| "Kung Fu Kapers" | |
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| The Goodies episode | |
| Episode no. | Series 5 Episode 43 (of 76) |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | Tim Brooke-Taylor Graeme Garden Bill Oddie |
| Original air date | 24 March 1975 (Monday — 9 p.m.) |
| Guest stars | |
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Michael Barratt |
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| Series 5 episodes | |
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| List of The Goodies episodes | |
Kung Fu Kapers is an episode of the British comedy television series The Goodies — a BAFTA-nominated series for Best Light Entertainment Programme.[1][2][3]
This episode is also known as "Ecky-Thump".
As always, the episode was written by members of The Goodies.
Contents |
Tim and Graeme are attempting to learn Kung Fu in the Goodies' office, but Bill is extremely disparaging of their techniques, and shows them that he knows some rather impressive martial arts skills of his own. Under pressure from the other two, Bill reveals himself as a master of the secret Lancashire martial art known as "Ecky-Thump" — which mostly revolves around hitting unsuspecting people with black puddings while wearing flat caps and braces.
Bill agrees to demonstrate this "ancient Lancastrian art" with great reluctance, in a series of bouts against Tim and Graeme — posing as various martial arts experts who are "foreign members of their families". Bill wins against every "expert" merely by hitting them over the head with the black pudding (except the Scots one who is knocked out by a wayward boomerang). Tim ends up getting plastered, with his limbs in a "kung-fu" style formation, preparing to gain his revenge on Bill, who has meanwhile opened a profitable Ecky-Thump class, and subsequently stars in a series of Martial Arts flicks.
The night before Bill and his Ecky-Thump "army" are to go on the march to attack with their black puddings, Graeme adds a "remote control device" to the black pudding mixture — leading to unexpected wayward black puddings for a bewildered Bill and his equally bemused Ecky-Thump followers.
The episode is infamous for the documented example of a man laughing to death. 50 year old Alex Mitchell could not stop laughing for a continuous 25 minute period - almost the entire length of the show - and suffered a fatal heart attack as a result of the strain placed on his heart. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments so pleasant. [4][5][6][7][8]
This episode has been released on both DVD and VHS.
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