First reports are coming in of the death of comedy legend and (no longer) national living treasure, Bill Oddie.
He was one of the Goodies, a British comedy trio who were massively influential in the 1970s. Tim Brooke-Taylor died some years ago, leaving Graeme Garden as the last one.
Bill Oddie also had a strong later career as a TV presenter and writer, mainly based around his passion as a birdo (twitcher, birder etc).
RIP another Goodie, in every sense.
Before the Goodies, he appeared in the radio comedy I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again
with John Cleese, Graham Chapman among others…
He was also a fine musician and did all the music for that and the Goodies, including
a few hit singles (the Funky Gibbon, Black Pudding Bertha, Make a Daft Noise for Christmas (!) etc)
RIP Bill.
I remember discovering the Goodies on PBS back in 1975, which played once a week back-to-back with Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Over the years my memories of the actual show faded, but not my memory of deeply enjoying them.
Me too - along with Are You Being Served and Dr Who =)
I was cheesed off that we lived 30 miles from Rochester NY and the PBS broadcast could be nerfed by weather. Couldn’t get it at all in the summer 30 miles further south in Perry …
Yes, I saw him in concert way back in the 70s, playing some of his hits, backed by the excellent Dave MacRae; the Goodies had a surprisingly large number of successful (if very silly) songs.
Worth remembering that he was the celebrity in the very first episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, which focussed on his mother’s mental health issues. Clearly they calculated that they would start with the strongest episode and it did indeed make a big impact at the time.