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These Deadly Jokes Were Not Too Funny for their Victims in the End

Khalid Elhassan November 30, 2022 29 min

The Comedy Show That Killed

The Goodies was a British TV series that combined situation comedy with surreal sketches, and originally aired 76 episodes on BBC from 1970 to 1980. It is probably not the cup of tea of most Americans today, but it was pretty funny for its intended British audience, as evidenced by its decade-long run. Also, by the fact that at least one of its viewers found a Goodies skit to be so hilarious that he laughed himself to death. It began on the evening of March 24^th, 1975, which started off like many others for Alex Mitchell, a bricklayer from King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

He sat down after dinner to watch an episode of his favorite TV show, which he watched religiously every week. Mitchell knew to expect the show’s typical raw and physical humor. However, he was unprepared for that evening’s “Kung Fu Capers” episode. It featured a black belt in “Ecky Thump” – a little known martial art from Lancaster, that revolved around pelting opponents with black pudding. Something about that struck Mitchell as over the top hilarious. He began to guffaw uproariously, as his wife complained that he must be the only person in the world who thought The Goodies was funny.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.