Another thing that struck me while working my way through the box set of the Goodies was the sparsity of the credits.

We are so used to movies where it takes 15 minutes to scroll through all the many credits, though most of us give up before they start listing the PA to the stunt double of the person who makes the tea for the accountant of the caterers, and television shows where the credits are unfeasibly large, that we forget it was not always like that.

Reach the end of an episode of the Goodies and there is a good chance that even actors with speaking parts who appear in it are not always credited.

While it is true that most credits are too long these days, you can go too far the other way. At the end of a show you might well be interested to know who played the person behind the counter in a shop scene, especially in an old show where you are convinced it was an early bit part by somebody who went on to bigger things.

I have just started watching the DVD box set of Shelley which started at about the time the Goodies was coming to an end. Maybe it is just that ITV did things differently, but the credits did include wardrobe, lighting designer, and a few other people. Most importantly, it confirmed that the bearded person with a small part as one of Shelley’s friends was indeed the late, great Alan Rickman in one of his earlier roles.