"We're the Goodies, Yes the Goodies, oh the Goodies are coming for you - ha ha ha ha!"
Broaden Your Mind: an Encyclopedia of the Air
Broaden Your Mind first appeared on BBC2 on 28th October 1968 and ran for two series (thirteen ˝ hour episodes) until 29th December 1969.
Broaden Your Mind was originally called (and then subtitled) An Encyclopedia of the Air; a concept devised by writer and performer Tim Brooke - Taylor. He was inspired by the weekly topical magazines you could collect which, when combined, created an ‘encyclopedia’. With this in mind, Broaden Your Mind was a sappy, topical sketch show in which the sketches revolved around different topics (art, history, geography, music etc.)
Devised, written by and starring Tim and Graeme Garden, the show soon developed some recurring favourite characters such as Teddy and Freddy; two dithery old friends who would lecture on a particular subject but were easily distracted from the subject they were discussing. Co-incidentally these two characters appeared in episodes of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again played by Tim and David Hatch. Teddy and Freddy were also the basis for the elderly Tim and Graeme portrayals in the Goodies episode ‘The End’.
Broaden Your Mind also included the cream of the comedy crop when it came to extra material with contributions from writers such as Barry Cryer, Graham Chapman and John Cleese. Terry Jones and Michael Palin (who also wrote additional material) occasionally appeared in some of the sketches as did John Junkin, Roland MacLeod, fellow ISIRTA performer Jo Kendall and also occasionally Bill Oddie.
The shows would open with 2 or 3 quick ‘did you know?’ scenarios followed by the opening credits. As an example; ‘did you know that coughs and sneezes spread diseases?’ The accompanying visual was of a man at the front a long bus queue sneezing followed by a view of the members of the queue struck down with various ailments and a rather sheepish looking sneezing man.
Following this, Graeme and Tim would welcome a live audience and viewers to the show and then there were longer documentary- like sketches. To close the show, Graeme and Tim were back in front of the live audience informing them of a funny IQ type test or a competition etc. which the audience wouldn’t have much of a chance at before the closing credits.
The sketches for the show included material written during years at Cambridge University and also adapted scenes from ISIRTA. Graeme has openly admitted that these sketches were the least successful on the show owing to their conception for radio and revues not television.
The second series didn’t see the return of the lovable Teddy and Freddy as Tim and Graeme were told they had become too nice and had to be nastier in their sketches. Instead new characters started to appear; one in particular was Graeme’s Dr Findish of the British Institute of Applied Sciences and Not Germ Warfare. The only surviving footage of the German accented Dr Findish shows him explaining ‘Turbonitis’ – a rather unusual psychosomatic disease.
Bill Oddie, who had appeared in a variety of shows with Tim and Graeme already (including ISIRTA, the Footlights, Twice a Fortnight and Not the 1948 Show), wrote songs for Broaden Your Mind. Essentially he rewrote a lot of songs that were already popular on ISIRTA but also contributed some new songs. Having appeared in a few sketches in the first series of Broaden Your Mind, Bill was added as a regular cast member during the second series to add a less nice angle to the shows.
With Tim, Graeme and Bill now finally working together as a functioning group, Broaden Your Mind served as a blue print for their next project together; the Goodies.
Incidentally amongst the production crew, which included future Goodies director Jim Franklin and ISIRTA musical director Dave Lee, was producer Sydney Lotterby. Sydney Lotterby was made famous in the Not the 1948 Show sketch in which four virtually identical characters called ‘Sydney Lotterby’ meet on holiday.
Owing to the BBC having a clear out, a lot of British shows from the 1960s were lost and are still re-appearing. Broaden Your Mind was one of the BBC victims, however sadly for BYM fans no full shows exist on film. A few sketches have been found and have been included on the Goodies DVD ‘The Goodies... At Last’.
Compiled by Peej Harding