The Goodies DVD we'd all love to be able to buy!

Regulars will know that this slot originally housed a tentative attempt at chronicling and offering in-depth critical analysis on every single Goodies episode, but since there are several websites that already offer much the same thing - including, of course, the wonderful http://www.goodiesruleok.com/ - I've decided to keep things simple and go with a quote from the blog of one Steve Goble.

"The Goodies have a very simple history - they were brilliant. Anything else that I may have to say about them can only subtract from that."

It really is that simple.

And yet the BBC defiantly keep this most beloved and fondly-remembered of series under wraps, save for the very occasional repeat (I'm talking two in the space of twenty years) and the slightly more occasional retrospective. (Return of the Goodies, aired over the Christmas 2005 period, pulled in a staggering three and a half million viewers - proof, as if it were needed, that there is still some life in the Goodies.)

Now, nobody much is going to listen to me - I'm only a humble archive comedy fan with a blog and chips piled high on both shoulders - but I have an idea that could, if handled properly, make the BBC a tidy profit. They wouldn't even have to repeat the series. (Though if they did, that might help the sales - just a thought.)

Network's two compilations of classic BBC episodes - The Goodies at Last and At Last A Second Helping - were big sellers. Ideally, Network should be allowed to release a third compilation, but for whatever reason it looks like that's not going to happen anytime soon - not while they're releasing rubbish like the Dangerous Brothers and Get Some In! anyway - which is a shame, because Network know how to handle these releases properly. 2Entertain do a decent enough job in a pinch, but their releases are usually bare-bones efforts. (To illuminate their laziness for the uninitiated, the second series of In Sickness and in Health has an episode menu screen illustrated with screen grabs from the first series!)

What's needed is a proper, chunky, extras-packed, bells and whistles, copper-bottomed classic DVD release, ideally running to at least five discs, showcasing the remaining excellent Goodies episodes that haven't yet seen a commercial release. Using my skill, judgement and anally retentive nature to fine effect, I've knocked up an outline of the shape this release would take.

(My Microsoft Paint skills are rudimentary at best!)

DISC ONE
The Music Lovers (AKA The Stolen Musicians)
Camelot
Invasion of the Moon Creatures
Hospital For Hire

DISC TWO
Chubbie Chumps
Scatty Safari
Rome Antics
Cunning Stunts

DISC THREE
Goodies Rule OK?
Hype Pressure
It Might As Well Be String
Alternative Roots

DISC FOUR
Royal Command
Goodies and Politics
U-Friend or UFO?
Animals

DISC FIVE
Return of the Goodies (2005 special)
Comedy Connections - the Goodies
Whatever footage is available from the 2005-07 stage tours (surely at least one concert was filmed?)
All episodes are gorgeously digitally remastered from the best possible sources and have audio commentaries from Bill, Tim and Graeme.

EXTRAS SPREAD ACROSS ALL THE DISCS
Here's where it might get tricky. Get a good researcher in, because there's a lot of gold here waiting to be rediscovered...

• The cast of Cambrige Circus (including Bill and Tim) perform 'the Green Line Bus' on the Ed Sullivan Show.


• Tim Brooke-Taylor playing the right wing Alf Garnett-style character in On the Braden Beat.


• Tim and Bill's 'hospital visitor' sketch from At Last the 1948 Show.


• Bill Oddie on BBC3 doing that 'poor old Roma got no goals at all' song prior to twatting the cameraman with a brick, and that 'my mother was a Beatle and my pa's a Rolling Stone' song on the banjo-uke.


• Surviving footage from Twice A Fortnight, if there's any left - if not, just stick in that amazing clip of the Who doing 'I Can See For Miles'. I know that's still in the archives.


• The Goodies interviewed on Ask Aspel (both times, if you please - 1971 and 1976).


• All the specially pre-filmed inserts from Engelbert with the Young Generation - or the A Collection of Goodies compilation will do, at a push.


• The Goodies perform 'the Inbetweenies' on Top of the Pops.


• The Goodies perform 'Make A Daft Noise For Christmas' on Blue Peter.


• The Goodies perform 'Funky Gibbon' on Crackerjack. ("Crackerjack!")


• The Goodies on Jim'll Fix It. Come on, this has got to be an amazing clip.


• The Golden Rose of Montreux documentary from 1975 with footage of the judges panel watching 'the Movies' episode and Jim Franklin picking up the Silver Rose.


• The Goodies on Seaside Special with Ken Dodd.


• Goodies performances from Roger Graef's Pleasure at Her Majesty's film of John Cleese's 'A Poke in the Eye With A Sharp Stick' 1976 Amnesty concert


• The Goodies on Disney Time (the actual clips will have to be cut for contractual reasons, but who gives a sod about the Shaggy D.A., for Christ's sake?).


• The Goodies on Nationwide, previewing the seventh series.


• The Goodies perform 'M.I.C.K.E.Y.M.O.U.S.E' on Blue Peter.


• The Goodies on Noel Edmonds Presents Multi-Coloured Swap Shop's Rock Garden Party. You've seen the clips - Tim and Graeme wearing their ' theUnvarnished Truth' t-shirts.


• Token clip of Bill on the Saturday Banana.

• The Goodies' Kleenex advert.


• Tim's Brentford Nylons advert.


• Tim and Bill's Jacob Crackers advert.


• Tim and Bill's Woolworths advert with Anita Harris.


• Tim's This Is Your Life (1981) where Spike Milligan turned up looking like he was just about to have a shave.


• The 'Judge Not' sketch from Cambridge Circus, reprised in 1983 for some BBC documentary.


• The Goodies promote Bananaman on Blue Peter (with Janet Ellis - phwoar!).


• Some smug twats in a BBC studio discussing 'Kitten Kong' prior to the 1986 repeat as part of the TV50 retrospective. (Yes, one of them did say "look out for the giant kitten demolishing the Post Office Tower" - no wonder that's all people ever talk about. I know it was utterly fantastic, but they did make other episodes!)


• The Goodies' Comic Relief sketch from 1988 (it's on YouTube).


• The Goodies' cameo from the 1988 film Under the Bed.


• Audio clips of the Goodies' Billy Bunter Radio Two series from 1993.


• Bill interviewed about the Goodies on Funny Business.


• Tim and Bill on Today's the Day.


• Where Are They Now? (Australian TV special, 1997)


• The Goodies on Television's Greatest Hits.


• Tim and Graeme in If I Ruled the World.


• Bill in Fun at the Funeral Parlour moaning about the lack of Goodies repeats.


• The Goodies segment from Top Ten Comedy Records.


• The Goodies segment from I Love 1970.

There, that's not much to ask, is it? Seriously - this stuff is out there. Watching on UKNova or YouTube is all well and good, but it deserves to be captured on pristine, shiny DVD for posterity. The chances of it ever happening, however, seem to be slim, which is bloody heartbreaking. They'll gladly give DVD releases to shitbombs like TittyBangBang and Ruddy Hell! It's Harrowing and Poor, but all those Goodies goodies sit mouldering in the vaults? There is no God.

"Don't be too sure about that! Alright? Not 'arf!"