I struck out for the far side of the mango infested swamp.
Grab my horn Oil. Pull your heckles.
How did you get across the swamp without getting wet?
I jumped on that log. That log.
That's an alligator. I wonder why my legs come
getting shorter. Hello and welcome to Goom Pot,
vying with Oppenheimer and the Barbie film for pop cultural
dominance this week. Before I introduce this week's
guest, I just want a quick word about last week's show, The
Treasure in the Tower. There was a line in that
delivered by Blue Bottle. I'll be the man who sees Nobody
touches him for you. And I was speculating that that
was perhaps the payoff or the punch line to a, you know, a
mucky joke or something like that.
But it was pointed out to me by no less than three listeners,
John Dredge, Phil Cannon and Duncan Gray, that actually the
line was inspired by a childhood friend of Sellers.
Blue Bottle was a reflection of a boy I knew once when I was at
kindergarten, getting back a long time now.
I was 7 years old and I bought a model in lead of Malcolm
Campbell's record-breaking car, the Bluebird, and it was the
first of the models. Even in those days, and it was
expensive, where you could lift the body off and you could see
all the engine in lead. Everything was in lead, of
course, and the wheels, of course, weren't properly shaped.
They were sort of pressed over at the end, you know, so they
wouldn't come off. And I, you know, this was my
pride and joy and I took it to school and all the kids were
running. They're all looking at it, you
know, and running it on desks and things and a little spotty.
Herbert came up to me and I never got it.
And he came out of the crowd, you see, jockeying for power.
This is what it was, you see? And he said to me, can I be the
man that sees no one touches it for you?
No, I never forgot that. Because he wanted to give
himself he see, go up. Is he be a manager?
Then stand back, 'cause I would tell you, if you're allowed to
touch that, is he? Yes, you can do that.
Is he? He's then one up now and got
nearer to it himself, so he could touch it whenever he
wanted. But the others?
And that was the basic for behind Blue Bottle.
See, he's a very simple young man, is he?
Yeah, I did. I did know that and I kind of
that's with so much, it kind of just gets pushed into a
inaccessible section of my memory, you know, and it's very
difficult for me to access it. So thank you to to those chaps
who pointed that out and set the record straight.
So on to this week. It's not often that I get people
below the age of 30 on this podcast.
It has happened even less likely that that person is from North
America. And this week I am joined by the
the writer, comedian Zach Mitchell.
Now Zach is 28 years old and lives in Nova Scotia.
And Zach. Contacted me several months ago
and expressed a great love for the Goons and for the podcast.
Thank you very much. Zach and he and I started a sort
of a Facebook conversation if you like, and I suggested that
he might want to come on to the show and talk about his love for
the goons and for comedy in general.
Pretty much. And he agreed and what follows
is our conversation and. Zach's a fascinating guy and has
a lot to say and very thoughtful character as well.
And a lot of what he said sort of made me scratch my head and
say, yeah, actually never thought of it like that.
So anyway, onto the conversation and obviously I began by asking
Zach how he came to discover the goons.
I I discovered the Goon Show because my dad told me about
Python And I looked them up on YouTube.
And then bought the 16 ton set. And I remember reading their
Wikipedia article and seeing them mention the Goon Show.
And I thought this this sounds fascinating.
So I just looked them up and all of the episodes were on the
Internet Archive. So I downloaded them all all at
once. And then I went on a vacation.
And basically that entire vacation was spent listening to
every Goon show from Series 5 onwards.
I yeah, I listened to them all basically in one go and in like
a week. So wow.
OK, so how did so was that in in chronological order from like
whistling Spire nigma onwards or was it just?
Yeah, well, the first one I remember hearing.
Was the secret escatoire with that amazing alligator joke.
That was the joke that hooked me.
Okay, okay. So that was the first screen
show you heard and that's very strong.
That's quite a strong first episode.
So yeah, maybe if it had been a weaker episode, really one of
the one of the late. Although I know that you want to
defend series 8, don't you? Yeah.
I do, but if it if it had been one, because there have been,
there's a few, there's a few duds in the Goon Show catalog,
shall we say, if it had been one of the weaker ones.
But maybe he might not have been so hooked so quickly.
I know, I know. I would have like even the junk
affair, which to me is the weakest of Series 8.
It's got, it's got some good bits in it.
It's got my client has been taken L with head.
And all that. So it's in even the weaker
episodes. There's like four or five just
brilliant jokes. So yeah, I'm pretty sure if I
started off, even with some of the low points of season eight
or even season, pardon me, Series 8 or Series 10, I still
would have been hooked, OK? Yeah well the as you as you may
have heard cuz I bang on about it often.
The 1st going show I ever heard was the last last episode from
series 10, The last smoking Z Goon.
Oh, that's a great. One, yeah, well, IT people,
people are a bit tend to be a bit down on it.
But you know, I just, I was just totally enchanted when I first
heard that because I didn't know what was going on.
I had and I'm going to ask you about this in a minute, but I
did have. I've never heard the Goon Show
before. Obviously I was 13 or 14, but I
had heard the audio recording of Bag Jelly, the Witch that Spike
put out in the in the 70s and I'd heard that on a regular
basis. So I was kind of, that was kind
of like what would you call it, a primer in getting into the
goons. So when I when I heard the last
I can see going, I didn't know what was going on.
I thought that Peter Sellers was doing all the voices mostly.
I thought he was doing Wallace Greenslade's voice even, but it
took me a few. You know, I had to listen to a
few episodes. I think I I listened to the lost
Emperor and the white box of Great Barnfield after that and
gradually started to sort of piece things together and
started recognizing the the different voices and and being
able to ascribe them to the different.
Obviously he could tell which voices Seekin did, but the other
two I gradually began to to be able to designate who was doing
what voice. So, so I want to ask you, did
you, although it's very anarchic, it is very British in
many ways. The goods did you had you had a
grounding in British comedy much kind of that, no?
I've always been a big fan of Python And Fawlty Towers and
Dad's Army and even the goodies stuff, stuff like that.
Even though some of it I learned.
I learned about after the Goon Show, but.
I'm sorry to laugh. Yeah, I'm sorry laughing.
I'm just thinking. You said even the goodies.
I hope that I hope Graham Garden and Bilotti are listening.
Well the interesting thing is that Spikes books aren't really
in print in North America. I remember I had to order them
off amazon.co UK which. I I think is a shame, especially
for Picoon, which is one of the funniest books I've ever read.
Probably the gold standard in written British humor for me is
PG Woodhouse. Oh yeah.
Cool also isn't in print here, but I just think he's
incredible. Who was he?
So he's telling me PG Woodhouse is out of print in in North
America because. Yeah, I'm sure that didn't he go
and live in America at one point?
Doesn't James and Worcester? Isn't James and Worcester quite
popular The. Series.
And I remember when I first started collecting Woodhouse
books, he was in print and easy to find in the stores.
But right. Yeah, Okay, apparently in the
last. Four or five years he's gone off
the boil, and I'm not exactly sure why.
Yeah, fashions change, and people, artists or authors or
whatever they may be, fall in and out of fashion, don't they?
Sadly, yeah. It's like with the big
controversy with him. Maybe it's because I'm Canadian,
but I find the whole thing a bit ridiculous because.
So they're changing a few words, but at least they're still in
print. Yeah, well, you talking about
the lack some of the language when you said the controversy, I
thought you meant cuz wasn't he? He was.
He had these kind of.
There were rumors about him and the Nazis or at least that he
was sympathetic perhaps or or well.
If you read the transcripts of the broadcasts, they don't seem
sympathetic at all. But he he's just making Jeeves
and Worcester jokes about the Germans.
It's like he had no idea what was going on in the war.
Yeah. Yeah, for me it came more out of
a place of ignorance than sympathy.
Ignorance. Yeah, that's that's the word I
was searching for before. Yeah, he was a little bit.
I won't say he was simple. He was just a bit naive.
Bit naive, yeah, because of course he, who was it?
Roderick spoed. Was his Yes this Oswald Mosley
avatar. Yeah.
So you listened to all these goon shows in the course of a
week? Yeah.
So, I mean, that must have been. Did you have any time to do
anything else? Not really, Not really.
I was just laying there on the beach, the second one I heard.
So I heard the Secret Escatoire. Then the Spanish suitcase, then
the telephone, which may have my favorite scene in any Goon show.
I was a bit surprised to hear you repeatedly mentioned Series
5 as the fan favorite series. Because I I much prefer Series 7
because it strikes this perfect balance between earlier goons
and late goons. Some of the later stuff seems to
have very little structure or order, but Series 7 is like that
perfect midpoint sweet spot. At least for me.
Not well I I'm sure I've said on here I know that a lot of fans,
yeah, a lot of game show fans, the traditionalists if you like
hold up Series 5 is is the the strongest series and and there's
a lot of great shows. But I think I've said on here
maybe I haven't but I'm sure I've said that I I think Series
7 is my favorite as well because pretty much for the reasons that
you've just given there they've they've been let off the leash
from Peter Eaton. But they're still got Pat Dixon,
who's, you know, who's a strong producer.
And they and they haven't yet entered the The No Man's Land of
Self series 8 with all the chopping and changing of
producers. Now here's a question about a
joke I've always had. Maybe it's a series six episode.
I'm not quite sure what series or what episode it is.
But there's this joke that's always been one of my favorite
goon show jokes ever. But I I have no idea what it's
in reference to. When someone asks Eccles, are
you the minister who built that bridge that fell to bits?
No. Well, it must have been somebody
like you. What?
What is that in reference to? Spikes.
Total disregard for politicians and his belief that all
politicians are damn bloody fools.
You know what I mean, But it. The the way the audience
responds to it makes me think that something has happened
around that time, like there was an actual minister who built a
bridge. That felt a bit.
I always see what you're saying. Yeah, well, what I was trying to
say was that Echoes is obviously held up as an idiot.
And so that was basically indicating that all politicians
are idiots. But yeah, I see what you're
saying in terms of was, is there some topical, is it a topical
reference? Is something, did something
happen? I'm not sure.
I'm not even sure of which show that is actually.
So whenever we get to that, I'll I'll hopefully by that point I
will have, I will have that information and and be able to
share it. So something I have to say about
Spike and Larry and just his whole dynamic with Michael
Benteen, because I've worked writing what are primarily my
scripts with other people. I remember when I was 16, I I
made this comedy film with other people, you know, contributing
to the script. And I can look at that film now
and be like, oh, these were all my jokes.
But I would never say that the other people who wrote with me
didn't have anything to do with it.
I've also needed kind of in an interpreter for my ideas.
Because they can get so off the chain at times that I'll lose
perspective and just move too fast.
And having some person just be able to type for you is a really
important component of writing. So for someone to say, oh, he
was just typing, I think that that.
The Vince's a fundamental misunderstanding of the writing
process, and that's at best, but I think he was just being
willfully disingenuous when he said things like that.
Totally. And I think we have you.
I'm sure you've read, Have you read Julie Warren's book about
Larry Stevens? No, but I'm getting it.
I just heard about it, Okay, because it was in.
Yeah, it was in one of your episodes and one of the Goon
Show newsletters I got a couple months ago.
Yeah. So Julie's obviously related to
Larry. Yeah.
And she wrote this wonderful biography, which didn't just
look at his. Goon Show writing, It was his,
you know, his early life is his other writing.
You know, he did a lot with Tony Hancock in the early days.
They were, they were very good friends at that.
I think he was. He was Hancock's best man at his
first wedding and he also wrote the Army game for for ITV
television. And he, you know, he wrote a lot
and and there's a lot in the Goon Show that we owe to Larry.
A couple of weeks ago we covered the episode The Treasure in the
Tower. You won't have heard that yet
because it's not gone out. Oh, that's a fantastic.
One yeah, but so we covered that episode and it was out that
episode that was that episode had the debut of the of the the
catch phrase. It's all in the mind, you know
which was coined by Larry or at least Larry bought that to the
goons. Because that was a phrase that
when he was a commando during the war, that was a phrase that
the Sergeant major would often shout at the men.
That's that's fascinating. So it like ties back into the
themes of like wartime trauma that kind of motivated The Goon
Show to begin with. But that's that's amazing.
Something I wanted to bring up about catch phrases.
Spike had a lot of catch phrases that didn't seem like catch
phrases, but things that he would obsessively repeat for one
episode and completely dropped. Yeah, and I I know it's not just
Spike because. The white neti trade, which he
had nothing to do with, uses that too.
I think like, you know that that's a horse of a different
color or on this magic Lantern slide or it says here in small
print, yes, that, that kind of thing.
What happened to the I'm wondering if the crispy bacon we
had before the war. What's become of that crispy
bacon we had before the war? Yes, but that that's more of a
joke. Like some of these repeated
phrases were like half jokes that seemed to he seemed to want
to add to the texture of of the script by just firing so many
things at us that we didn't know what to laugh at or what was
funny. I almost feel like he was like.
He was intentionally doing these half jokes and I'm I'm not sure
why. Just, just just to pad out the
script maybe, I don't know. Maybe that's a bit cynical to
suggest that, but I guess it's he said he was a jazz man,
wasn't he? And it's it's kind of it's kind
of, I suppose you could say it's almost it.
It imbus within the goon show a certain amount of certain type
of rhythm. If you have these repetitive
tropes, lines, quotes, catchphrases, whatever you want
to call them, I want to ask you because before we because when
we were first in contact many months ago, and you had a list
of things that you wanted to talk about, one of the things
you wrote was that you want to discuss why knees are inherently
funny. Yes.
Come on. I have never heard of anyone
having a knee fetish except for Spike Milligan.
Ever. I, I it's it's just it.
It's the most bizarre item of the body to be fixated on, and
the fact that he keeps going back to it makes it funnier and
funnier. Like it it he seems to have an
obsession with certain things. Knees and and people, people
struggling to get into doors. Yes.
But my favorite door scene of all time, as well as my favorite
echoes and blue bottle scene of all time actually in the same
episode, The Dreadful Revenge of Fred Fu Manchu, which I was
initially going. To talk about, but given this is
given this is only my second appearance on a podcast, I
didn't want it to blow up into my.
Face Yeah, it could have been your last one.
Yeah, but yeah, that Minnie and Henry doorbet.
Wow. Who's that?
It's me, Henry. There's a man called me at the
door. Me.
You'll have to prove it. You at there.
Yes, prove your me alright. I'm Henry Cron.
That's me. Minnie.
Yeah. Min.
Open the door and let him in. But you are in him.
Well, you'll have to let me act again.
Hi. Because I'm out there waiting to
come in. Oh, very well.
Thank you. Now, there, Mr. Crum, I want to
warn you that here, here's that out there.
It's me. Lock me out.
Nonsense. Me just came in.
He's here now. Good heavens.
Quick. That's the woman I'm here to
protect Over the door. Very well, Very well.
But I must let Minnie in first. Thank you.
That's all right, Min. Now then, dear, What were you?
Who's there? It's me.
It's probably my own personal favorite June show episodes.
And it's not. Yeah, it's not.
I I have to stress, it's not because of the racism at all,
but I feel like it gets closer to the heart of what you and
Roger were talking about in your China Story episode where Spike
said. Spike said that he was trying to
make fun of the cliche racism that he had been taught as a
child and that it, you know, flourished during the war.
He was trying to make his caricatures so extreme that we
would recognize they were caricatures of caricatures and
the the way Fu Manchu is treated in that show.
While still incredibly problematic and not something I
would defend exactly, seems to be his most successful
employment of that concept in a way that the audience can
actually understand. I mean Spike.
Spike wasn't very subtle. I wouldn't.
I wouldn't use the word subtle to describe his humor, but the
interesting thing about the China story is that little the
critics thing. Yes, at the end of the season
five Compendium where one of them seems to get it seems to
say I love the Chinese noises in The China Story last night and
how wonderfully on Chinese they were.
So if if that is taken kind of as a sample of the way that the
audience viewed the show at the time, then maybe Milligan was
successful. But it's it's such a slippery
slope and such a difficult concept to execute successfully
that I'm I'm not sure he ever did it.
I remember seeing. Spike doing blackface in one of
the later Q series. I I I think it was like the 80s
and I couldn't believe it because it like North America
was still racist in the 80s. But like you you could you could
never get away with a thing like that over here in the 80s.
Oh, and look at me. Yeah, there was, there was
plenty of comedies in the 80s that still had, there was still
racist language and there was even, you know, even things like
even supposedly right on comedies like the young ones,
there was some questionable language used and.
I do love the young, the young ones.
That's a great show, but like any great show, it has massive
flaws. What's its biggest flaw, do you
think? I think just well that of
course, and sometimes the performance style for me is
almost too aggressive and it can sometimes take away from the
brilliance of the joke writing, at least to me.
But I understand that's a stupid complaint because it's like
complaining that The Goon Show is too silly.
It it totally misses the point, but I I guess it's a matter of
personal preference. Just back up, just stick with
the young ones for a moment. Did, did Rick May, I mean, Rick
Mayo never made it in, certainly not in the United States nor in
Canada. I guess Rick, Rick Mayo never
really cut through. Why do you think that is?
Well, the young ones has always had a very checkered awful.
DVD and VHS release history to the point where you know you can
only get Region 2 DVD's of it. So a lot of people over here
have no idea what The Young Ones is now.
One of my favorite American sitcoms of all time, Get a Life
was. Described as an attempt to do an
American Young Ones, to the point where there's a bit in one
episode where they rip off a character's head and kick it
around like a football. OK.
Like in Bambi? Yes, like in Bambi.
Wow. Here's the label from that
accursed seafood that started it all.
Take that. What's this?
A warning about? The warning?
As stated in the first warning, those who eat this rancid fish
will develop amnesia. However, it will wear off all by
itself. Well, that's a relief.
What's this? PS:.
But they will remember everything that happened, so
don't mistreat them or make them do any goofy crap or they may
rip your head off. Hi guys.
Done dancing so soon, what do you you doing something with the
hen there and you're gonna you're gonna do it.
I I seem to remember this might be a false memory.
We're probably talking 12 years ago, probably when you first
heard the games I saw on YouTube or similar.
A really bad. Pilot episode for an American
version of the Young Ones and I think I would it had Nigel
Planer in it. Yes, I would.
I would love to track that down because that was done, I think,
by David Merkin, who show ran the seasons 5 and six of Yeah,
he show ran my personal favorite seasons of The Simpsons, which
is. Right up there with the Goon
Show as one of my favorite pieces of media every.
Night Which is your favorite Simpsons episode?
Can you pin it down? Runs air, actually.
One that's a good just the. He card read.
Good. Yeah, that's great.
Kills me do. You know what?
I love my favorite episode. And people always say, well,
what? That's a weird.
I think it's a weird episode to have as your favorite episode.
Mine will always be, and I think it might be series 6.
Sorry season 6 and Maggie makes 3.
That's a fantastic. Episode.
And I'm not particularly a fan of Maggie.
Or not that I'm dislike Maggie, but I just love the subplot of
Homer working at the bowling alley.
And and and you might be able to help me here you you might be
able to help me because over here there's a bit there's a
there's a there's one little tiny little throwaway line in
that episode which always floors me, kills me.
Right. And it's it's Homer's being
forced to leave his job he has to quit his job because you know
and and but everyone's sorry to see him go and they give him
this jacket and and they were all sort of saying bye Homer.
And then there's this little boy like a little 9030 shoe shine
boy. And.
And Homer says what he said Don't worry Joey, we'll get to
California one day. And then he goes.
Sure we will, Mr. Homer, sure we will.
Then he goes. And I just.
And I know why that's funny. But I can't explain to people
why that is funny. I just know it's it's parodying.
It's parodying those. Sort of films, I suppose, Like
The Grapes of Wrath and things. Like that, Yes.
Yes. Yeah, that's what I would say to
that. Yeah.
It's. But it's so weirdly specific and
generic at the same time that I definitely understand why you
would think that there was some cultural context behind it.
Back to the goons. So you.
Right. So you wanna make a defense of
series eight? Yeah.
Yeah, I I think I like almost every single episode in series
8. The only one I don't like is the
Junk affair, because that blood knock and sea goon bone bit goes
on way too long and there's no punch line at all.
And. Despite the my client has been
taken ill with head, but that the Seagun blood knock that
totally destroys the episode for me.
There's one in series 5 that I just hate, OK And that's it.
It's just because I recognize it's a good episode and it.
It's a funny episode, but in Forog, which weirdly enough, I
think was an arrogant script. But when I listened to Forog and
before I knew that, I thought that it was Milligan kind of
looking into the face of his depression and, you know, sense
of identity loss and it it actually reminds me of.
That Small Dreams of a Scorpion poetry book that he had.
And it's it's just so depressing, particularly because
I really struggle with mental health issues myself.
And that's one of the reasons Milligan's one of my personal
heroes because. It was insanely productive while
battling, you know, similar things.
I'm not gonna go into detail, obviously, but yeah, that
episode just puts me in a real bad psychic place.
Even though it's it's got great jokes in it.
It's it's one of the most depressing things I've ever
heard. Yeah, I have no idea why but but
but that that ending you know where Seagun realizes not only
does Full Rog not exist, but he doesn't exist and it just ends
with him crying. Yeah, that whole that whole
ending just seems like a cry of pain.
Now Seagun LED, have you placed all the bricks in the right
holes and the right squares? Stop this nonsense.
No, it's a mess with you all. I demand to see the authorities.
Of course you will be able to see them in a short while.
They are collecting evidence at the minute.
I don't understand what this is all about.
Good morning, Doctor Mariati. And good morning to you, Doctor
Eidelberger. And this year is little Ned
Segone. Dr. Doctor, have they examined
the frog? They have.
It's turned out to be fog. It's not.
It's not I tell you. It's it's for log.
Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Take it easy. Did you find make your blood
log? Yes.
We have checked with the ward office records and find there is
no such man of that name ever existed.
Go to my government sponsored laboratory and you'll see his
name in the visitor's book. Yes, yes.
We've checked with that address you gave us.
But there is no laboratory there.
It is an old bond site. Honestly, there is an
laboratory. There must be a laboratory.
As true as my name is Ned Segal. Ah, that's another point.
There is no such person as Ned Segal.
I just put this little square. OK, I'm gonna ask a few obvious
questions, all right. OK.
Which is your favorite show? My favorite goon show, as I
said, was the dreadful revenge of shreds men too.
She did. All right, ignore that question.
Sorry. That is your favorite show.
Well, I'll tell you what you can.
Yeah, if you like, cuz I'm scheduled up to the end of this
year, but next year you could come and talk about that show
that. Would be great, but there's and
like anyone who's listening to this podcast, anyone who may
have heard it from me spreading this podcast around as I will,
do not listen to. The Dreadful Revenge of Fred Fu
Manchu is your first Goon show. Barn 0345.
Rick cut and difficult. Here.
A good dog boy went to college. What comes up the seven?
I said. What comes up the seven?
OK, I'll come over. Bring that pretty diamond over
here. Can be.
I'll come over to you. Well, I want to know.
Blue Bono, Blue Bono. What's disgusted on the wall?
So what about which which characters appeal to you the
most, and which characters appeal to you the least of the
goons? Well.
This is gonna be, this is gonna be a controversial opinion here.
I love Echols. Echols is my favorite character
by far. I think Echols is my favorite
character in like all of media. And don't get me wrong, there
are some really, really, really funny blue bottle bits, but I
feel like too many of them fall into formula and.
Just repetition of jokes. And sometimes they slow the show
down for me, even when I find Blue Bottle really funny.
So Blue Bottle's my least favorite character.
Now that that may have something to do with the fact that my my
dad refuses to listen to the show with me because he finds
Blue Bottle so irritating. I feel like Series 5 Blue Bottle
is the best blue bottle because that's when he actually sounded
like a little kid. For some reason, Sellers
sometimes seems to put less energy into his line reading
sometimes when we get to like say, series.
Nine. Yeah.
No, absolutely. The the Blue Bottle voice
changes and I I just missed the series 5 blue Bottle.
The Kinge of the Judge school? Yeah, that kind of thing.
What about the music? What do you think of the music?
I love Max Gildray. I love Max Gildray.
Okay. I okay.
This is gonna sound weird and incredibly nitpicky, but I have
OCD the way that Ray Ellington. Sometimes pronounces I like
he'll make R sounds. Yeah, like I love you like like
that for for example. And the repeated R sounds when
there should be no R sounds in the word it.
It just irritates me. I have no idea why, and it's
definitely not a knock on him as a singer.
But but it's just a continued trait that I find a little
irritating now. I love jazz.
I am a huge jazz fan, have been ever since I was a little kid
actually. But I've always preferred
instrumental jazz to. Vocal jazz.
So maybe that's why I prefer Galdrey.
There's just something about the improvised nature of
instrumental jazz that really gets me.
And I feel like you can hear more improv in Geldrey than
Ellington. Although Ellington does have
Dicky cats. Who's a good enough pianist to
swing with any of the American bands or groups, so.
Sometimes raise some, some are raised numbers can be a bit
cute, if you know what I mean. A bit, a bit twee.
A bit. Dare I say a bit embarrassing.
So you know, like when he gets, when he gets the band barking
and stuff like that or doing. I mean there's an episode.
Which one was it? It was The Treasure in the Tower
again where right at the beginning Ray's doing it.
Some some rather dubious Chinese impressions.
As well, things like that, yeah. Well, like he OK, here's the
thing, like, I see comments underneath Spikes videos and
maybe this is just my modern perspective of Spike, but like
these performers didn't mind. Ray Ellington didn't say
anything, you know? Harry Seacombe laughed at the
overweight jokes, which I must admit, I I laugh at too, because
because, like I said, they're so ridiculous that it's it isn't
like they're being aimed at one person.
It's like the concept itself, this being joked with.
Like I heard they had to send up a rocket to photograph the other
side of you. You.
Know. Yeah.
And that continues. More or less to this day.
If you look at The Simpsons again, what do they say about
Homer? His ass has got its own post
code. Something like that.
Yeah, but recently there's been within the last decade there's
been a real back down on what is called fat shaming and those
kind of jokes have. Disappeared in most modern
sitcoms. I don't watch Modern Simpsons
anymore. I've kind of gave up.
So is it worth? I gave up.
Is it worth pursuing? No, no.
The last season was one of their best in a while.
They got a new showrunner, Thank God.
Matt. Matt Selman who had been Co show
running the. Last three seasons took over a
show running role from Al Jean, who would have been sucking the
life out of the series for longer than the series was ever
good, and it's just they're doing more conceptual episodes.
There was one where. Someone hacked into Fox's
computer and was showing the most ridiculous Simpson plot
lines that were really going to anger the fans and destroy The
Simpsons. So it was just this absurdist
series where like Martin becomes a chain smoking adult who's
disguised in a kids body. You know that that kind of
thing. So they're really, they're
really experimenting more again. Isn't that?
Isn't the danger there of becoming too self referential to
matter to self indulgent? Well.
That's something that has been baked into the show for so long
that you know when you I I honestly think the series should
have ended with Behind the Laughter.
I'm inclined to agree with you, yeah.
Can we return to the goons for a SEC?
Cuz I had a point that I didn't clearly articulate.
Go go, please do. But when when people say that,
you know, Ray Ellington didn't mind or Harry Seacombe didn't
mind or just things like that, if if Ray Ellington did mind,
you know what were the consequences?
Of his career in life. How would have they turned out
if he actually didn't speak up? So, you know, there's a general
sense to a lot of these comments I read and hear about, you know,
oh, this stuff never hurt anyone or, you know, I I laughed the
hardest at this joke and I'm filling ethnicity.
Of course you do. But the laughter is tinged with
pain and then you know it perpet.
It perpetuates itself in future dealings with other people.
It, you know, can harm self-image.
It's just really I I just don't think that people understand
what that kind of humor can do to a person.
Even if you do find it funny, the really big offender to me is
all that stuff about Max Geldrey's nose, right the the
intros. When we come into Series 9, the
intros to Max become incredibly lazy.
You know you go, from here comes Max Geldrey to play his hot
underwear to. The nose, oh, my nose.
Oh my conch is still getting the brakes over and over again and
every show like, yeah, And it it begins to like it.
It is literal objectification, like there's this character and
hard times by Charles Dickens who everybody keeps on referring
to his hands because that's that's the only part of his body
that can work and that's the only part of his body that
matters, so. He's just been boiled down to
his hands and you know, Max with his nose and I feel like Spike
fought the Nazis. Spike, you know, Spike was one
of the good guys, hopefully. And why?
Why didn't he realize, you know, what he had been fighting for
and just knocked it off with the Jewish jokes?
Like I I don't understand that. Yeah, well, because of course
you've got the character of Lou he he's, he cropped up now.
He's hilarious, I gotta say. He's hilarious.
And does he get a free pass cuz Sellers was Jewish?
Yes, he does. Neddy.
Little little Neddy. See the down?
Yeah. Ever chopped live a cigarette?
No thanks. I always chop my own.
Good luck. Listen, schlepper, listen.
The lines between the ice creams and Pevensey Bay station around
the 20 feet of snow. But something else I would like
to say, and I want to get this in really quickly, the idea that
this generation is more enlightened and more in tune
with the world than any other really falls apart.
When you think what we're doing to our planet and how future
generations are going to judge us for what we're doing to the
planet, so us operating on a kind of ethical superiority kind
of falls apart when you think about that.
On that, you and Spike would be 100% aligned if Spike was still
around today. I'm sorry if I'm going off on a
political rant here. You can edit most.
Of this out. That's all right.
So amongst your peers, amongst
your friends, your social group, yeah.
Have you tried to play them? The goons?
Have you tried to introduce them to the show?
Well, I quote the goons all the time in my house.
Okay. And my friends and family are
just like, well, I like them when you do them, but delivered
at the pace that they're at, it's just they can't understand
it no matter how many times I play it to them, Which I think
is a credit to Spike because that's something cutting Edge in
the 50s, incredibly Cutting Edge is so ahead of its time did it.
Continued to flummox and confuse people.
Today we've heard like 5 or 6 episodes that that's a real
testament to how ahead of its time.
It was something I am quite proud of.
I have be A couple of years ago my whole family started calling
each other gym after sentences like.
So we're constantly doing the Jim Spriggs bit and we do it so
much that it's turned into muscle memory basically.
How are you doing today, Jim? How are you doing today?
Yeah. So I'd rather mile from your
house if I heard it. Remember coming out with that?
No, it's it's something we all love doing.
I didn't. I didn't push it on anyone.
People, people who know this podcast know that I'm a bit cool
about Hancock's Half Hour. You know, I make no bones about
it, but because I listened to Hancock's Half Hour and yeah, I
love Golden Simpson. I love, I love Steptoe.
And son, have you a. Steptoe and Son is great.
I love. I love their work on that.
But but. That Hancock Hancock's half
hour, I've always been a bit sort of about and because it to
me, it just sounds like it sounds like what it is, a 1950s
radio comedy show. Whereas the Goon Show, you
listen to a, you know, a great episode of The Goon Show, it's
it doesn't sound like, you know, a 1950s radio show.
It just sounds like a an oral cartoon, you know, Obviously
there's references in it that will give away.
The time period that it was broadcast and whatnot.
But in some ways, if you know, if you get the right show, the
right scenes, if you catch the right bits of it, it's
absolutely timeless and it sounds fresh even now.
The TV stuff is better for me. I watched the TV stuff more than
I do the radio. Show well, tell Telekins.
What do you mean, Hancock? Yeah, hand.
All right. I.
Was gonna say the telly? Have you seen Have you seen any
telly goons? I've.
Seen all the telly goons? God?
Right. Horrendous.
Yeah, yeah, I'm doing an episode on them.
I want. I'm supposed to be doing an
episode on them later this year. Well, I want to because it's the
60th anniversary in October. Not how I want to picture them
at all. No.
That that echoes design is hideous.
Back to Hancock for for a second.
I think the closest thing that American comedy has to British
humor and like British kitchen sink realism, that kind of
thing. The closest thing we've ever
gotten to. That on American sitcoms is the
Honeymooners. OK, yeah.
It's just got this this sense of dread and you can just feel the
the poverty and and the suffering that these characters
go through. But it's not dwelt on and I feel
some of that that same energy in Hancock.
Right. Something else I wanted to say
about radio shall. I pull you there.
Can I just ask about the Honeymooners?
Cuz I've. I don't think I've ever seen a
whole episode all the way through.
It's fantastic. But I'm aware it's Jackie
Gleason. Yeah, yeah.
And I'm aware of its legacy. Okay.
Yeah, but. The 1950s in America wasn't that
sort of held up as being, wasn't it?
Wasn't the the projection that it was America to come come out
of the war triumphant. And the 1950s was a was a time
of hope and positivity and everyone had huge cars and you
know everything was great, great, great.
I know that wasn't the the reality but how did the
Honeymooners or the writers of the Honeymooners or or the
producers, how did they kind of square that with putting out
this? Situation comedy.
That was more or less saying life's crummy.
How did they get away with that in that era?
Because Jackie Gleason, who was even more popular for his
variety shows The Honeymooners, actually didn't really rate all
that highly initially. I think it was always in the top
10, but it never reached the heights.
That I Love Lucy did, at least in in the ratings.
But I think it was that Jackie Gleason had come from a place of
poverty and he wanted to. He wanted to create a character
who would bite his way through poverty, just like his parents
had, and just. Put some of that pain of the
poverty of his early life into his comedy.
So he he wanted to give back in a way.
OK, but one, one thing I want to say about radio.
Yeah. And also the way my generation
and those younger than me consume media I like from the
ages of I I would say 11. 11 to 16 I was very much into old time
radio, you know, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack, Benny, Red
Allen, those kind of things. So when I when I first heard the
Goon Show, it was just like like Eric Sykes said.
The roof came off and it it was all sunshine, it just.
So I don't have the problems of anything being a 1950s radio
sitcom because I love 1950s radio sitcoms.
Yeah, the The Goon Show I barely even consider a sitcom.
Well, it's a variety show technically, I suppose because
it's got music in it, but and sometimes you could want to say
it was a sketch show, particularly in the early days.
Here's an interesting question for you actually, because I've
been doing, I've been editing something else recently and I
won't go into it. But the the person that was a
recording I've done previously that I'm sort of putting
together. And one of the comments that the
gentleman in question made was that he he said, he kind of
basically said be careful what you wish for and what he meant
was what you know let's consider that somehow.
One day somebody's grandfather passes away and they're clearing
out his his loft, his attic and they come across a box full of
crate full AT chess full of recordings of, I don't know,
Series 2, Series 3 goon shows that you know he had recorded on
onto disc or you know all sort of Realty reel cassettes even.
Let's let's assume that they hadn't deteriorated, that they
were still playable and no good quality okay and and.
The sky would be dark with hats. It would be considered to, you
know one of the, the greatest comedy finds of the decade.
Yeah, but he's this guy I was talking to.
He said, look, you know, he kind of basically said be careful
what you wish for because they're probably not very good,
those shows because they were still finding their feet.
And he's and he's a huge advocate, huge fan of the goons.
You know he wasn't saying he he was saying, you know they
probably wouldn't be that funny. The Encyclopedia Goonicus has
all the scripts, doesn't. It it does, it does, but.
Have you got? Have you gone through any of the
early scripts? Not to a great extent but I'm a
script is one thing because it's I think 50% of it is a script
50% of it is the performance. Yeah and and I and I from from
the handful of very old Goon shows.
Say very old. You know, there's a couple from
Series 2. There's a couple from around
that period. They didn't seem as loose, as
confident as assured of themselves.
The performance, Milligan seeking sellers, even benting.
I remember you did an episode on the case of the vanishing room.
Yes. Comparing it to its.
Series 4 version and the more because I just got the Goon Show
Compendiums on Audiobook. Oh, for for any Canadian fans
who may be listening, the The Goon Show audiobooks are
available at the the Apple Bookstore for like $16.00
apiece. So wow, yeah.
I mean, I don't know the exchange rate, how much that is
in British pounds, but that doesn't sound like very much at
all. It's not.
Well that's that's a perfect example because I did we we
covered the The Vanishing Room with the Mike Haskins and I mean
I'm not a big fan particularly of the vintage Goons series
either. There's a few good ones in that
but you know it was it was they they were made under rather
strained circumstances, but this the vintage Goons version.
Of essentially the same script more or less is far superior to
the Series 4 version. So yeah but the point I was
making you know a century ago was that if if these if a if a
stack of old goon shows was discovered I just you kind of
worried that you know they might not be that good.
We've we've been we've been spoiled by having the main
extent goon shows have been from Series 5 onwards which is.
When the show really got into its stride, you know what I
mean? Yeah, Okay, Here's a question I
have. Do you know if The Curse of
Frankenstein was always the title of the script?
Because it's always seemed to me like.
A very bad joke followed by the actual episode title, which is
My heart's in the Highlands and My Feet are in Bombay, or I was
the victim of a terrible explosion.
Like, why? Why is that not the episode
title and everything I can find on it lists it as the Curse of
Frankenstein. Because.
Because The Curse of Frankenstein is a pithy a
quicker title than. My heart is in What was that
again? I forgot already.
My heart's in the My heart's in the Highlands, but my feet.
Are in Bombay? Yes, yes, but.
That's that's a much funnier title.
True. Again, that's just Spike playing
with the form. Yeah, Spike just messing with
the audience, you know, because you look at, I don't know, World
War One, the episode World War One from Series 8.
What's the title of that when it's written down?
Yeah, port one now that's that's a really good episode.
That is. That's yeah.
I love the ending. The ending is just perfection in
that episode. Here is a special news bulletin.
British troops will come home from France at once.
Hooray Fox. They think it's 19104 the.
My German army shares will be worth a fortune run What the
British struck 1918 calendars on Berlin and the Germans
surrender. Oh dear.
Sounds at the end, isn't it? Wall.
Perfectly correct. Missus egorn.
Good night. I can hear your socks.
Yeah, that's that's a talking point.
The green show endings tend to be certainly as the show went
on, they tended to be kind of throwaway endings, didn't they?
Generally with a few good things like that one.
The two, the other example I can think of that ends really well
is the battle of spy and cop. That that's just.
Changing history. So Napoleon won Waterloo.
OK, folks, get your new history books.
Yeah, yeah. I, I, I just, I I don't know.
I really like that. That ending it if it feels like
it was more planned than other endings.
A lot of shows just seem to stop with no end punch line.
They do and there's a bunch of. Shows where they lampshade the
point that they don't have any punchline and say you know, OK,
well give us, give us, give us a five mile start.
Don't let the audience know that was.
The ending, Yeah. 01 One thing I wanted to talk about now, apart
from comedy, my main obsession is literature.
And Kafka is my absolute favorite author and the goons
were compared to Kafka in, in the 50s, yes.
And I just, you know, as someone who's read Kafka repeatedly, I I
kind of want to talk about the where I think it's similar and
and where I think it differs because I think a lot of those
comparisons were incredibly off base.
Well, I've read. I've read the The Trial.
Of course I've read the castle, which was.
I must admit, I found the castle was a real slog.
I don't know. You probably love the castle, do
you? I love the castle.
I like it more than the trial. OK.
And I've read Metamorphosis, of course, but but yeah, they were
compared to the to Kafka. But I mean, Kafka's just like
existential nightmare bureaucracy, isn't it?
Yeah. Actually, the The Borag is the
most Kafkaesque of The Goon Show because it's the only one that
has that existential, you know, bone deep bread.
But Kafka is all about there's one story of his called The
Hunger Artist that functions as this very, very dark joke.
Probably the most overt use of humor in his in his books.
It's a story about a man who has been starving for months and
months and refuses to eat and you know, gets very emaciated
and thin and almost dies and at the moment they at the moment
they, you know, say. You know, we're gonna have to
have someone else in this cage because you're, you know, you're
awful to look. At and you're right.
You're driving the customers away and everything, and as he's
dying, someone asked him why did you starve yourself for all this
time? And he says well, because I
couldn't find anything I wanted to eat.
Right. That does sound like something
kind of Megan, have you ever read Hunger by?
Is it Newt Hampson, the Norwegian writer?
I I have not heard of him, but if he's anything at all like
Kafka, I. OK.
If you like Kafka, you probably like that.
Maybe not, but. OK, fantastic.
I'll give it a go. One more thing I would like to
say, yeah. I think there's a fundamental
difference in the way that your generation consume media and the
way mine does and people who are younger than me, because we can
basically with all these old radio shows and all these movies
are available, we basically have.
The entire history of entertainment at our fingertips.
So it's like you find someone who was influenced by someone
else, then you go and hear that thing and then you and it's
everything's kind of connected because there's comedians
influence, then more comedians, then more influenced than who
they influenced. And people who were influenced
by them. And it's just a long, long
chain, do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, are you? Can you point to echoes of The
Goon Show in modern comedy, even today?
You know can. Tim and Eric.
Tim. And Eric, yeah, I've seen a bit
of Tim and Eric. OK.
Yeah. Just in just in the pace.
Because they they have a lot of times they'll have these
sketches that are like maybe 50 seconds long or 30 seconds long.
No sketch usually breaks 2 minutes and they're 11 minute
shows, so sometimes you'll get. Maybe 10 sketches.
A show or something insane. So it it just like the Goon
show, it just bombards your brain.
So yeah, when when I watched Tim and Eric I I sometimes think of
the Goon Show and actually. I've been trying to combine the
Kafka side of my influence with the Milligan side, and I
actually think that there's a show that already already did
that, which I've recently discovered called Jam.
No Chris Morris. Yes, yes, I love it.
But again, people do not watch that show.
Or you'll think I'm a terrible person for loving it.
You know, it's yeah, it's it's just one of those things.
Chris Chris Morris's most mainstream work, I think, is
probably the day. Today remains the day.
Today, I love Brass Eye too. Well, yeah, but Brass Eye.
Brass Eye is great. But the certain the certain
editions of Brass Eye that would raise some eyebrows today for
sure. Oh.
Totally, totally, like oh. Actually, just one more point I
wanted to make. There is a scene in Brass Eye
that I think attempts the same thing that Milligan did or
Milligan was trying to do. I think it's it's in the crime
episode where a character gets in like a white character.
Gets into blackface. Now chafing the transmission
heads. What is the relationship between
crime and race? Using makeup sticks, we
transformed our white reporter. Trust you pray.
Into a black man. To see if the law would treat
him any differently. Within 5 minutes he committed a
pocket theft, and by midafternoon he was attacking
passers by with violent muggings and fleecing them viciously on
the cobbles. Like I I can understand where
that joke was coming from and what it was trying to do, but
it's just distasteful, even though conceptually it's funny.
Yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. He was trying to do a similar
thing to what Spike was trying to do.
And dreadful revenge of Fred Fu Manchu, the disappointed
Oriental saxophonist and. In either case, Chris Morris or
Spike, I don't think any of those work, but you know it it
at least they're conceptually daring.
At least they're trying different things.
Like I the thing with Spike, I think he was the first comedian.
I I just get this feeling from him.
Who thought of his work as, like, being avant-garde, just
trying to play with structure, the the way you tell jokes.
Just pieces of things like I was talking about that sound like
jokes but aren't jokes. And I I feel like he was
thinking of his stuff as not only comedy but like art.
Not not higher art, of course. But you know, it's.
Yeah. Spike was the first avant-garde
comedian. He didn't.
I would say he didn't say it as disposable, throwaway comedy,
necessarily. No, he didn't.
He sweated to produce these shows, to get these shows out
and and he would the last thing he would want to think of them
as being disposable. Yeah, not as you say, art or
high art, but. In their own way and art form.
Yeah. And on that note, I think what
better place to end our conversation?
Zach definitely would like you to come back and talk about,
well, maybe I was thinking, I don't know, maybe there's
another goon show you'd come back and talk about rather than.
OK. OK.
The telephone.
Great. I love the telephone.
No one talks about the telephone.
I love that. It's a great episode, The
telephone. Did anyone do shifting sands?
Yet no. No Okay Okay.
Shifting sands. All right, then we'll do shift.
Yeah, Shifting Sands with one of the best blood knock scenes, The
scene with him and chin strap. Oh my God.
I have said, I have certainly used that line or a variation of
that line in real life on a number of occasions.
I suppose you're wondering why you sent for me, Okay.
So we will, we will meet again. It probably be next year, Zach.
I'm scheduled right up the wazoo for the rest of the year, but
maybe next year you could come back and talk about shifting
sands. So I'll put you down on the list
for that. And it's been a real pleasure
speaking with you. It's been great having such a
different perspective from someone you know.
I have had someone who's younger than you as a guest, yeah, and
marginally. Yeah, the Spring Robberies
episode. String robberies with Molly.
But you know, she came from that.
You know, let's face it, you know, she grew up in Britain.
It was more, you know, she had a.
She had a parent who introduced her.
So it, you know, you certainly stand out in terms of how you
came to the goons, your cultural upbringing being so different,
not that different, but you know, different.
So it's been a real eye opener and you've raised so many
interesting points and made so many interesting points.
So. I I would love to be back as
soon as possible. I I know you you're you got
shows booked up until the end of the year, but I I loved being on
this show. I've been excited about it for
months, honestly. Well, bless you.
Bless you. Well, listen, thanks again mate
and we will talk again soon. OK.