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Notable Passings and other milestones

It was great when I was on active duty and just before rack time we got to watch "foreign" shows The Goodies and Prisoner:Cell Block H. I'd never seen much like that before. I still remember the "stuck in the dinosaur" scene as one of the funniest I'd ever seen.
 
Bill: I'll have you know that if I shave off this beard I look just like Liza Minelli
Tim: Do you?
Bill: Why do you think I grew it in the first place?
 
Adrian Edmondson ❎
@AdrianEdmondson

Bill Oddie, what a lovely bloke. He wrote us a letter when we started making The Young Ones, wishing us the very best, and warning us against interference from higher up. He didn’t know anyone in the cast personally. It just came out of the blue. Lovely thing to do.
 
Eric Idle
@EricIdle
I’m very sad Bill Oddie has gone.
He was sick for some time and I wrote to him.
He auditioned me for The Pembroke Revue in 1963 and I stepped into his roles for The Edinburgh Festival when the Cambridge Footlights went to the West End.
We watched England win the World Cup together at Wembley in ‘66.
He was a very fine songwriter and I learned a lot from him.
He came to France and is in my book.
We even had Chelsea Season Tickets together.
I miss him.
 
He was also an original team member on ISIHAC when it started in 72 with Graham Garden and Tim Brook-Taylor. It was a follow on from the sketch show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again. He left after the first couple of years in 74 and was replaced by Willie Rushton.
 
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Yes, The Goodies came from the same school of comedy - literally - as Monty Python and Douglas Adams. That school was the Cambridge Footlights Revue. Also Hugh Lawrie, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, and basically anyone who was anyone in British comedy for the last fifty years.
 
arthwollipot said:
Yes, The Goodies came from the same school of comedy - literally - as Monty Python and Douglas Adams. That school was the Cambridge Footlights Revue. Also Hugh Lawrie, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, and basically anyone who was anyone in British comedy for the last fifty years.
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As noted in his post, Eric Idle was a long time friend.
 
arthwollipot said:
Yes, The Goodies came from the same school of comedy - literally - as Monty Python and Douglas Adams. That school was the Cambridge Footlights Revue. Also Hugh Lawrie, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, and basically anyone who was anyone in British comedy for the last fifty years.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there was a friendly rivalry between the Goodies and Python, John Cleese makes a brief cameo at the end of "The Goodies and the Beanstalk" as a genie pointing at them and shouting "Kid's show! Kid's show!" in reference to the perception that Python was adult and edgy while the Goodies were seen as family friendly. When you mentioned earlier about them being on every day before DW it threw me for a second until I remembered where you are because for those of us in the UK who enjoyed their work neither the BBC or ITV ever showed much inclination to repeat their respective incarnations of the show.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Yeah, there was a friendly rivalry between the Goodies and Python, John Cleese makes a brief cameo at the end of "The Goodies and the Beanstalk" as a genie pointing at them and shouting "Kid's show! Kid's show!" in reference to the perception that Python was adult and edgy while the Goodies were seen as family friendly. .
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Ironic because Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam worked together on the kids comedy sketch show Do Not Adjust Your Set.
It was just before Python. It also featured the Bonzos performing a song every week and a young David Jason.
You can see some prototype Python in it



 
This also became several Monty Python sketches

 
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Tom Chadbon.
English character actor.
Regular in British TV drama and comedy.
Best known for regular characters in Casualty, Wire in the Blood, Where The Heart Is and The Liver Birds
122 IMDB credits

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Last TV role was in Game of Thrones.
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He did several Dr Who TV roles and was a regular voice actor in Big Finish audio productions.
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arthwollipot said:
Yes, The Goodies came from the same school of comedy - literally - as Monty Python and Douglas Adams. That school was the Cambridge Footlights Revue. Also Hugh Lawrie, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, and basically anyone who was anyone in British comedy for the last fifty years.
Click to expand...

Sad to hear of the death of Bill Oddie. However, I have to say, I thought the comedy of 'The Goodies' was rather forced, and didn't find it funny half the time, although 'Father Christmas do not touch me...' raised a smile. Although many of today's top comedians came from Cambridge footlights, being fast-tracked into early BBC, when many actors and actresses were from the same sort of background, John Cleese to my mind is more a character comedian; he's funny because we like to laugh at the hapless upper class snob and his pettiness, likewise Stephen Fry. Now, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Hugh Laurie were/is genuinely funny, genuinely laugh-out loud comedic, original material and a sharp eye for social interaction that makes British comedy great.

Oh! And Eric Idle...one of the very, very funniest of all. Idle had me crying with laughter in Life of Brian.
 
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Eric Idle was the funniest of the lot.

He was Best Man at Graham Garden's wedding.
 
Jeanne Gibson, the last 'Rosie the Riveter' has passed away at the age of 100.

Jeanne was 19 when she became a welder welder at Todd Shipyard, Seattle.

Alongside her fellow surviving Rosies, Jeanne was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 2024.

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