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The Goon Show

For sheer high-energy full-tilt radio silliness, there's nothing I love more than the highly-esteemed GOON SHOW!

For those who don't know, The Goon Show was a strange weekly half-hour in which, throughout the 1950s, the BBC appeared to have taken leave of its senses.

It starred Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and a young and largely-unknown comic actor named Peter Sellers.

I love listening to the recordings of this bizarre show, largely because these three guys were having such a great time. Sometimes their live performances would grind to a complete halt because Harry, Peter, and Spike were laughing too hard to read their lines.

The plots usually centered (to the extent that they had centers) on some con game for which the likeable idiot Neddy Seagoon has stupidly fallen. Seagoon was played by the marvelous Harry Secombe, whom I had loved for years before I had even heard of The Goon Show, thanks to his performance as Mr. Bumble in the 1968 film of OLIVER! His rendition of "Boy for Sale" had taught me, at an early age, that Secombe's voice was an amazing instrument. What I didn't know then was that in the UK he was famous as a singer and as a comedian, and the star of the highly-esteemed Goon Show!

In fact, when The Goon Show began, Harry Secombe was the famous one, and cohort Peter Sellers was the rising star. Now of course it's Sellers who's best-known and well-remembered, thanks to his remarkable film performances in the Pink Panther movies and about a jillion other things -- including one of my very favorite films, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

But I love him best as one of his Goon Show characters, the tiny Boy Scout called Bluebottle -- who for no reason at all would not only read his dialogue aloud but his stage directions as well.

There's little doubt that it was the off-center genius of Spike Milligan that made the show what it was. Sometimes his lifelong depression would overwhelm him -- he was indeed a tortured genius -- and other writers would be brought in to keep the show going. And you can always tell the authentic Milligan scripts from the collaborations because only Spike could write the genuine all-leather Goon Show, price two-and-six at any good chemist's.

BE WARNED: The Goon Show is definitely an acquired taste. But if you're a fan of Monty Python, you're sure to enjoy the radio show that clearly influenced those fellas as they were forming their own comic sensibilities. For example -- like "Flying Circus," the Goons usually eschewed conventional "punch lines," often preferring to end the show whenever their half-hour was up, whether the story had reached some sort of logical conclusion or not. BBC announcer Wallace Greenslade would intone "It's all in the mind, you know" and the Wally Stott band would play a swing-time version of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" (yes, really -- and followed by "Crazy Rhythm") and the audience knew the half-hour had ended.

The Goon Show gave the impression of featuring a large cast, but in fact most roles were played by the same three talented fellas:

HARRY SECOMBE played

• Neddie Seagoon
• and occasionally others

PETER SELLERS played

• Bluebottle
• Major Dennis Bloodnok
• Hercules Grytpype-Thynne
• Henry Crun
• William 'Mate' Cobblers
and occasionally others

SPIKE MILLIGAN played

• Eccles
• Little Jim
• Minnie Bannister
• Count Moriarty
• Spriggs
• Singhiz Thing
• Lalkakka
• and occasionally others

Since the show ran from 1951-1960, the Goons came along at the end of the Golden Age of Radio. But like the other shows of the previous three decades, they told their story in three parts, punctuated with musical interludes. In the case of The Goon Show those breaks were provided by Wally Stott and his orchestra with soloists Ray Ellington (who often took an acting role in the stories as well) and Max Geldray (who also appeared in the stories sometimes despite being a hopelessly awful actor). Ellington sang up-tempo jazzy tunes with obvious relish -- I could listen to him all day -- and Max Geldray was one of the greatest jazz harmonica players in the world. The things he could do with a simple chromatic harmonica!

One perennial topic of humor for the Goons was the UK starlet Sabrina. I'd never heard of this oddly gravity-defying person before The Goon Show but after seeing some photos I can understand why the Goon characters would make oaths like "By the sweaters of Sabrina!" and other variations on the same joke.

The Goons also loved the running joke of introducing Major Bloodnok in each episode. Unlike the other characters, Bloodnok had his own theme music, which would then segue into a series of explosions -- which were then (apparently) revealed to have been the result of something he ate. Humor at its lowest level, I suppose, but I can't pretend this bit doesn't crack me up every time.

And now they are all gone, alas. But the show lives on thanks to the recordings, and to many excellent fan web sites...

• Listen to a random Goon Show courtesy of FABCAT. You will need RealPlayer.
• The Goon Show. Net -- in my opinion the very best Goon site on the entire web
• The Goon Show: a Quick Guide -- an excellent overview of the series, the perfect introduction to the Goons
• The Goon Show Depository -- exhaustive facts and suitable silliness
• BBC 7 -- Still playing the episodes from time to time!
• Robert Dickson's Goon Show Page -- excellent overview of Goon lore on the web