Jump to content

The Goon Show

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Drat (talk | contribs) at 15:42, 30 December 2005 (→The sincerest form of flattery). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Goon Show was a hugely popular and extremely influential British radio comedy programme, which was originally produced and broadcast by the BBC from 1951 to 1960 on the BBC Home Service.

(For other uses of the word Goon or Goons see Goon)

Background

The show was enormously popular 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 – and it has exerted a singular influence over succeeding generations of comedians and writers, most notably the creators of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The scripts mixed ludicrous plots with surreality, puns, catchphrases and an array of silly and surreal sound effects. Some of the later episodes feature electronic effects devised by the fledgling BBC Radiophonic Workshop, many of which were reused by other shows for decades afterward.

Many elements of the show satirised contemporary life in Britain, parodying aspects of showbusiness, commerce, industry, art, politics, diplomacy, the police, the military, education, class structure, literature, film and much more.

Inception

The series was devised and written by Spike Milligan with the occasional collaboration of other writers including (singly) Eric Sykes, Larry Stephens, Maurice Wiltshire and John Antrobus, under the watchful eye of Jimmy Grafton (KOGVOS-Keeper Of The Goons and Voice Of Sanity). Many senior BBC staff were bemused by the show's surreal, left-field humour and it has been reported that senior programme executives erroneously referred to it as "The Go On Show" or even "The Coon Show".

Format

The principal parts were performed by Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe (who, incidentally shared the same birthday, 8 September), with Sellers and Milligan performing literally dozens of different characters. The first two seasons also featured Michael Bentine. The Show also featured musical interludes by singer Ray Ellington and Harmonica Player Max Geldray. A singing group called The Stargazers also performed, but left the show in the middle of the second series. The BBC announcer Wallace Greenslade provided spoken links as well as occasionally performing small roles in the scripts, usually as himself.

One Goon Show sequence, from "The Mysterious Punch-Up-The-Conker", begins with Bluebottle (Sellers) asking 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.

Another episode, "Lurgi Strikes Britain", introduced the fictional malady of lurgi (a word which has survived into modern usage to mean any miscellaneous illness). In the episode, Grytpype Thynne and Moriarty (who, in the episode, sell brass band instruments) invent the disease, tell Ned Seagoon that the only known cure is to play a brass band instrument, and convince him to make a plea to the House of Commons for millions of pounds to be spent on life-saving brass-band instruments, to be dropped over the affected areas...

A classic example of Milligan's surreal approach to radio was his request for a special audio effect, which he said, he wanted sound like "a sock full of custard splattering against a wall". An unconfirmed story relates that a bemused canteen cook made up a pot of custard at his request, only to see him pour it into one of his socks, slap it against the wall and exclaim "No, that doesn't sound right" before rushing off again. Many of the memorable sound effects created for later programs featured innovative production techniques borrowed from the realm of musique concrète, and used 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 side-splitting sound effects was the famous sequence created by the Radiophonic Workshop to represent the sound of Major Bloodnok's digestive system in action, and which included a variety of inexplicable gurgling and explosive noises. This also kept turning up on later comedy shows, and can even be heard on a track by The Orb.

The 'sound pictures' created by the Goons were equally groundbreaking, and in one legendary episode, 'The Choking Horror', they conjured up the image of the tops of all the major buildings and landmarks in London being covered by a thick growth of hair.

The scripts did not so much break the fourth wall as demolish it. In one episode, 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 "overacting is becoming increasingly apparent to us all." In a later episode, Moriarty comments on the state of the story itself: "At last! [We've found] a plot!" Finally, Moriarty's character is introduced in an episode as he is recounting an actual conversation he had in the previous episode. Milligan even baited his audience by having a character ask them a question and having the sound of sheep bleating played back as their response. In another episode, Sellers was playing Bloodnock and changed his voice to do one line of another character. Once back as Bloodnock, the character demanded, "Sellers! How dare you change your voice from mine to his for one joke only!"

The strain of writing and performing such a hugely popular series took a heavy toll on Milligan, who was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He suffered a serious nervous breakdown during the run of the show, requiring hospitalisation, and the intense pressure also led 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 knife! 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.

Regular cast members

File:Untitled4.jpg
The Goons: Milligan, Secombe, Bentine, and Sellers

Harry Secombe

Harry Secombe played these characters

  • Neddie (Hairy) Seagoon, affable but gullible idiot, around whom the plot usually revolves. The patriotic Neddie is always willing to lay down his life for the Crown, and this often gets him into difficult situations. Neddie is often unemployed, and some episodes begin with him accepting a new job. Some jokes are made about his enormous girth, especially when contrasted to his lack of height. Variations of Neddie were sometimes used depending on the setting of the episode, including Caractacus Seagoon and Neddy Toulouse-Lautrec
  • Uncle Oscar, uncle of Henry and Min. A very old pensioner who usually speaks but soon collapses.
  • Unteroffizier Krupp, a German side-kick to Seller's Eidelberger. Also occasionally a spy, and a chemical idiot involved with the tails of men's shirts.
  • Private Bogg, one of Major Bloodnoks soldiers who is usually picked upon to do all the dangerous/scary jobs that Bloodnok himself is too afraid to do.
  • "Izzy", based on the comic "Izzy Bonn".

Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan played these characters

  • (The Famous) "Mad Dan" Eccles, idiot supreme. Eccles is a man with no more wits than a small child. Occasionally he will be performing some absurd task, and when questioned why, it will come out that he misinterpreted instructions. Eccles is often paired with Bluebottle as a friend, and sometimes is an underling or lackey for Neddie. When people around him tell him to shut up, he often joins in, and has been known to go on telling himself to shut up long after everyone else has given up. Another catchphrase is his distinctive rising-and-falling "Ooooooooh..." when comprehension dawns on him. Milligan based Eccles on one of his childhood cartoon favourites, the Disney character Goofy.
  • Miss Minnie Bannister, elderly spinster with a quavering voice, an interesting past, and an addiction to "sinful modern-type dancing". Minnie is as flirtatious as a girl a third her age. She is also a one-time lover of Major Dennis Bloodnok. Milligan's contribution to vocal technique here was to speak in a high voice while jiggling the flap of skin over his Adam's apple.
  • Count Jim Moriarty, impecunious French idiot and Grytpype-Thynne's sidekick. He utters meaningless foreign-sounding expletives like "Sapristi yakamakaka!" Over the course of the series Moriarty changes from being a competent international criminal to a cringing whelp forever being picked on by Grytpype-Thynne; this deterioration is reflected in his voice, which over the course of five years goes from a deep, sinister purr to a high-pitched croak. Surprisingly, this character arc seems to have been completely unplanned but developed naturally from the characters' increasingly impoverished status.
  • Throat or Miss Throat, with the very gravelly voice. Milligan invented this voice by belching, apparently in the middle of rehearsal, much to the producer's annoyance.
  • Little Jim, whose single line "He's fallen in the wa-ater" became a national catchphrase.
  • Jim/Adolphus Spriggs, who makes frequent appearances on the show. He often repeats his lines in a high-pitched falsetto and calls everybody "Jim".
  • Cor blimey - unnamed character who pops up to say "Cor blimey I'm off!" whenever something dangerous is about to happen. Voice very similar to Throat.

Peter Sellers

Peter Sellers played these characters

  • Major Dennis Bloodnok, military cad, lecher and idiot. Seagoon's former officer and in love with Minnie Bannister, to Henry Crun's disgust. In contrast to most military officers in fiction, Bloodnok is a flatulent, world-class coward who'll betray his country for £5. See also the movie Shrek, wherein Shrek refers to a constellation as "Bloodnok, the Flatulent."
  • Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, a suave, well-educated impecunious homosexual cad. He often collaborates with Count Moriarty to swindle Neddie. His homosexuality was never mentioned openly in the show, but "came out" in a biographical note in the book The Goon Show Scripts (1972). Sellers' characterisation was based on renowned British actor George Sanders.
  • Henry Crun, aged idiot inventor and beau of Minnie Bannister. His famous catchphrase, "You can't get the wood, you know", was a satirical reference to British postwar austerity.
  • Bluebottle, young lecherous Boy Scout and idiot from Finchley. He is usually a playmate or companion of Eccles and can usually be convinced to carry out any task, however dangerous, in return for a bag of sweets. Bluebottle is always willing to help anyone, but normally is as bad at interpreting instructions as Eccles is and frequently ends up being "deaded" (killed), usually by a huge explosion. The voice and character were inspired by an actual person, one Ruxton Hayward, a scout-master in full uniform with bushy beard, who tried to hire Peter Sellers to appear in a stage show.
  • Cynthia, ROE (Rose of England), a breathy femme fatale from Earl's Court. Neddie's occasional love interest, with a jealous lover called Raoul (played by Ray Ellington with a George Sanders patina). Jilted for an elephant.
  • Willium "Mate" Cobblers, working-class cockney idiot. His catchphrase, "You can't park 'ere, mate", was a Goon in-joke that took a swipe at officious BBC commissionaires. (Sellers used a similar voice for trade union leader Fred Kite in the movie I'm All Right Jack). Based on a hardware store owner known to the Goons. Asked "What kind of wood is this ?" he would respond "That's solid wood, that is, mate".
  • Havaldar Sinjiz Thingiz, an Indian idiot. The various Indian characters derived from Milligan's childhood in India, where his father had served in the British Army.
  • also either Mr Lalchaka or Mr. Bannerjee, the other played by Milligan. Conversations between Indian characters occasionally used Hindi obscenities that both Milligan and Sellers had picked up. These were usually the subject of complaints by, surprisingly, elderly ladies.
  • Eidelberger, a German Threat. Sometime Dr. Frankenstein, who invented Eccles, aided and abetted by Yakamoto. Camp Commandant of Stalag 10, 12, and 13, and nominal Kapitan. Full name Justin Eidelberger, as in "Just an idle bugger", another way the Goons would slip words that were then banned from radio into the script..
  • Flowerdew or Cyril, a seemingly effeminate person who made infrequent appearances in the middle of the show's run. Jewish, with an aversion to non-Kosher water. Flowerdew is also an impresario, who cajoles actors in the wings with two broken legs to break another one. Based on a friend of the Goons.
  • Captain Hugh Jampton, an army officer but primarily getting "one over" on the BBC censors. with "Huge Hampton" - see Cockney Rhyming Slang "Hampton Wick."
  • Fred Nurke, a Cockney.
  • Lew/Ernie Cash. Another Jewish character, a deep nasal stereotypical voice ; usually a fast-talking theatrical agent. Occasionally appeared as a judge or magistrate.
  • Sir Winston Churchill, who makes regular appearances as the PM. Looks for bits of paper in odd locations, approves crazy projects like Atomic Dustbins for the Christmas Islands and is suspected of throwing Batter Puddings at Clement Attlee.
  • Hearn, Hern or Herne, also Herne Sales. An American character used for narration, outrageous announcements, parody sales pitches. The Goons referred to Americans as "herns", possibly because saying "hern hern hern...." sounded American to them. See also Lafcadio Hearn.

Michael Bentine

Michael Bentine was part of the regular cast for the first two seasons, often playing Prof. Osric Pureheart. As a tribute of sorts, unheard characters called Bentine are sometimes referred to in later episodes.

Other members

  • Andrew Timothy – the show's original announcer, who left the show after the first few episodes of season 4, claiming that he feared for his sanity. He did however return in 1972 for The Last Goon Show of All.
  • Wallace Greenslade – announcer, he opened and closed each show (often parodying the traditional BBC announcing style), and occasionally played himself in an episode, as well as other small parts.
  • Ray Ellington (not related to the Duke) and his Quartet – singer and drummer. The popular Ellington Quartet acted as rhythm section for the show's orchestra. Ellington, whose father was African-American, also occasionally played small roles, mostly as black characters such as Sheik Rattle'n'roll and various Scottish characters. (Although his thick African American accent was nothing like Scots, several jokes were made about him being in the Black Watch.
  • Max Geldray – jazz harmonica player (but no actor).
  • Wally Stott and his Orchestra - the house band. Stott was a well-known British band leader and arranger whose other credits included numerous recordings for film and singing star Diana Dors. He also composed the music for Hancock's Half Hour.
  • George Chisholm – one of the show's regular musicians, sometimes called upon to play Scottish characters.

It is a measure of Peter Sellers' vocal talents that he was able to speak all Milligan's characters so accurately that Spike's absences from the show were undetected until the final credits were read. When he himself was absent, as in "Who is Pink Oboe?", a round half-dozen other actors and comedians had to be recruited to fill in for him.

Guest appearances

  • John Snagge – doyen of BBC newsreaders who, like Greenslade, also played himself (usually in pre-recorded inserts), and was a great supporter of the show.
  • Valentine Dyall – radio's "Man in Black", often called upon to play sinister characters.
  • Charlotte Mitchell – stepped into the breach on the rare occasions when the script called for an authentic female.
  • Jack Train – made two appearances reprising his role as Colonel Chinstrap from ITMA, who fits into the Goon framework surprisingly well.
  • Dick Emery – stood in for Secombe as "Emery-type Seagoon" in "Spon", and replaced Milligan in a few others, alternating with Graham Stark. Emery also appeared in the closest thing to a Goon Show film, The Case of the Mukkinese Battlehorn (which also featured Sellers and Milligan but not Secombe) and went on to provide voices for the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, and was popular in his own television sketch show in the 1970s.
  • Kenneth Connor – stood in for Secombe as Neddie Seagoon in "The £50 Cure" as well as appearing as Willium Mate in "Who is Pink Oboe?" in place of Peter Sellers, who was ill.
  • A. E. Matthews – appears as himself in "The Evils of Bushy Spon"

Archiving

Many of the earliest radio episodes no longer exist. Only two episodes from series 2 (1951-2) survive, and no episodes from either seasons one or three survive. Only selected episodes from series 4 were selected for preservation in the BBC Sound Archive, and some exist only as off-air copies made by fans at the time of the original broadcast. However, commencing with the start of series 5 (1954), BBC Transcription Services began making copies for overseas sales, and even commissioned re-recordings of some key series 4 episodes for the "Vintage Goons" series, which was mainly intended for overseas markets.

Rather than making copies from the broadcast tapes, Transcription services made their own recordings simultaneous with the broadcast recordings in order to obtain the best possible sound quality. The TS copies were then edited to match the producer's cut of the broadcast tapes.

The Transcription Services versions were then cut to remove topical and parochial material and anything that might be potentially offensive (and the Goon Show did feature quite a lot of politically incorrect humour, much of it sneaked under the noses of BBC censors). Later TS releases had further cuts for timing purposes. For many years these abridged versions were the only surviving copies of many episodes, but in recent years the BBC has done a huge amount of research work to find and restore the missing footage, often literally from the cutting room floor.

To date, the BBC has released 23 CD sets of these remastered episodes, containing 92 shows, plus The Last Goon Show of All and Goon Again. Another 12 shows had been previously issued by EMI, but for contractual reasons these were all heavily cut to remove musical interludes and other music cues, and to this day they are the only commercially available versions of those particular episodes.

Episodes of the Goon Show are still regularly broadcast in New Zealand and are still occasionally repeated on BBC Radio 2 or Radio 4 in the UK. More recently the show has become a regular feature on the digital radio station BBC 7, which features both new material (much of it recognisably in a Goonish tradition) and archives from several decades of BBC comedy and drama.

The ABC Radio National network in Australia has regularly broadcast the Goon Show since the 1960s. For many years, the series was broadcast every Saturday afternoon, just after the midday news bulletin. More recently, it was broadcast twice a week, on Friday mornings and Sunday afternoons. The network attempted to retire the series in January 2004, feeling that it might have at last worn out its welcome; but a huge listener response proved them wrong, and broadcasts of the show resumed in the Friday timeslot in June of the same year. The ABC's broadcasts of the series have made the Goon Show one of the most repeated and longest-running of all radio programs.

The sound of the Goons

Alongside the musical intermissions provided by the Ray Ellington Quartet and Max Geldray, the Goon Show was famous for its unique library of sound effects. 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, various explosions, splashes, splatters, clatters, bangs, etc. 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. On one occasion, Milligan is reported to have filled a sock with custard from the BBC canteen in order to find a particular squelching noise.

Trivia

Brandyyy!!!!

Alcohol was of course 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 "Brandy!" was used to announce the exit of one or more characters, or a break for music.

Watch out Moriarity!

Peter Sellers, as Grytpype-Thynne, usually pronounced the name of his henchman "Morry-arty". 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". This gave Milligan a cue to simmer down.

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 Spike Milligan, who would try to get the same effect with only three or four people. After some time, Harry Secombe began throwing in "custard" during these scenes. 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".

Running Jokes

  • Sometimes, certain things were greeted with a response of "I don't wish to know that".
  • If people were telling Eccles to shut up, Eccles himself would often join in, usually being the last one to finish.
  • Bluebottle always read out his stage directions. ("Strikes pose, but unstrikes it again when trousers fall down.")
  • Eccles went through a phase of asking "How's your old dad?"
  • Bloodnock was usually introduced by the same music. Soon, he started jumping in before it finished, yelling "AHA!"
  • People would travel very long distances in very short spaces of time.
  • Neddy Seagoon is often referred to as very fat and very short.
  • Bluebottle and/or Eccles were usually employed in some position that they were completely useless at.
  • They often comment that the singer Sabrina cannot sing.
  • Clothes often explode, most commonly, shoes and shirts. The episode Scradje followed the tale of exploding shoes.
  • Dynamite seemed to appear in every other episode.
  • The fact that Ray Ellington was black was commonly joked about, something you could never get away with these days.
  • OBE's were often joked about as though they were very easy to obtain (and perhaps even undesirable).
  • Grytpype Thynne, instead of offering cigarettes to smoke, gave strange items such as gorillas and pictures of the Queen, to which, Seagoon's usual response was, "No thanks, I'm trying to give them up."

Later revivals

The future members of Monty Python were fans, and they have on many occasions expressed their collective debt to Milligan and The Goons, 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.

However 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. The Goons also had a considerable influence on the humour of The Beatles, and especially the writing of John Lennon. Interestingly, The Goons and The Beatles both worked considerably with record producer George Martin.

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. The series has not been repeated since its original run although some episodes are known to survive (having been unofficially released on the Internet).

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.

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' Christmas Break), "Bloodnok's Rock and Roll Call" (the first British record with the word "rock" in its title) and its B-side "The Ying Tong Song", which was reissued as an A-side in the mid-1970s and became a surprise novelty hit.

In the movies the following were a product of Goon activity:

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 on a CD.

The last time all three Goons worked together was in 1978 when they recorded two new songs, "The Raspberry Song" and "Rhymes". Sellers died in 1980.

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

Episodes

See: List of Goon Show episodes

The sincerest form of flattery

Although the names, catch-phrases 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[1], 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.


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

Resources

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Goon_Show&oldid=33259379"