The Goodies (TV Series) Caught in the Act (1970) User Reviews

The Goodies In The Club

[ShadeGrenade · 8/10 · 23 November 2006]

The Minister For Trade & Domestic Affairs wants the Goodies to recover compromising photos of her taken at the Playgirl Club. Tim goes undercover in drag. The Club is a veritable den of iniquity, with strip shows, saunas, massage rooms and displays of openly uninhibited behaviour. When Tim fails to report back, Graeme and Bill decide to rescue him. But the only way to get in is to pose as 'male bunnies' a.k.a. 'Wolves'...

This satire on the so-called Permissive Society was made before the B.B.C. came to see 'The Goodies' as a children's show. Its also one of the best episodes of Season 1, despite boasting little by way of visual humour.

A pre-'Are You Being Served?' Mollie Sugden plays the talkative Minister, with 'Carry On' blonde bombshell Liz Fraser as the club's Mae West-style proprietor. Queenie Watts would later play Arthur Mullard's wife 'Lil' in I.T.V.'s 'Romany Jones' and 'Yus My Dear'. Tim gets to use his 'Lady Constance' voice from 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again'.

Yes, the scenes in the Playgirl Club are sexist ( there's some nudity on display ), and this has led to the episode being branded 'politically incorrect'. U.K. Gold included it in a season of programmes called 'The Dog House'. I can't help thinking that if it had been written by a woman though, it would today be regarded as a monument to female liberation.

Funniest moment - Bill and Graeme attempting to identify the club's owner by the colour of her underwear! Yes, that scene!

Hilarious

[john-allen76-1 · 10/10 · 16 October 2022]

Mollie Sugden pre Are You Being Served It's in black and white It's brilliantly performed and there are jokes a plenty.

This was 1970 for Heaven's sake - no pc rubbish back then. It's so sad that all the snowflakes never knew proper comedy when nothing mattered. It's all " I'm offended" by this and "I'm offended" by that nowadays. Nobody gets hurt, no one is abused, no one is exploited. It's simply beautiful stuff and Messrs Oddie, Garden and Brooke-Taylor are divine.

Simply superb and some great Bill Oddie songs to boot. Bill Oddie sucks sherbet and Tony Blackburn gets some stick as he should!!!!

The Goodies rule ok!!!!

Worst Goodies episode?

[ingemar-4 · 3/10 · 10 June 2009]

I love the Goodies. They have made many very funny and memorable shows during their 12 years on the air. They have a unique combination of sitcom, slapstick and Monty Python- style humor. Of the more than 70 shows, at least 20 are brilliant, even more are good, most are amusing, and only a handful are downright poor. Unfortunately, "Caught in the act" is one of the few.

Since this is one of the "almost lost" episodes, I have only seen it in a poor B/W copy. That certainly limits the enjoyment, and I may miss many fine details. Still, what I do see is bad enough.

The story is about the Goodies getting into a club of questionable morals to find pictures of a female minister in an embarrassing situation. First Tim get in, dressed as a woman, getting the job as secretary. Later, Tim and Graeme follow, as "male bunnies".

The concept is somewhat promising, they try to turn the male and female stereotypes upside-down, but the result is not so good. It starts out fairly well with the ever-talking minister and Tim imposing as female Goodie because she doesn't want to talk to a man, but from there it goes downhill. There are too many young naked women (and the camera stays too long on them), and too many sex-mad women chasing men. The pantie color spotting scene is amusing, at least for the mirror on the shoe, but it still feels cheap and sexist. Graeme and Bill as male bunnies is probably the best idea in the later parts of the show.

The Goodies have returned to similar themes later, often with Tim in female roles (Movies, Chubbie Chumps) and reversing gender roles (Cunning Stunts), and they were a lot more funny then. This seems like a first try that didn't come out so well. It certainly has a value as collector's item or curiosity for the Goodies' fan, but the series should definitely not be judged by this episode.

Fun, but troubling

[pwomack-2 · 5/10 · 28 January 2019]

The episode pokes satirical fun at the sexism of the Playboy club, and the appalling treatment of women by men.

Unfortunately, this satire is MASSIVELY undermined, since they enthusiastically garnish the episode with what I can only call dolly birds, including naked shower scenes.