Funky music in the UK comedy "The Goodies"

[Funky Dude]

As you's know I'm a big fan of classic British comedy and one of my favourite comedies is "The Goodies" as it's full of whacky stuff that makes me piss myself laughing :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: . Anyhow watching the episodes they have music in the show as well and some of it is very funky. In the 1972-1973 Goodies season they have a very funky startup theme, and when the Goodies are running or getting chased this song "Run" gets played and is very funky. Also the Goodies had a funny novelty comedy funky hit called "The Funky Gibbon" which made it high in the UK pop charts, I've got 3 or 4 clips of them performing that song on:
Bay City Rollers "Shang-A-Lang" show 1975
Top Of The Pops 1975
The Goodies Almost Live 1976
and I think they also did it on one of their special edition episodes

"Give me a OOO.... OOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOOO"

Also the Goodies performed another funky song on their "Almost Live" episode in 1976 which was even more funkier than "Funky Gibbon", this one was also a comedy funk song which they go "Do the granny.... do the slimy toe..." .

Anyhow I'm pretty sure some of you's might have heard them and liked/hated them. Anyhow I was wondering was "Funky Gibbon" ever trialed in British discos around 1975 when it was a hit? And what were the dancers reaction to it? Also was any of their other funk related music trialed in discos?

[ladyboygrimsby]

I remember them with great affection. I bought the 'Funky Gibbon' single when it came out. It was on Bradley, the same label that released Resonance's'Yellow Train', a Loft classic. Are any of these tunes you mention available on vinyl?

[Funky Dude]

Not sure. I think I might of heard of a Goodies album being released on vinyl but I don't know what tracks are on them.

[ladyboygrimsby]

Funky Dude, I was just trawling through some back posts and came across this again. Weirdly, over the past year or so, I met someone who was also into the Goodies' music, too. He introduced me to some of the funky stuff they've done. There are two tunes worth checking out. One is called Cricklewood Shakedown, which is sort of ruined by the comedy vocals slightly, but is still good. The other, however, is straight up good. It's called Ride Your Pony. They're on separate albums. One's called The World of the Goodies, the other I don't recall the name of, but I can find out. I've also found out that Bill Oddie, one of the Goodies, is a big funk collector, who's known to dealers in the UK, which might explain the funkiness of some of the tunes!

[Greg Wilson]

Just come across this from Bill Oddie:

'You won't believe the musical pretensions that went on in my head. I listened to a lot of jazz and a lot of funk, and that period of the '70s for me was fantastic - it was really the era when fusion started. The people I liked were Sly Stone and early Parliament, and I listened to what was happening in jazz at the time, when Miles Davis was coming up with some very interesting hybrid music. With 'Funky Gibbon', I started off - it's almost unbelievable considering how stupid the song is - trying to get the feel of a Miles Davis track, I can't remember which, probably just after Bitches Brew and that sort of era: some really choppy Miles Davis-type rhythm, again with a Sly Stone influence.
We had marvellous musicians on those sessions, but they couldn't get it. They knew what I was sort of trying to do, but I probably listened to that sort of thing more than they did, and it was driving us nuts, so we sent the drummer and the bass-player and the guitarist home. And I had a keyboard player called Dave Macrae, who'd played with Matching Mole and Robert Wyatt and people like that - governor player - and he started playing some clavinet, very Stevie Wonder-type feel to it, and I said, 'That's fine; could you do a synth-bass on it?'
And then I literally started whacking the top of the grand piano. So the actual rhythm-track of 'The Funky Gibbon' has only got me and Dave on it - he plays clavinet and synth-bass and we miked up the top of the piano. Then we got the horn section of Gonzales playing a Memphis Horns-type thing. It was lovely for me to be able to use musicians I liked and try to reproduce sounds which I also listened to. And then put the stupid song over the top of it. The idea that all that effort went into 'The Funky Gibbon'!
It sounds like Parliament on a bad day, or something like that [laughs], that kind of thing. I think subconsciously people feel it - this was always my theory about it, I thought: I want the music to sound good or authentic, whatever style it happens to be in'.