The Goodies... At Last A Second Helping

The Goodies... At Last A Second Helping

DVD Rating: ****

Reviewed by: Symon Parsons

Read Symon Parsons's film review of The Goodies... At Last A Second Helping

Both discs contain extras, in the form of seven minute 16mm films from The Engelbert Humperdinck Show and Christmas Night With The Stars. There's also a clip from Crackajack of The Goodies singing A Man's Best Friend Is His Duck (you'll be pleased to know that they avoid the obvious rhyme, Crackajack being a children's show), plus the usual commentaries, which sound surprisingly bitter about their treatment by the Beeb.

Perhaps that bitterness is due to their eclipse over the past 30 years, while The Pythons went on to become revered touchstones of modern comedy. This must be in part due to their over-reliance on satirising current trends (in episodes like Punky Business) and celebrities - while gags about Clement Freud and Tiny Tim were undoubtedly funny at the time, the notes accompanying this DVD struggle to convey the joke. Even more cringe worthy are some truly unfortunate non-PC moments - while Bill talks about Python's sexism in the DVD extras, there's really nothing in the entire Python catalogue that comes so close to being genuinely offensive as the (undoubtedly well-intentioned) South Africa episode.

Copy picture Reviewed on: 16 Feb 2005
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The Goodies... At Last A Second Helping packshot
Eight more episodes from the iconic Seventies TV comedy sketch show.
Amazon link

Product Code: 7952172

Region: 2

Ratio: 4:3

Sound: Dolby Digital mono

Extras: Gymnasium sketch from The Engelbert Humperdink Show; The Goodies sing A Man


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