Winter Olympics
18 February 1973
For all that ‘The New Office’ suggested a fresh start and the intention to innovate, Series 3 in actuality sees the lads striking out with no particular destination in mind. There are false starts, experiments, several returns to the nest. In fact, this block of episodes feels, as a whole, like a two-steps-forward, one-step-back nosing about in search of Series 4 (delivered later the same year)! It is at once a reappraisal of elements that have worked in the past, and an on-the-job assessment of prospective new approaches.
‘Winter Olympics’ is very much of the former category, in essence melding together Series 2’s ‘Commonwealth Games’ and ‘Pollution’. The Minister of Sport (Peter Jones) on this occasion doesn’t add much:
Nor does the airborne bicycle scene, which lacks the usual hijinks (due in part, no doubt, to several accidents in the filming; in light of Tim’s injuries, the trandem never again took to the air). In terms of social issues, ‘Winter Olympics’ is a filler episode. The crux of its humour is, again, the idea of a British superiority based solely upon the patriotic assertion thereof.
Tim, of course, wholeheartedly embraces this notion, which if anything comes across as more humorous now than it would have before the transition of the Olympics from an amateurs-only event to the pinnacle of professional sport. With no formal instruction and no experience beyond their characteristically shambolic training camp in Bognor, Tim firmly expects that he, Bill and Graeme, constituting the entirety of the British Olympics Team, will dominate the event.
The icy conditions of the North Pole, therefore, come as something of a cold shower!
The lads, in the truest of British spirit, decide to cheat. They melt the polar ice, put their dry-weather training to good use, and do indeed sweep to victory… mostly underwater! (Ironically, of course, the flooded conditions don’t actually suit anybody, and so the lads really do triumph purely on Britishness.)
So, what to make of this episode?
Firstly, it’s funny. If the Super Chaps had one ability above all else, it was to riff off absurdity. In ‘Winter Olympics’ this manifests in a training camp so secret that even the Goodies themselves aren’t allowed to know its location. The minister therefore blindfolds them… and leaves them to find their own way there, guided only by a ‘relief’ map (a cactus!). The lads go weaving off on their trandem, arriving by feel and executing a perfect blind slalom. Bill attempts a running shoulder charge to open the hut door, only to miss entirely! And then:
This is black-and-white silent comedy given funky instrumental accompaniment and taken to extremes!
The training camp, meanwhile, is a riotous example of the lads’ ability to make do comedically with very little at hand, most sublimely in the case of the toboggan (‘how to make a sledge out of a grotty old orange box’) and the skis (Graeme: “No, the shelves; they are the skis!”) The all-over body massage is an inspired piece of gimmicked-up contraption, and the photos of past athletes—culminating in coffins to represent the gold medal-winning tobogganists—is vintage Goodies! The outdoor training scenes are, as ever, superbly executed (to the tune of ‘Winter Sportsman’, a whimsical, almost saccharine number that, while sung here by Bill, would later in the year find official release with vocals by Tim as the B-side to ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’).
The actual competition scenes, in comparison, seem a little flat; but they are nicely done, with most of the jokes being told by implication:
Humour-wise, ‘Winter Olympics’ offers plenty. Even the halfway break pulls off a rare double success, with commercials for Heenz Meenz Beenz (“Get it right!) and Golden Dairy Margarine (“It spreads straight from the fridge.”), the latter providing a memorable visual when the opening credits were revamped for Series 5.
Beyond the obvious laughs, though, there is a slight jadedness to proceedings; a sense that society and expectations are moving on, and that the Super Chaps really do need to make that shift they’re looking for. This is perhaps most evident in the Goodies’ continued low-key association with the sexploitation industry. At first this is merely observational. Every newspaper article they read—no matter the content—references Norwegian model turned actress Julie Ege, who appeared as Voluptua in sex comedy Up Pompeii (1971) and had co-starred alongside Brian O’Shaughnessy in Stone Age grunt film Creatures the World Forgot (1971).[1] Then, when they arrive at the North Pole, the chaps find their own exotic Scandinavian in Danish actress Helli Louise, resident Eskimo (‘Nell’) at the North Pole Hilton. Nell’s role (non-speaking) is to warm the lads up by removing items of her already scanty clothing.
Helli Louise’s filmography was and would remain a showcase of minor acts of titillation, and she appeared twice more in The Goodies—as the Girl with the Puppies in Series 4’s ‘The Goodies and the Beanstalk’ (wearing the same bikini, no less!) and in ‘The Race’ three episodes later as flight hostess Dana in their last ever mock commercial.[2]
Page 3 girls were a distinctly 70s phenomena in origin. Furthermore, cinematic titillation of the mild but tasteless ‘Carry On’ variety was nothing new. The Goodies, one might say, were being ‘of their time’, but what they really needed—and would soon achieve—was to be ahead of their time. Series 5’s ‘Chubby Chumps’ concludes with an overt bit of Benny Hill, and by this time there’s been a subtle shift (if such a term can be applied to so un-subtle a sequence) from being blithely immersed in the milieu of sexploitation to standing somewhat askance from it and making comment (if not yet unambiguously passing judgement).
The lads, in ‘Winter Olympics’, were still girding up their loins in preparation for making that move.
Jacob Edwards, 18 February 2023
Tweets:
[1] Given their later obsession with Raquel Welch circa One Million Years B.C. (1966), we can see what sort of flicks the lads were into when not watching old black-and-white silent comedies!
[2] Wikipedia lists her erroneously as playing the ‘French Maid’ engine component of Graeme’s homemade car.
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