The Goodies (TV Series) War Babies (1980) User Reviews

War Babies

[Prismark10 · 7/10 · 18 December 2022]

The final episode of The Goodies for the BBC. There was no comeback for them to Auntie after this. Even though separately each of the trio did various work for BBC radio and television.

This one too has a Python link. It looks more like a Ripping Yarn.

Bill is born as a big baby to a Lancashire housewife in the 1930s. He is sent to school for advanced schoolchildren, two of them being grown up babies like Bill.

Graeme who likes to keep to himself and Tim who really is a baby.

The headmaster sends the trio in a dangerous mission. Parachuted behind German lines, they have to buy cigars for Winston Churchill.

To their surprise, Winston is a dead ringer for Adolf Hitler. Maybe a game of football will signify how the war was won. They just need a six million dollar baby.

Surprisingly The Goodies are rather disrespectful of Churchill. After the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Churchill was almost deified.

Geoffrey Palmer guest stars as the school headmaster.

Not so much a "baby boom", more "baby ka-boom!!"

[napierinframe · 7 April 2006]

One of my earlier TV memories as a child of the '80s was this quirky episode from "The Goodies" series.

It wasn't so much a baby boom, more like baby ka-boom!!

Along with the usual goof-ball antics, the scenes with the pram tanks and baby bottle grenades sending the goodies scurrying were a highlight.

The Goodies being chased through parkland by dozens of old, self-propelled, prams firing at them is one of those things that still stir a chuckle now, some 20+ years after originally seeing it.

The Baby-bottle grenades were a nice touch too. A lactose take on the "potato-masher" grenade of World War Two perhaps?

"Mama!"

[ShadeGrenade · 10/10 · 7 April 2007]

1939. Bill Oddie is born and, much to the consternation of his parents, has the body of a fully grown man, replete with beard. Sent to a special public school for precocious tots, he along with Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor offer to do their bit for the war effort. After defusing a bomb dropped on the school, the trio parachute behind enemy lines to buy cigars for Winston Churchill. Their mission is successful, but on meeting Winnie they've a shock in store - he is a dead ringer for Adolf Hitler!

The final 'Goodies' episode on the B.B.C. - although not the last recorded, that honour went to 'Animals' - is a splendid swan-song, full of good visual gags and mischief. The next time they would be on television turned out to be the ill-fated L.W.T. series.

Like 'Rome Antics' five years earlier, it ignores the established format and presents our heroes in an entirely unrelated ( almost Goon Show-like ) adventure set in World War Two, in which a clockwork Tim impersonates Churchill so as to win a football match between Britain and Germany. 'The Six Million Dollar Man' theme is heard as Tim goes into slow motion mode.

The late Andrew Ray, who plays 'Churchill', was the youngest son of the much-loved comedian Ted Ray. The headmaster is played by Geoffrey Palmer of 'Reginald Perrin' and 'Butterflies' fame.

Interesting to see the Goodies turning Churchill into a figure of fun, especially in the scene where British soldiers blow raspberries during one of his speeches. Recently, the film 'Churchill - The Hollywood Years' tried the same trick, but with less successful results.

Funniest moment - Tim as 'Churchill' running bionic fashion through a minefield with a chamber pot on his head!