You were magnificent!

Rest in peace Paul Darrow. Forever Avon.

Let's hope the rumours of death have been slightly greatly exaggerated.

Eurovision 2019

Yesterday saw the most fabulous Caturday night of the year as mannys once again held their Eurovision Singing Competition. We were all very excited cats here, but then the actual competition turned out to be well below the usual standard. Not universally though - the two campest and most colourful entries were saved until last, these being from Australia and Notorious Eurovision Cheats Spain.

Plus the Iceland entry was... certainly something.

On top of that, there were a couple of songs I liked, including the one from Switzerland.

But my favourite was Norway's entry, perhaps helped by their costumes reminding me of Blakes 7 - look at the mannys to the left and right and it's easy to imagine Avon dressed like that.

The biggest disappointment for us cats was not in the songs (we loved all of them really!) but in the voting. They changed the system a few years ago after a competition where the winner got such an early lead that it was clear they had won well before all the votes had been cast.

The way it works these days is that we spend ages watching all the countries of Eurovision taking turns to give their votes (and there are 41 of them so this is often a three sleeps event for cats), but then they render it a big waste of time by the second stage of voting, where great big blocks of seemingly arbitrary votes that have been cast by mannys using their 'phones are given out.

I don't doubt that these votes are being assigned fairly, but the process is completely opaque to viewers so they may as well be entirely random, and the only advantage (if you can call it that, mew) to using this system is that it manufactures tension when the final set of votes are read out, which the presenters try to milk like Greg Wallace announcing who has won a Masterchef programme... only the live broadcast nature of Eurovision makes it look like the presenters don't know what they're doing.

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.

The Young Aragorn Son of Arathorn Chronicles

So are they still making this Lord of the Rings TV series that is supposed to be about the adventures of young Aragorn? If they are, I hope it is actually a detective series set in Middle-earth, where Aragorn uses his ranger skillz of tracking and herblore to solve crimes, a bit like Catfael used to.

Maybe they could pair him up with a several-thousand-years old elf in a classic chalk-and-cheese, rookie-and-veteran double act?
"I'm getting too old for this shit," says Glorfindel. And of course Elrond is their chief, which also works because of the awkward budding romance between rookie Aragorn and the chief's daughter Arwen.

Actually, what I really hope is that they are secretly making a series of Quenta Silmarillion, which could be truly great and genuinely epic if done well. I mean, who doesn't want to see Fëanor fighting a squad of balrogs, or Fingolfin's single combat with Morgoth, or the fall of Nargothrond and Gondolin, or Sauron getting beaten up by a doggy?

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.

Cat Science

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...