It irritates me that the BBC get so much bad press over this. Every single
TV and radio company in the world destroyed material for contractual, tape
recycling, non commercial reasons etc (the full list of reasons why would
take me too long to write). They had no crystal ball to see that everything
could be released on cd & DVD or that there would be any commercial value
in it at all.

As it happens The Goons exists complete from series 5 onwards (with some
shows from before also existing) and have been restored by list member Ted
Kendal and released on CD. The Goodies - this survives almost complete.
The only missing show is the original broadcast version of Kitten Kong
where the partly remade version for golden rose of Montreux survives
instead. One show is a telerecording in b&w (but with chroma dots so could
be colour recovered) all the rest are on colour VT. All are due for release
on a massive box set by Network later this year.

Richard.