayness we see in Blakes 7 is limited to covert, subversive acts such as manly handshakes and meaningful looks, in order to fly under the gaydar of the NVLA censors.

Mary Whitehouse did not attack the Goodies directly - in fact the opposite is true, with her praising the "wholesome, family-orientated humour" of their first season, which the Goodies clearly didn't like because (1) they were actually trying to be subversive, especially with the number of "Lemon Sherbet Dip" style drug references, and (2) they didn't like Mary Whitehouse. This didn't stop them (in fact it probably encouraged them even more) from sending her up in 1971 - a year before Monty Python's Flying Circus would do the same in their 'War Against Pornography' sketch.

This was obviously the moment for the BBC's counterattack against the NVLA, exposing them for the out-of-touch busyboddys they were. Sadly a handful of satirical comedy programmes were not enough to break her power overnight, although it did begin to wane somewhat after about this point, and Mary Whitehouse continued to have political influence over British TV for the rest of her career - including getting one Doctor Who Producer, Phillip Hinchcliffe, sacked for making the series too violent.

Mind you, she's got a point about that cliffhanger at the end of Deadly Assassin part three...

The Goodies and The Loch Ness Monster

The Goodies TV series ran through the 1970s, with 76 episodes made across nine seasons. Sadly their first season was not actually that good, containing more misses than hits and with material that has dated much less well than the contemporary TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus. That said, the Goodies' trademark scenes of sped-up-film slapstick are good value from the start, and every episode contains at least one such scene and is where most of the lols come from.

But, as I watched through the episodes, by the end of the season I was hoping that things would soon improve to the heights I knew the Goodies were capable of (having seen such classics as Kung Fu Kapers, Bunfight at the O.K. Tearooms, and - unsurprisingly a personal favourite amongst us cats -  Kitten Kong before), and I was wondering how long it would take them to get there - not to mention thoroughly sick of the incidental music song "Needed" which was repeated ad nauseum throughout season one.

So when I sat down to watch the first episode of the second season, The Loch Ness Monster, I was at first horrified by the first thing I heard after the title music (sadly still the inferior first version, not the great one they'll go on to use in their middle period) was "Needed." An inauspicious start indeed.

But I needn't have worried too much, as the episode very quickly improved to a greater height than anything the first season achieved. Not only did it guest-star Bernard Bresslaw (Rell the Cyclops in Krull), but also Stanley Baxter!

As a Scottish cat, I might have been offended by the appalling stereotyping of all things Scottish as the Goodies go to Scotland to try and capture the Loch Ness Monster for Bresslaw's zoo - haggis, bagpipes, highland dress, the usual clichés - but the presence of Stanley Baxter made it all OK, especially when he recognises them as being English* tourists straight away, despite their disguises (Tim's kilt is way too short, while Bill's is way too long, which is a nice visual gag). The show is livened up by Sir Stanley's presence and his interplay with the Goodies, with every scene from after he appears a treat to watch.

My friends and I recently met a Scottish monster too, you might just be able to make him out in the foreground of this photo:

His name is Dragon, and now he lives in our house where he has claimed all the DVDs for his hoard, even the Blakes 7 ones!

Dragon is quite friendly really, and he likes playing Ars Magica (so long as he can play a dragon) and Eternal, where his favourite card is Xo, who is also a dragon with a hoard. He doesn't roar so much these days, as when he does roar at us then Scary Cat rars back and scares him, so now he has to decide what sort of noise he will make instead.

* Graeme Garden is Scottish in real life, but it is made pretty clear here that his TV character isn't.