The Goodies (TV Series) Kitten Kong (1971) User Reviews

A must for all cat owners...IF you can actually OWN a cat that is!

[joegarbled-79482 · 10/10 · 21 August 2023]

This episode is a must for all cat lovers and a wonderful introduction to the crazy world of The Goodies, Garden, Oddie and Brooke-Taylor.

The comedy of The Goodies works very very well at both child and adult levels and "Kitten Kong" had families laughing as one. The show will LOOK dated now, but as with Laurel and Hardy or Tom and Jerry, much of the humour is timeless.

This outing has the boys deciding to open up a clinic for pets in poor health, thus the trio are seen riding out on their tandem and rounding up all manner of fish, fowl, dogs, snakes and a fluffy white Persian kitten named "Twinkle", except that Twinkle is actually aged 23 but never grew up!

As Graeme Garden is a doctor, he suitably comes up with a growth food and Twinkle grows to a gigantic size and unfortunately, Bill Oddie "puts the cat out for the night" and Twinkle terrorises London in the same way as King Kong took on New York. Graeme dreams up an antidote and the boys dress up as mice to lure Twinkle. They manage to get Twinkle back to his/her previous size. Left with a large amount of Graeme's growth food, the boys casually dump the rest and the show ends with them being attacked by giant mice breaking through the walls in a scene that reminds me of the cheap sci-fi 'B' movie "The Killer Shrews"....a scene maybe best avoided by anyone scared of mice!

The Goodies could be just as surreal as "The Python Team" but as their show was early evening, they had a large junior audience and most of us watched as a family. In the days of there being just three channels to choose from, this show became massively popular on a probably miniscule budget.

Kitten Kong

[Prismark10 · 10/10 · 28 December 2022]

The Goodies parody King Kong. The sight if a white kitten climbing up the Post Office Tower has become iconic.

It was a bit of a tour de force for the BBC special effects department although it looks dated over 50 years later.

The Goodies latest money making scheme is to open a veterinarian clinic for animals which leads to chaos. They ended up have singing dogs.

When a kitten eats Graeme's experimental growth pill. A giant kitten roams London, it even squashes roving reporter Michael Aspel.

Some of the sequences were slickly done like Graeme changing to a mouse. It is also a homage to cartoon shorts of the 1940s and 1950s. As the Goodies scuttle about dressed like mice, a woman gets on a chair and shouts Thomas.

This is one of The Goodies best remembered episodes and won the Silver Rose prize in Montreux.

"Miaow!"

[ShadeGrenade · 10/10 · 5 December 2007]

'Kitten Kong' is to 'The Goodies' what 'The Ministry Of Silly Walks' is to 'Monty Python'. It is quite simply the best remembered episode. Whenever I recommend this wonderfully crazy show to first-timers, I urge them to watch this one first because it contains all the things that made it great. I never saw the original Season 2 version alas, but it proved so successful it was remade with additional film sequences, and entered for The Golden Rose Of Montreux in 1972. It was beaten by 'The Best Of The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine' ( a show for which ironically Tim Brooke-Taylor contributed material ).

The Goodies open their own veterinarian surgery - but one with a difference. Each day, they ride through London on their trandem, towing a large basket on wheels, into which people place their pets. The poor animals are thrown together ( cats and dogs, goldfish and snakes ) without any thought for their well being. As the bike pedals away, the sounds of mewling, hissing, barking and growling can be heard coming from the basket. One patient in particular proves difficult to handle - a fluffy white kitten named Twinkle. Tim takes it for a walk in the park, but it drags him along behind it ( during the filming of this scene, poor Tim made unpleasant contact with a dog turd! ), eventually taking refuge in a tree. Graeme accidentally overfeeds the animal with growth serum, and it expands to mammoth proportions, threatening the whole of London...

The special effects may look dated, but there's no denying that the sight of Giant Twinkle, demolishing the G.P.O. Tower, is one of British television comedy's iconic moments ( the kitten even appears on the cover of Andrew Pixley's excellent book 'Super Chaps Three' ) . Even those who resist 'The Goodies' surely cannot fail to laugh as Michael Aspel, acting as the B.B.C.'s roving reporter, is swatted to the ground by a huge paw.

Things To Look Out For - the two dogs singing 'Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better' was recycled from Garden and Brooke-Taylor's 'Broaden Your Mind'.

'Kitten Kong' held the honour of being the last 'Goodies' to be shown on the B.B.C - going out as part of a retro T.V. festival in 1986 - at least until 'Winter Olympics' was repeated in January 2006.

Funniest moment - dressed as mice, the Goodies take to the air and endeavour to inject the monster pussy with shrinking serum!

Mind out for the litter tray!

[BA_Harrison · 3 December 2011]

Even though it's not a particular favourite of mine, this is undoubtedly one of the best remembered episodes of The Goodies, the one with the iconic image of a giant white kitten climbing up the Post Office tower. The show starts with Bill feeding a sickly guinea pig a four course meal, giving the lads the idea of opening a veterinary clinic for crazy animals. The guys go out on their bike to collect a variety of patients, shoving them all into one huge basket (which naturally causes chaos).

Back at their pad, the trio tend to the animals, including a depressed mongoose, a needy bush baby (which provides a hilarious repeat sight-gag), and a vampire bat—all of which is extremely silly stuff. The rest of the show centres around a fluffy kitten named Twinkle who grows to a massive size and terrorises London after Graeme feeds it a special growth formula. These are the scenes that people seem to remember the most, but as far as I'm concerned, they really aren't as funny as the stuff that precedes them—merely an excuse for the BBC's special effects department to have some fun (sadly, their efforts look terribly cheap by today's standards).