The Goon Show running jokes

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This is a list of running jokes the 1950s British radio programme The Goon Show.

Contents

[edit] Catch-phrases

Bluebottle's Catchphrases

  • Bluebottle reads his stage directions. ("Enters room wearing doublet made from mum's old drawers" or "Enter Bluebottle, waits for audience applause, not a sausage").
  • Bluebottle would say, "I don't like this game!", especially when he was about to be, or had just been "deaded".
  • Bluebottle says "You rotten swine you!" when something bad happens to him like being "deaded". At one point in the episode The Sinking of Westminster Pier, he complained that he was always being deaded, and that Eccles never did. This was followed by a second explosion and a call of 'You Rotten Swine Bluebottle!' from Eccles.
  • Other Bluebottle catchphrases include: "I heard you call me, My Capitaine! " Often in reference to Seagoon.
  • Variations of "Ooh! Liquorice! I must be careful of how many of them I eat!".
  • Often in reference to one of the many dangers facing him in various Goon Show episodes: "Harm can come to a growing lad like that!". This latter quote can also be found in two of the many Songs released by the Goons, the Bluebottle Blues, and the Goons own recording of "Unchained Melody".

Grytpype-Thynne's Catchphrases

  • Hercules Grytpype Thynne, instead of offering cigarettes to smoke, gave strange items such as gorillas, brass instruments and pictures of Queen Victoria. Neddie Seagoon would often decline: "Care for a Gorilla?" "No thanks, I'm trying to give them up." ('Gorilla' being a pun on the cigar trademark Agarillo).
  • "You silly twisted boy, you!" In the fifth series, Grytpype-Thynne says this to Neddie Seagoon in regard to his silly behaviour. In The White Box of Great Bardfield, a running gag during the show is Seagoon's attempts to win a reward of ten shillings after being chained up by Ellington in the first scene; he has complete confidence in his ability to escape: after all, he is the son of Houdini!! Grytpype says the phrase after witnessing Neddie's long and agonising contortions. Ray Ellington himself gets to say this quote in the Sennapod Tea episode, and Grytpype also lets Greenslade say it (with permission) in The Six Ingots of Leadenhall Street. It is also heard in China Story, following Ned Seagoon's admission that he is the British ambassador, and in The Whistling Spy Enigma after Ned arrives at MI5, giving a long list of patriotic and foolhardy deeds he is willing to do for his country.

Other Catchphrases

  • Regularly one-liners are responded to with the music hall catchphrase: "I don't wish to know that!"
  • When someone tells Eccles to shut up, Eccles himself joins in, usually being the last to finish.
  • Bloodnok was usually introduced by his theme music. This was followed by explosions or gurgling liquid noises, with Bloodnok yelling in pain. Sometimes the music failed to cue, whereupon Sellers usually covered up by saying "I'm cured!".
  • Little Jim's only line in most episodes is simply to say "He's fallen in the wah-taa!" It is often commented by various characters, usually Grytpype-Thynne, that they do not know what they would do without him.
  • Miss Minnie Banister used many opportunities to say "We'll all be murdered in our beds!" or something along similar lines; after being swallowed by a tiger: "We'll all be murdered in our tigers!", or in Shangri-La Again: "We'll all be murdered in our monasteries!" In The Call of the West, Minnie and Henry are being attacked by the Nackataka Indians. Minnie asks Henry, "Are they the ones that commit atrocities?" When Henry answers in the affirmative, Minnie replies, "I'll go upstairs and get ready."
  • In the fifth series, Eccles would often state, "It's good to be alive!" at the most inopportune moments. In Nineteen Eighty-Five (a parody of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four), Eccles modified this catchphrase as "It's good to be alive...in 1985!"
  • Seagoon is often heard making a blatant word-twisting joke to a fellow character or the audience to which both he and the audience will start to laugh. When the audience dies out, Seagoon is often left laughing hysterically. He then notices his mistake in laughing at his own joke, stops and pretends to be clearing his throat.
  • Neddies stock catchphrase was the phrase "Needle-nardle-noo!" which he would use as an exclamation and to punctuate his lines. He would also occasionally utter the phrase "isotopes peru" as a general nonsense phrase eg; "I didn't study Astro Navigation in the isotopes peru for nothing, you know!" (taken from The Treasure of Loch Lomond)

[edit] Regular plot devices

  • Bluebottle would often be killed, or "deaded", during the course of an episode. He would often comment on his demise, usually with his catchphrase, "You dirty rotten swines, you!" Bluebottle, if he survived to the end of the episode, would sometimes note his escape.
  • Eccles and/or Bluebottle were usually employed in some capacity at which they are completely useless.
  • People would travel very long distances in very short spaces of time with a great "whooshing" sound.
  • Neddie Seagoon is often referred to as very fat and very short - in The Greenslade Story, after Neddie exclaims to John Snagge, "Not so fast, Mr John Boat Race Snagge!", Snagge dryly remarks "Those words came from a small ball of fat that sprang from behind a piano stool". In Wings Over Dagenham, Grytpype refers to Neddie as "Little square pudding", and in World War I, Mr Lalkaka, playing the part of a tailor, has been given Neddie's vital statistics, so that he (Lalkaka) can make Neddie's demob suit. He is at a loss to work out how a person with these measurements can live. Then Neddie enters, and Lalkaka cries: "It's true!"
  • Neddie would either be very rich and important (such as the Prime Minister) with Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty trying to swindle him, or he would be very poor and become their patsy in an implausible money making scheme.
  • Wallace Greenslade, the announcer, was portrayed as an idol and heartthrob with his own fan-club, The Greensladers. At one point he addresses them with the message 'I should like to thank the fifty thousand members of the Wallace Greenslade Society, who clubbed together to send me last Years Birthday honours. How nice to have such Nice, sweet friends.' Grytpype immediately stage-whispers 'He's a bit of a crawler, Moriarty!'
  • The fact that Ray Ellington was black was commonly joked about. When Seagoon narrates in Under Two Floorboards, "At the mention of the police, we all turned white", Ellington responds, "Get me a mirror!" Also, in The Childe Harolde Rewarde, Neddie is looking for a blacksmith to help him withdraw the sword from the stone. He meets Ellington and asks, "Are you a blacksmith?" Ellington replies, "My name's Smith, and you've got eyes!" In Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest, Bluebottle tells him "If I had my arms free, I'd black your eyes." Ellington parries by asking, "What's the matter, son? Are you colour blind?" In The Greatest Mountain In The World, Eccles picks up a stick of dynamite, thinking it to be a cigar, and it explodes in his face. Henry Crun comes along, mistakes Eccles for Ellington, and when Eccles corrects him, Henry says, "Oh yes - yours rubs off, doesn't it?"
  • OBE's were often joked about as though they were very easy to obtain (and perhaps even undesirable). In The Jet Propelled-Guided Naafi, Seagoon is the Prime Minister, and as a stimulant has to swallow an OBE daily, applied by his butler Grytpype-Thynne ("friend and confidante, and author of 'Ten Years As A Russian Spy at No 10'"). Grytpype also tells Moriarty in the same episode that he will get "A Russian OBE for that!" .

[edit] Time wasting

A number of episodes seem to contain a great deal of time wasting, either due to the need to fill the full 30 minutes radio 'slot' that The Goon Show normally held or often for comic effect. Some examples are below.

  • in The Tuscan Salami Scandal, Henry claimed to have an idea, forgot it, remembered it, told Minnie, forgot it again, was told by Minnie and then declared, "What a good idea." Minnie then went on to ask what was a good idea. This whole scene actually went on for a good five minutes. When Henry shouts at her, Minnie screams, seems to fade into the distance, and reappears, explaining 'Once round the room does me good you know.'
  • In The Affair of the Lone Banana, before sending Neddie to South America, for a good five minutes, Henry Crun appeared to be taking down Neddie's details, asking him to spell everything, usually more than once, and even falling asleep before finally saying, "It's no good, I'll have to get a pencil and some paper and write all this down."
  • In The Whistling Spy Enigma, Eccles and Neddie ask each other about the health of their old dads for a considerable length of time.
  • In the same episode, Grytpype and Neddie sit down to think of a solution to Neddie's inability to whistle. Greenslade then explains that while they are thinking, the well-known tenor, Webster Smogpule, will fill in time. The tenor then introduces his number, signals for music, waits for three bars, begins to sing "I shine..." only to be interrupted by Grytpype's "I've got it, Seagoon, I've got it!"
  • In Tales of Old Dartmoor, in response to Grytpype's "strange request", Neddie walks down miles of corridors and unlocks doors as he goes searching for something for about a minute, before suddenly saying, "What was it you asked for?". Grytpype replies "Don't worry, I'll smoke my own."
  • In The Mummified Priest, Crun makes a rather lame joke, and bursts into hysterical laughter with Eccles, only for them both to begin 'ha' -ing to a tune, singing 'Ah ha ha ha ha ha ho,' etc. Greenslade then appears: "Listeners will note the cunning way in which the Goons fill in time on their programme!"
  • In The Great International Christmas Pudding, when the signature end tune is played, Greenslade stops it and introduces Webster Smogpule to sing the first verses of Live a little Songbird Divine so as to fill in the last few seconds.
  • In China Story, Neddie is instructed to go to the Tea House of the August Goon, knock 6000 times and ask for Ah Pong. He then finds out, after doing so, that it's next door. More time elapses as Neddie knocks 6000 times on the correct door. When the door is opened, Milligan, in a mock Chinese accent, says "Someblody knock??" Neddie, exhausted, gasps, "Tea House of August Goon?" When Milligan confirms this, Seagoon says, "Are you Ah Pong?" Milligan says, "Yes, we are ah pong (we are open) till 11 o'clock."
  • In The White Neddie Trade, Henry and Minnie tell each other they must not waste any time, and then break into a spontaneous song about not wasting time. Milligan ends the song by saying (almost off-microphone), "We must fill out the time like the producer asks!" (This case may differ from the others in that it was ad-libbed due to time reasons.)
  • In Six Charlies in Search of an Author, Neddie repeats the trick of running up an awful lot of stairs to get from one place to another. As the play was set inside a book, however, when he gets there Crun is waiting for him, having 'skipped a couple of pages'.
  • In The Great String Robbery, a scene begins with a phone ringing, and footsteps growing ever closer to it. A breathless Seagoon picks up the phone, answers "Hello, Ned Seagoon here ... Major Bloodnok? Hang on - I'll go and get him". The phone is set down, followed by footsteps running away, a silence, and more foosteps approaching. Bloodnok answers: "Hello, Major Dennis Bloodnok here." Seagoon, on the other end, replies: "Hurry up Major, we're all waiting in the street for you!" Bloodnok exclaims, "Cor Blimey" resignedly, and once more footsteps fade into the distance before the next scene.

[edit] Footnotes

    [edit] Bibliography

    • (Nov 1997) in Farnes, Norma (ed.): The Goons: The Story. London: Virgin Publishing. ISBN 1-85227-679-7.  — includes chapters from Milligan, Secombe & Sykes.
    • Wilmut, Roger; Jimmy Grafton (1976). The Goon Show Companion - A History and Goonography. London: Robson Books. ISBN 0-903895-64-1.  — remains the definitive book on the series
    v • d • e
    The Goon Show
    The Goons Michael Bentine • Spike Milligan • Harry Secombe • Peter Sellers
    Other Contributors Ray Ellington • Max Geldray • Wallace Greenslade • Dennis Main Wilson • Larry Stephens • Wally Stott • Eric Sykes • Andrew Timothy
    Radio and TV Series The Goon Show • The Telegoons
    Films Let's Go Crazy • Penny Points to Paradise • Down Among the Z Men • The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn • The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film
    Characters Cast members and their Characters • Major Bloodnok • Bluebottle • Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister • Eccles • Hercules Grytpype-Thynne • Count Jim Moriarty • Neddie Seagoon
    General information Episodes and archiving • Running Jokes
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