The Goon Show

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The Goon Show
Genre	Comedy
Running time	30 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Home station	BBC Home Service
Starring	Michael Bentine (1951-1953) Spike Milligan Harry Secombe Peter Sellers
Creators	Spike Milligan
Producers	Peter Eton (101) Dennis Main Wilson (38) Pat Dixon (29) Charles Chilton (25) John Browell (23) Roy Speer (14) Leslie Bridgmont (4) Tom Ronald (3) Jacques Brown (1)
Narrated by	Andrew Timothy Denys Drower Wallace Greenslade
Recording studio	Camden Theatre London
Air dates	to date
No. of episodes	238 plus 12 specials.

The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast between May and September 1951, was titled Crazy People; all subsequent series had the overall title The Goon Show.

The show's chief creator and main writer was Spike Milligan. The scripts mixed ludicrous plots with surreal humour, puns, catchphrases and an array of bizarre sound effects. Some of the later episodes feature electronic effects devised by the fledgling BBC Radiophonic Workshop,^[1] many of which were reused by other shows for decades afterward. Many elements of the show satirised contemporary life in Britain, parodying aspects of show business, commerce, industry, art, politics, diplomacy, the police, the military, education, class structure, literature and film.

NBC began broadcasting the programme on its radio network from the mid-1950s.^[2] The programme exercised a considerable influence on the subsequent development of British and American comedy and popular culture. It was cited as a major influence by the Monty Python team, The Beatles and the American comedy team The Firesign Theater.

Contents 1 Background 2 Format 2.1 Surreality 2.2 Music and sound effects 2.3 Communication with the radio audience 2.4 A weekly task for the Goons 2.5 Innocent humour 2.6 The Warm-up 3 Cast members and characters 4 Episodes and archiving 5 Running jokes 6 Trivia 6.1 The dreaded Lurgi 6.2 Brandyyy! 6.3 Watch out Moriarty! 6.4 Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb! 6.5 Parp! 6.6 Birthday 7 Films 8 Later revivals 8.1 Books 8.2 Films 8.3 Stage 8.4 Radio and television 8.5 Records 9 Impact on comedy and culture 9.1 Peter Cook 9.2 Monty Python 9.3 The Beatles 9.4 Firesign Theatre 9.5 The sincerest form of flattery 9.6 Other references 10 The end of the Goons 11 References 12 See also 13 Bibliography 14 External links

[edit] Background

The series was devised and written by Spike Milligan with the regular collaboration of other writers including (singly) Larry Stephens, Eric Sykes, Maurice Wiltshire and John Antrobus, under the watchful eye of Jimmy Grafton (KOGVOS - Keeper of the Goons and Voice of Sanity). However, on four occasions during the 8th series, Milligan was unable to come up with scripts, so Stephens wrote "The Stolen Postman", and Stephens and Wiltshire "The Thing On The Mountain", "The Moriarty Murder Mystery" and "The White Neddie Trade", in very convincing Milligan-esque style. In the 9th series, when a similar situation occurred, Stephens and Wiltshire also wrote "The Seagoon Memoirs" (Stephens had contributed a solo script during the 4th series).^[3] Many senior BBC staff were bemused by the show's surreal humour and it has been reported that senior programme executives erroneously referred to it as The Go On Show^[4] or even The Coon Show.^[5]

Milligan and Harry Secombe became friends while serving in the Royal Artillery during World War II; they met up with Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine back in England after the war and got together in Grafton's pub performing and experimenting with tape recorders.^[6] Famously, Milligan first encountered Secombe after Gunner Milligan's artillery unit accidentally allowed a large howitzer to roll off a cliff - under which Secombe was sitting in a small wireless truck: "Suddenly there was a terrible noise as some monstrous object fell from the sky quite close to us. There was considerable confusion, and in the middle of it all the flap of the truck was pushed open and a young, helmeted idiot asked 'Anybody see a gun?' It was Milligan..."^[7]

This show was enormously popular^[8] in Britain in its heyday; tickets for the recording sessions at the BBC's Aeolian Hall studio in London were constantly over-subscribed and the various character voices and catchphrases from the show quickly became part of the vernacular. The series has remained consistently popular ever since – it is still being broadcast once a week by the ABC in Australia, as well as on BBC 7; and it has exerted a singular influence over succeeding generations of comedians and writers, most notably the creators of Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Beatles' movies.

[edit] Format

The principal parts were performed by Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, with Sellers and Milligan performing as dozens of different characters. The first two seasons also featured Michael Bentine in the role of Professor Osric Pureheart and musical interludes from singing group The Stargazers, but both they and Bentine left during the second series. The show went on to feature musical intermissions from singer Ray Ellington and his quartet, and virtuoso jazz harmonica player Max Geldray. The BBC announcer Andrew Timothy, succeeded by Wallace Greenslade, provided spoken links as well as occasionally performing small roles in the scripts, usually as himself.

[edit] Surreality

"What time is it Eccles?" 3:22 sample - 973kb Problems listening to the file? See media help.

The Goon Show paved the way for surreal and alternative humour. Many of the sequences have been cited as being visionary in the way that they challenged the traditional conventions of comedy.^[9] Perhaps one of the most famous is from "The Mysterious Punch-Up-The-Conker", where Bluebottle (Sellers) asks Eccles (Milligan) what the time is. Eccles consults a piece of paper, on which is written "Eight o'clock" – the answer he received the last time he asked somebody what the time was. The implications of this method of telling the time are then explored at some length:

(Recording): various noises of clocks chiming, cuckoos, chickens, tubular bells, etc., finishing with a brief 'parp!' on an old-fashioned bulb motor horn.

Bluebottle: What time is it Eccles?

Eccles: Err, just a minute. I've got it written down here on a piece of paper. A nice man wrote the time down for me this morning.

Bluebottle: Eeuughh. Then why do you carry it around with you, Eccles?

Eccles: Well, if anybody asks me the time, I can show it to them.

Bluebottle: Wait a minute Eccles, my good man...

Eccles: What is it fellow?

Bluebottle: It's writted on this bit of paper, what is eight o'clock, is writted.

Eccles: I know that my good fellow. That's right. When I asked the fella to write it down, it was eight o'clock.

Bluebottle: Well then, supposing when somebody asks you the time, it isn't eight o'clock?

Eccles: Then I don't show it to them.

Bluebottle: Well how do you know when it's eight o'clock?

Eccles: I've got it written down on a piece of paper!

Bluebottle: Oh, I wish I could afford a piece of paper with the time written on.

Eccles: Oohhhh.

Bluebottle: 'Ere Eccles?

Eccles: Yah.

Bluebottle: Let me hold that piece of paper to my ear would you? - 'Ere. This piece of paper ain't goin'.

Eccles: What? I've been sold a forgery!

Bluebottle: No wonder it stopped at eight o'clock.

Eccles: Oh dear.

Bluebottle: You should get one of them tings my grandad's got.

Eccles: Oooohhh?

Bluebottle: His firm give it to him when he re-tired.

Eccles: Oooohhh??

Bluebottle: It's one of dem tings what it is that wakes you up at eight o'clock, boils the kettule, and pours a cuppa tea.

Eccles: Ohhh yeah! What's it called? Um......

Bluebottle: My gran-ma.

Eccles: Ohh... Ohh, ah wait a minute. How does she know when it's eight o'clock?

Bluebottle: She's got it written down on a piece of paper!

This idea appeared frequently in similar guises: pictures and audio recordings of money being accepted as legal tender, the word "dinner" written on a piece of paper and eaten served as a full meal, and so on.

[edit] Music and sound effects

Musical intermissions were provided by the Ray Ellington Quartet and Max Geldray. The Goon Show was also famed for its unique library of sound effects.^{[citation needed]} Originally for the first two series the only effect was of a rusty, sinister chain^{[citation needed]}; Milligan became so frustrated that he demanded sound effects from the BBC board of directors. Later, Eccles and Bluebottle would perform an out-of-tune, speeded-up, comedy version of "Unchained Melody", featuring the same chain at the beginning and end as a homage. Later on, "Unchained Melody" developed into a fully fledged piece with the entire cast of the Goons 'playing' musical instruments: Minnie on Saxophone, Eccles on Drums, Seagoon doing something (though not specifically anything), Grytpype and Moriarity on Brass, Crun trying to restrain Minnie - and finally the drums collapsing, almost deading Bluebottle

Another musical item was a multi-tracked choir of Eccleses singing "Good King Wenceslas" ("The String Robberies")

The show's scripts often provided the BBC's sound effects department with such challenges as generating the audible equivalent of a piece of string; the sound of a wall/piano/Christmas pudding being driven at high speed; the noise made by an idiot attempting to open a door in the wrong direction; and various explosions, splashes, splatters, clatters, and bangs. Apparently, the BBC sound library, whose previous work had involved producing nothing more stimulating than "footsteps on a gravel path" or "a knock on the door", greatly appreciated the variety of challenges posed by the show's often surreal requirements.^[10] A classic example of this was the attempt by Spike Milligan to create a sound like "a sock full of custard splattering against a wall." A story recounted in Harry Secombe's biography relates that a bemused canteen cook made up a pot of custard at Milligan's request (thinking that Milligan was suffering from an upset stomach), only to see him pour it into his socks; and run off whimpering into the kitchen. Milligan then went to an already prepared tape recorder and slapped both socks against a table, but was still unable to get the correct effect. He was then heard to cry "Shit!" and storm off, because, as Secombe recounts, "if truth be known, that was really what he wanted the sock to contain."^[11]

Many of the sound effects created for later programs featured innovative production techniques borrowed from the realm of musique concrète, and using the then new technology of magnetic tape. Many of these sequences involved the use of complex multiple edits, echo and reverberation and the deliberate slowing down, speeding up or reversing of tapes. One of the most famous was the sound effect created by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to represent the sound of Major Bloodnok's digestive system in action, which included a variety of inexplicable gurgling and explosive noises. This effect kept turning up on later comedy shows, and can even be heard on a track by The Orb.^{[citation needed]}

Another pair of sound effects were featured in "The Nasty Affair at the Burami Oasis", in which the Arabs are attacking the British army garrison to tire them out, in order for the Arab football team to have the advantage over the British in an upcoming football match. The battleship from which Seagoon is directing operations has run aground, because the oasis has been drained. Grytpype-Thynne warns Seagoon that if he takes one step closer, his men (the Arabs) will drink the contents of the oasis. Neddie then receives a phone call from Bloodnok, reporting the loss of 20,000 gallons of gin, which Bloodnok placed in the oasis "on account of the shortage". Neddie, realising the probable effects, calls Grytpype's bluff, whereupon the sound of corks being pulled from bottles is heard, followed by the sound of 2,000 men drinking what would appear to be 10 gallons of gin each. Greenslade goes on to recount that, when the football match was played, the Arabs, despite their intoxicated state, defeated the British garrison team by 68 goals to 12, and comments: "Which just goes to prove, that gin is a dashed good drink!".

[edit] Communication with the radio audience

The show relied heavily on breaking the fourth wall. Examples include:

• In the episode "The Mountain Eaters", after Milligan's anguished portrayal of Moriarity in need of money, Grytpype-Thynne tells Ned Seagoon that the money must be found soon as Moriarty's "over-acting is becoming increasingly apparent to us all".
• Milligan would sometimes bait his audience by having a character ask them a question and having the sound of sheep bleating played back as their response. This trick was also used in a parody of The Archers that began "The Spanish Suitcase".
• And from "The £1,000,000 Penny", Grytpype and Moriarty knock on Henry Crun's door. When Henry answers, he asks: "Who's knocking?'

Moriarty: It was my friend Mr Grytpype Thynne.

Crun: I can't see him.

Moriarty: That's because you are playing him, he's never around when you're here.

Crun: I don't understand ....

Moriarty: Neither do the audience, that's why it isn't getting a laugh!

Crun: Very quiet tonight, isn't it?

Moriarty: It is, it is.

• In "World War I", Bluebottle is on sentry duty in a lonely wood, and isn't happy about it. Then he says: "Suddenly sees studio audience - hello everybody!" (rapturous applause) and goes into a rock 'n roll routine, ignoring the plot.

[edit] A weekly task for the Goons

The strain of writing and performing took a heavy toll on Milligan, who was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He suffered a nervous breakdown during the run of the show, requiring hospitalisation,^[12] and the intense pressure also contributed to the failure of his marriage. Milligan was absent from the show for twelve episodes in the third series after an attempt to murder Peter Sellers with a potato peeler. The story was that he left his house and made for the Sellers household, but Milligan's wife managed to telephone Sellers before Milligan arrived at the door.^[13]

Sellers could be similarly eccentric. Once, around midnight, he turned up on Milligan's doorstep totally naked. "Can you recommend a good tailor?" he asked.^{[citation needed]} On another occasion Sellers had bought a Jaguar and asked Graham Stark for his help in locating an annoying squeak coming from the rear of the vehicle. Graham got into the boot and Sellers drove the car four miles down the road before being stopped for speeding by a policeman - who said "Hello, hello, hello, who have we got here then?" upon investigating noises coming from the boot.^[14] Milligan recounted a similar version on a chat show years later, which involved him and not Stark in the boot of the car, and ended with the policeman opening it, taking one look at Milligan, and saying, "I should have known it would be you," and closing the boot again.^[15] Yet another version was recounted by Eric Sykes. Sykes claimed that Sellers stopped off at a public house for something to eat. The Barman apparently heard knocking coming from inside the boot, but Sellers simply stated he was taking his son to school, finished his lunch and promptly drove away. This incident was recounted in the section on Sellers in Sykes' book, Eric Sykes' Comedy Heroes.

[edit] Innocent humour

The Goon Show was cited^[16] as entertaining without resorting to sexual innuendo. However, this is because many listeners didn't understand the sexual jokes in the show.

Due to his dislike of rules imposed by the establishment,^[17] Milligan spent a lot of time working allusions to rude and/or sexual barrack room jokes into his scripts. These were instantly recognised by his peers and went completely over the heads of the BBC and other innocent listeners. For instance the "Good Ship Venus" was mentioned either directly by name or allusion (eg HMS Venus) in at least four shows ("Stolen Postman", "Call of the West", "Giant Bombardon", "Treasure in the Tower"). Often innocent but quirky things are no such thing at all. For example, in "The Spy, or Who is Pink Oboe?", Seagoon has to remember a list of secret agents: "Black Rabbit, the Blue Pelican and the Yellow Alligator, Octoroon Monkey, the Pink Oboe, and the Purple Mosquito, Vermilion Sock, the Vermilion Ponk, the Chocolate Speedway and the White Bint" - the Pink, Chocolate and White bits allude to a male organ, and two possible destinations.^[18] In one episode, the Goons had Wallace Greenslade issue good wishes to their friend Hugh Jampton (i.e., "huge Hampton") at the beginning of the show. Those who do not know the term "Hampton" as a rhyming slang term for the penis – from "Hampton Wick", i.e., "prick" – may find this incomprehensible, as the BBC managers presumably did. Similarly in one show Sellers "accidentally" spoonerises the Thames River town Tilbury Docks to Toolbury Dicks.

Another example is in The Affair of the Lone Banana: cowardly Bluebottle seeks to escape hazardous duty by claiming, "It's my turn in the barrel," a reference to a classic obscene joke.

From time to time the two Hindu characters Lalkaka (Sellers) and Banerjee (Milligan, although occasionally vice versa) would appear, and converse in broken English salted with bits of Hindi, including sexual references^{[citation needed]} which the producers did not catch. However, when interviewed later by Michael Parkinson, Sellers told how old ladies who had been to India would send in letters complaining about these conversations, the implication being that they were therefore not "nice old ladies" given their knowledge of the obscenities involved.

[edit] The Warm-up

Most broadcast shows provide some entertainment for the audience before the show proper begins, and this was no exception. One famous feature was "Braces-Ho!!", where Harry Secombe would sing in his fine tenor, pretending not to notice that one or both of his fellow Goons were surreptitiously removing the braces (suspenders to Americans) from his trousers by unbuttoning them from the waistband. At the climax of the song the braces would be removed with a flourish and held high, whereupon the holder's own trousers would fall down instead of Secombe's. The nature of the underwear thus revealed has not been recorded.

The only "warm-up" actually recorded for broadcast occurred during "The Last Goon Show Of All". Spike Milligan sang a parody of "I Left My Heart In San Francisco", featuring lyrics such as "I left my teeth on Table Mountain/High on a hill they smile at me". Harry Secombe sang "Falling in love with love", while former professional percussionist Peter Sellers thundered an accompaniment on concert tympani, with added loud thuds and train sounds.

[edit] Cast members and characters

Main article: The Goon Show cast members and characters

• Harry Secombe's Characters

Major: Neddie Seagoon

Minor: Uncle Oscar • Unteroffizier Krupp • Private Bogg • Nugent Dirt • Izzy • Welshmen • Yorkshiremen

• Spike Milligan's Characters

Major: Eccles • Minnie Bannister • Count Jim Moriarty

Minor: Throat • Little Jim • Spriggs • Yakamoto • Cor blimey • Thingz • Hugh Jampton • Fu Manchu

• Peter Sellers' Characters

Major: Major Bloodnok • Hercules Grytpype-Thynne • Bluebottle • Henry Crun

Minor: Cynthia • William "Mate" Cobblers • Mr Lalkaka • Eidelberger • Flowerdew • Cyril • Fred Nurke • Gladys • Lew/Ernie Cash • Churchill • Hearn • And more...

• Michael Bentine's Characters

Prof. Osric Pureheart and more

• Other cast members
• Guest cast members

[edit] Episodes and archiving

See: Goon Show episodes and archiving

[edit] Running jokes

See: The Goon Show running jokes.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

[edit] The dreaded Lurgi

Several of the words and phrases invented for the show soon entered common usage, the most famous being the word lurgi. In the episode "Lurgi Strikes Britain", Spike Milligan introduced the fictional malady of Lurgi, (sometimes spelled "lurgy") which has survived into modern usage to mean any miscellaneous or non-specific illness. Milligan was later to make up his own definition in Treasure Island According to Spike Milligan, where Jim Hawkin's mother describes it as 'like brown spots of Shit on the Liver'.

[edit] Brandyyy!

Alcohol was strictly forbidden during rehearsals and recording, so the cast fortified themselves with milk. The milk in turn was fortified with brandy. In later episodes the catchphrase "'round the back for the old brandy!" or "the old Marlon Brando" was used to announce the exit of one or more characters, or a break for music; Ray Ellington, on one occasion, before his musical item began, mused, "I wonder where he keeps that stuff!" In another, he sympathised with the listeners, "Man, the excuses he makes to get to that brandy!", causing Spike Milligan to wail "MATE!" in protest.^[19]

[edit] Watch out Moriarty!

Peter Sellers, as Grytpype-Thynne, usually pronounced the name of his henchman "Morry-arty" (IPA: [ˌmɒɹiːˈɑːtɪ]). However, if he (Sellers) was not in a good mood, or Milligan (as Moriarty) was overdoing his part, Grytpype-Thynne would start pronouncing the name as "Mor-EYE-atty" ([mɒˈɹaɪətɪ]). This gave Milligan a cue to simmer down.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb!

During radio programmes of the 1920s and 1930s, the background noise for crowd scenes was often achieved by a moderately large group of people mumbling "rhubarb" under their breath with random inflections. This was often parodied by Milligan, who would try to get the same effect with only three or four people. After some time, Secombe began throwing in "custard" during these scenes (For example in "The Fear of Wages" and "Wings Over Dagenham"). About 10 years after The Goon Show ceased production, Secombe, Eric Sykes and a host of other well-known comic actors made the short film Rhubarb in which the entire script consisted of what Milligan called "rhubarbs".

[edit] Parp!

As well as a comic device randomly asserted in different sketches to avoid silence, the blowing of raspberries entered the Goons as Harry Secombe's signal to the other actors that he was going to crack up; you would hear a joke from him, a raspberry, and a stream of mad laughter. In the Goons' musical recording "The Ying-Tong Song" Milligan performed a solo for raspberry-blower, as one might for tuba or baritone saxophone. Milligan eventually had the Radiophonic Workshop concoct "Mule Raspberries", a sound effect beginning with a mule-like braying and ending in very vulgar raspberries. This recording was often used as a reaction to a bad joke. Examples include the "The Last Goon Show of All" where Neddie shouts old jokes into a fuel tank in order to "start the show".

Years later, Milligan collaborated with Ronnie Barker on The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town, in which the credits read: "Raspberries professionally blown by Spike Milligan."

[edit] Birthday

Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe shared the same birthday, 8 September.

[edit] Films

The following films were a product of Goon activity:

• Let's Go Crazy (Film) (1951)
• Penny Points to Paradise (1951)
• Down Among the Z Men (1952) (with Bentine)
• The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn (1956)

A two-reeler starring Milligan, Sellers and Dick Emery

• The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959)

A surreal one-reeler short subject starring Milligan and Sellers and directed by Dick Lester

[edit] Later revivals

[edit] Books

Spike teamed up with illustrator Pete Clark to produce two books of comic strip Goons. The stories were slightly modified versions of classic Goon shows.

• The Goon Cartoons (1982)

The Last Goon Show of All, The Affair of the Lone Banana, The Scarlet Capsule, The Pevensey Bay Disaster^[20]

• More Goon Cartoons (1983)

The Case of the Vanishing Room, The Case of the Missing C.D. Plates, The Saga of the Internal Mountain, Rommel's Treasure^[21]

[edit] Films

• The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)

A recreation of a Goon Show broadcast before a studio audience is seen early in the HBO Original Movie, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), with Geoffrey Rush as Sellers, Edward Tudor-Pole as Spike Milligan and Steve Pemberton as Harry Secombe. A very brief moment from that recreation is seen in the trailer for that film.

[edit] Stage

• Ying Tong: A walk with the goons

Ying Tong is a play written by Roy Smiles which is set partly in a radio studio, partly in a mental asylum and partly in Spike Milligan's mind. It recreates the Goons recording the show, but part way through Spike has a mental breakdown and is committed to an asylum. While it features all of the Goons throughout, the focus is on Milligan and his breakdown.

[edit] Radio and television

• The Idiot Weekly (1958–1962)

The Idiot Weekly (1958–1962) was an Australian radio comedy series written by and starring Spike Milligan. Milligan adapted some Goon Show scripts and included his Goon Show characters (notably Eccles) in many episodes. Six episodes of The Idiot Weekly were remade by the BBC as The Omar Khayyam Show in 1963.

• The Telegoons (1963–1964)

The Telegoons (1963–1964) was a 15-minute BBC puppet show featuring the voices of Milligan, Secombe and Sellers and adapted from the radio scripts. 26 episodes were made. The series was briefly repeated immediately after its original run and all episodes are known to survive (having been unofficially released on the Internet).

• The Last Goon Show of All (1972)

In 1972, the Goons reunited to perform The Last Goon Show of All for radio and television, before an invited audience that didn't, however, include long-time fan HRH The Prince of Wales (who was out of the country on duty with the Royal Navy at the time). The show was broadcast on BBC television and radio, and eventually released in stereo, first as an LP on vinyl, and later on a CD.

• Goon Again (2001)

In 2001, the BBC recorded a "new" Goon Show, Goon Again, featuring Andy Secombe (son of Harry), Jon Glover and Jeffrey Holland, with Christopher Timothy (son of Andrew Timothy) announcing and Lance Ellington (son of Ray Ellington) singing, based on two unpreserved series 3 episodes from 1953, "The Story of Civilisation" and "The Plymouth Ho Armada", both written by Milligan and Stephens.

[edit] Records

They made a number of records including "I'm Walking Backwards for Christmas" (originally sung by Milligan in the show to fill in during a musicians' strike), "Bloodnok's Rock and Roll Call" and its B-side "The Ying Tong Song". "The Ying Tong Song" was reissued as an A-side in the mid-1970s and became a surprise novelty hit. The last time all three Goons worked together was in 1978 when they recorded two new songs, "The Raspberry Song" and "Rhymes".

• Bridge on the River Wye (1962)

A 1962 comedy LP with Milligan and Sellers as well as Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller. A spoof of the film 'Bridge on the River Kwai', it was originally recorded under the same name. However, the film company threatened legal action if the name was used. Thus some clever editing of the recording by future Beatles Producer George Martin removed the 'K' everytime the word 'Kwai' was uttered, creating 'Bridge on the River Wye'. The LP is based on The Goon Show's "African Incident" (1957), which featured Sellers' vocal impersonation of Alec Guinness.

• How to Win an Election (1964)

In 1964, Milligan, Secombe and Sellers lent their voices to a comedy LP, How to Win an Election (or Not Lose by Much), which was written by Leslie Bricusse. It was not exactly a Goons reunion because Sellers was in Hollywood and had to record his lines separately. The album was reissued on CD in 1997.

[edit] Impact on comedy and culture

[edit] Peter Cook

Whilst at boarding school, Peter Cook used to feign illness on Friday evenings, just so he could listen to the Goons on the radio in the sick bay.^[22] A happy moment from his childhood concerns when he sent a script to the BBC and they sent it back, saying it was a great Goon script but not original. Despite this knock-back, this script somehow landed on the desk of Spike Milligan and brought about a meeting between Peter Cook and his heroes.^{[citation needed]} He, and others from Beyond the Fringe, were later to work with Milligan and Sellers on Bridge On The River Wye. Both Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers appeared on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's TV show, Not Only... But Also.

[edit] Monty Python

The future members of Monty Python were fans, and they have on many occasions expressed their collective debt to Milligan and The Goons,^[23] but ironically their famous TV series over-shadowed Milligan's later anarchic TV efforts (such as the Q series) – even though the Python team have credited Milligan and especially Q as being the source of two key Python features – sketches didn't have to be "about" real subjects and they didn't have to follow conventional structures, particularly in respect to ending sketches without the traditional punchline.

In a memorial show for Milligan, Terry Jones recalled that he and the Monty Python team, while trying to think up a new sketch, were confronted by an old man at the door trying to sell them a wheelbarrowful of manure. They took this as a sign from above and made a sketch in which a similar thing happened to an upper class dinner party. Jones was horrified to discover, years later, that Spike Milligan had created an almost identical sketch years before, and had in all probability gone to his grave believing that it had been stolen. Jones then apologised to Spike in heaven from the stage.^{[citation needed]}

Although Python now seems to be the more quoted, it is fair to say that virtually all British alternative comedy in its modern form is based on the model created for The Goon Show by Milligan.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The Beatles

The Goons made a considerable impact on the humour of The Beatles, and especially on John Lennon. On September 30, 1973, Lennon reviewed the book The Goon Show Scripts for The New York Times. He wrote: "I was 12 when The Goon Show first hit me, 16 when they finished with me. Their humour was the only proof that the world was insane. One of my earlier efforts at writing was a 'newspaper' called The Daily Howl. I would write it at night, then take it into school and read it aloud to my friends. Looking at it now, it seems strangely similar to The Goon Show." Lennon also noted that George Martin had made records with both Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers.

The now multi-bootlegged recordings of the Beatles to their fans on the famous Christmas Message records, are masterpieces of surreal Beatle comedy that draws heavily on the Goons and their comedy. http://www.norwegianwood.org/beatles/disko/html/xmas2.html

[edit] Firesign Theatre

The Goons' influence was spread well beyond the UK; the members of the American comedy troupe The Firesign Theatre recall listening to The Goon Show at different times in their lives. Philip Proctor claims that was enthused by the group's surrealist style of comedy that they adopted that style into their performances. Peter Bergman also met and got to know Spike Milligan while Bergman was a television writer in England during the mid-1960s.^[24]

[edit] The sincerest form of flattery

Although the names, catchphrases and slang of The Goon Show came to permeate British culture, the same could not be said of the USA, so when an issue of a Marvel comic book, The Defenders issue 148^[25], used the character names Minerva Bannister, Harry Crun (i.e. Henry), and Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, it went completely unnoticed by American readers. The reactions of British readers, if any, were not recorded. The characters were as follows:

• Minerva Bannister - Villainous heiress.
• Harry Crun - Private Detective, employed by Ms. Bannister, and in love with her.
• Hercules Grytpype-Thynne - Cop on their trail.

[edit] Other references

In the movie Shrek, Shrek refers to a constellation as Bloodnok, the Flatulent.

The rock band Ned's Atomic Dustbin took their name from a Goon Show episode.

The character of Catherwood in The Firesign Theatre production of Nick Danger, Third Eye is vocally nearly identical to Major Bloodnok. This voice was also used in other Firesign productions. The character Tweety in David Ossman's solo work "How Time Flys" uses a voice very much like Eccles. In the book, The Firesign Theater's Big Mystery Joke Book, David Ossman references Spike Milligan as one of the comedians all four members admired the most, and Peter Bergman in fact worked briefly with Spike Milligan in London in 1966. The Firesign Theatre's most common format, an audio play lasting roughly thirty minutes with a clear if bizarre plot on which are hung surreal or buffoonish jokes, is, in terms of format, closer to the Goon Show than the work of either Beyond the Fringe or Monty Python.

Goon Show fan and one time The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film collaborator, Richard Lester named Clark Kent's former schoolmistress "Minnie Bannister" in 1983's Superman III.

[edit] The end of the Goons

Peter Sellers was the first Goon to be "deaded", as his character Bluebottle would put it, at the young age of 54 in 1980. Michael Bentine died in 1996. Harry Secombe followed five years later, much to Milligan's relief, as he didn't want Secombe to sing at his funeral (though he did anyway, through a recording).

Milligan himself passed on in 2002. Two years afterwards, he (posthumously) won the right to have the words "I told you I was ill" written on his gravestone, though the church would only agree if the words were written in Irish, as Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite.^[26]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Monty Python
• The Milligan Papers - A BBC Radio comedy from 1987, often called "A Goon Show For The 80s."
• Goon Show Preservation Society

[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. Sellers & Bentine were excused due to being deaded.
• 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

[edit] External links

• The Goon Show on BBC7 – Plays shows online once a week (see their Monday schedule)
• Goon Show Preservation Society – UK
• Goon Show Preservation Society – USA
• Goon Show Depository – Fan site with Goon Show discussion forum
• The Goon Show Archive
• The Goon Show YAQ: Google Usenet archive
• The alt.fan.goons newsgroup exists to discuss the Goon show and Goon-related things
• The Goon Show on the BBC website

v • d • e The Goons Spike Milligan · Harry Secombe · Peter Sellers Michael Bentine Other contributors George Chisholm · Kenneth Connor · Valentine Dyall · Ray Ellington · Dick Emery · Max Geldray · Wallace Greenslade · Dennis Main Wilson · Charlotte Mitchell · 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 Major Bloodnok · Bluebottle · Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister · Eccles · Hercules Grytpype-Thynne · Count Jim Moriarty · Neddie Seagoon Other topics Goon Show episodes and archives · Goon Show running jokes