Now to test my new poetic license.
Where's my letter speaking trumpet?
Ah, moon, you're like a melody type tune.
You're so clever you can rhyme with goon.
Oh, the boon is the moon in June the boon.
I'll think of another rhyme soon.
And in the slant of liberty, I'll make my living at poetry.
You'll starve. Hello and welcome to Goon Pod, a
poem the part of Goon which I began the month before June 3
years ago. Hoon how the time has flown.
I shall stop this very soon. Something something moon, which
very neatly, which pretty craply brings me to the topic of
today's show, which is a lesser known episode of the Goon show,
but a firm fan favorite. And joining me today is a firm
fan 1/2 of the Lord of Adidas Black podcast who who actually
lives in Germany. So apologies in advance for his
his rather baffling Cologne accent.
It's Ian Winnick. Hello, Ian.
Hello, China. Few more words please.
So much air, kind of tune to your accent come.
Yes, I thought your poem was wonderful.
It's it's scanned beautifully. Thank you very much.
So hang on, you've got, you've got a bit of an Irish broke to
that German accent. What's going on there?
Yes, I'm I'm from, I'm from Dublin.
Don't have a Dublin accent thankfully, but I am.
I have a sort of all-purpose Irish accent with a bit of
German intonation every now and then, or so I'm told.
So you're a podcaster, sort of quite recent podcaster, but
you're also your day job I believe is is you're a
translator. Yes, I'm, I'm a translator.
Yeah, translate from German and French to English.
Sorry German, French and English.
From German to English and from French to English.
Oh Blimey. So where where did all this this
facility for languages come from?
When I was a kid and a teenager, I had quite a bad stammer and
which I used to struggle with, and I suspect that actually
managing that, as in reforming sentences we'd get them out,
gave a certain amount of verbal dexterity, which then naturally
transformed itself to languages. OK, there's echoes of Michael
benting, the young Michael benting there because he had a
terrible stammer when he was a child and managed to get over it
through speech therapy and what not, although it was quite
primitive back in those days, I guess.
But he also picked up languages, so perhaps there's there's
something in that. Yeah.
Could be, yeah. Could be.
So Ian, this is the first time that you've been on Goon Bot,
but you're a long term listener, Yes, and and embarrass you now.
I remember you probably a couple of years ago, we we were
messaging about something and you said, oh, you know, I don't
don't know if I'd really want to go on a podcast.
And then, lo and behold, you started your own one recently.
Yeah, yeah. What happened was I got a
message to my website, which was by an American woman called
Emily who runs a podcast called Navigation the French.
And she wanted, and she had read a A blog article that I had
written on the various words for you in French, you know, the
formula and the informal. And she wanted me to come on as
an expert to talk about that. So I was humming and hawing and
will I do this anyway? Anyway, I ended up doing it.
And I always hated the sound of my own voice.
But people said, oh, you sent. Yeah.
Great voice for radio. Yeah, that sounded great.
And yeah. So that sort of said, OK, well,
you know, if the opportunity arises, I might do that.
And then when the opportunity arose to start the podcast, then
it wasn't as difficult as as I might have thought.
It's it once she threw? Yeah.
I mean, I was dead nervous when I started.
I had been a guest on several podcasts leading up to starting
Goopod. But still, you know, it is quite
a daunting prospect. But once you get your first
episode under your belt, it it's it's all downhill or uphill.
No downhill. Downhill, yes.
And once you're in, and once you're in charge of the editing
yourself. Absolutely, absolutely.
OK, so, so I I've been listening fervently to Lord of Eddis
Black. Good.
So do you want to explain to the to the Dimwitched listeners who
haven't picked up on this podcast yet what it's all about?
Right Michael, who lives in Melbourne.
Michael and I are both both ardent Queen fans and we met on
a private chat of another podcast called The Seaside Pod
Review. Anyway, I just floated the idea
of doing a Blackadder podcast because I had heard a Blackadder
podcast and it was each episode of the podcast was about an
episode of Blackadder. And as far as I was concerned,
they didn't do anything except just extract the jokes and talk
about the jokes. And I kind of went, oh, OK, I'm
not inclined to listen to any, any other episode of that.
So late, late at night on that chat, I was, I just said, you
know, I think I could do a better podcast with an iPhone
and a half a bottle of whiskey. And Kevin, who was the guy who
runs the, the, the seaside pod of you now, Kevin has four
podcasts, so I don't think his wife would allow him to have
another one. Michael popped up and said,
well, you know, I'd be up for that.
So you know, you end up shouting your mouth of on the late night
late night chat forum and in the morning you wake up when you
have a blackout of fan podcast. You've given birth to a podcast.
Yes, yes. So what we wanted to do
basically was to do the kind of blackout of fan podcast that we
would like to listen to as blackout of fans.
So rather than focusing 1 episode, we would have different
segments. We would have, for example, a
scene stealer segment where we would do a deep dive on someone
like Ron Lacy who played the baby Asian Bishop of Bath and
Wells or Tom Baker who played Captain Rum and hated his
performance, as we all know. And then we have special guest
son. And then we have trivia treasure
Trove where we try to dig out trivia, but not everyone would
know. And and that's all all packed
into about 40 minutes, 45 minutes.
So it's it's fast moving and yeah, what I've always liked
about your podcast is that it's very tightly edited.
You know, there's no flap there and it's well researched and OK,
our podcast is nothing as well researched as yours is, but we
try to keep nice, nice and tight and fast moving and not over
stale. Welcome.
Absolutely nothing worse than a podcast where you hear
everything. Everything exactly.
One other thing I wanted to include from your podcast, but
which was the no silly voices rule.
Unfortunately, I neglected to tell anybody that I didn't even
tell Michael. And we had a friend of ours
called Harry Hussey who was on to talk about Tom Baker and he
did a very good impression of Tom Baker and Brian Blessed.
So I didn't tell him before I had no silly voices, please.
So I think it's I think it's too late now.
I. Think he gets a pass for that?
He does, yes. Yeah.
Obviously, I guess your dream guest would be the likes of
obviously Rowan and and Tim and and who's Baldrick?
That's Tony. Tony.
Robinson, yes. But also also Jim Broadbent and
Miriam Margulies would be great. Yes, yes.
I always think whenever I think of Miriam Margulies, I think
she's going to because her diction is so absolutely crystal
clear. I always think she's going to
say enunciate, enunciate boy. We have had, as you know, we've
had Simon Osbourne who played Pit the younger, yes, and we
have John Pierce Jones who played Arthur the Sailor, one of
my very favorite scenes. Get it here.
Yes, the whole time I'm going to be saying don't ask him how much
he charges for a good old shag. Don't ask him how much he
charges for a good old shag. So he's coming on in a couple of
weeks time to talk, and I'm very much hoping to have Gabrielle
Glaister on. Oh, I haven't heard back from
her yet, but I haven't written it off just yet.
I don't think Von Atkinson is going to is going is going to
play ball or anything like that, but Tony Robinson strikes me as
being the most accessible of the inner circle, so yes, who knows?
Yes, absolutely yes. Simon Osborne who seems to his
his life. He just seems to be living life
to the full from if if you follow his Twitter feed it seems
to be him travelling around the country with his family.
I guess being being photographed eating large foodstuffs like
massive Cornish pasties and large baguettes full of cheese
and onion and all sorts of weird and wonderful things.
What? What?
What a life that is. Yes, Simon was a wonderful
guest. He just, he just, he jumped at
the chance to come on and talk about it and he was great.
Just wind him up and let him talk and and help give all this
insider view on what it was like to to, you know, to have a scene
with Rowan and what happened before.
You know, Ron pulling faces at him while he's trying to say his
lines and stuff like that was just great.
Yeah. So, OK, I do want to talk about
Blackadder, but I'm going to, we'll, we'll save that for a bit
later, I think because, you know, there may be some goonpod
listeners that don't give 2 figs about Blackadder.
I I scarcely believe that such a person exists.
I would imagine about half of your listeners will be
Blackadder fans as well. Surely to God.
But anyway, we'll, we'll, we'll chat about Blackadder later on.
So we're talking about a specific goon show, which is the
episode The Moon show. The moon is mine.
The moon is mine tonight the silvery beam comes down through
my window and the moon is mine. Tonight is mine.
Your star. What's your history with the
goons then? What's your What's your
background? Right, the first time I heard
the Goon Show was when I was in my early teens and my father was
in the kitchen working with the Radio One as as was as want and
the episode the canal was playing.
Now I'm trying to remember what station it might have been.
I'm sure it was one of the national stations, probably RT
1. Anyway, there's the episode was
the canal and the first scene I heard.
I walked in and it was the scene where Neddy's in the canal and
Minnie and Henry are trying to rescue him with the life saving
manual. Oh yes.
And then I heard the line, but what am I going to do with all
these eggs? And I went, oh, OK.
Then I was hooked. So I asked my dad who that was
about. Or I think my dad was very
pleased actually, that that I, you know, that I immediately
took a shine to this because he knew that from his childhood.
He's English. So he, he probably had more
exposure to that kind of thing than than than someone of his
generation in Ireland. I probably hadn't heard of Spike
Milligan at that stage. I might have seen him on The
Muppet Show, but I've probably seen Peter Sellers in the, in
the in the Pink Panther films. But, but really, I didn't know
anything about them. And yeah, I always thought there
was something very niche about it back then.
Like I'm sure none of my school friends were familiar with it.
But looking back, all the Goon Show classic tapes, they were
all on sale in Easterns, which was the big bookshop on
O'Connell St. in Dublin. They were all on sale.
So, you know, so can't have been that far from the mainstream.
But they didn't have the canal, they had loads and loads of
great stuff which which I really loved as well.
So I spent quite a while chasing that initial high so I could
hear the rest of the canal. Yeah, because the canal was
never issued on one of the Goon Show classics, LP's or, or tapes
that the BBC put out, you know, in the 70s into the 80s.
Yeah, I never understood that. Because it is.
It's better than a lot of the stuff that was released, I
thought. Yeah, yeah, it's an odd one to
be excluded. Bungie can say that about so
many goon shows that weren't on those LP's, all those, all those
early tapes, you know, But it, it eventually came out, I guess
on cassette at some point. So when did you pick it up?
Yeah, It was in my efforts to find the canal, actually, that I
stumbled upon the Moon Show about 20 years ago.
I think I was in already in Germany.
I had bought 100 or so Goon Show episodes on two DVDs from I
think it was. I think it was a legitimate sort
of, it might even have been the Goon Show Preservation Society
or something like that. It was on two DVDs, so 50
episodes in each and print outs of the list.
And I was actually looking for, you know, I'd found the canal.
I was looking for any something else with an interesting title.
And I saw the mysterious punch of the conquer and I went, oh,
I'll have that. So I, I, I listened to that, but
the episode was, was mislabeled. It was actually the moon show,
which was the previous episode chronologically.
And I think because also because it has a reference to a punch of
the conch right at the start. It does, yes.
Yes. In fact, there's two references
I think by my counting because I think Seeking threatens
Greenslade with a punch up the conch later on in the show.
He does, yes, when Greenslade asks him if he can take his
place. Yeah, Greenslade's angling for
his job. Yes.
Many correspondents have asked why I have not made more
significant and prolonged appearances in my role of
Wallace Greenslade, demon talker.
I can assure you that I have approached Mr. Seagoon with
regard to taking over his part in the show, he said.
Well I've got it written down here, you stick to announcing or
you will get a punch up your big steaming conch which which as
you all agree, is not the wittiest of lions.
So. I mean, the canal's obviously
the first one you heard and that's probably you would say
that's your favorite, is it? My favorite is probably the
international Christmas pudding. Oh, always loved that for some
reason. And then be mostly the classics
that I would listen to sort of lyrically strikes Britain and
the flea. And I mean, I don't really go by
the series, but I was just looking at series 7.
This is from and there was the flea wings over Dagnham, the
rent collectors histories of the elders.
So a lot of my favourites were were actually in this, in the
same series as this. Absolutely, yeah.
Series 7, I think we, we worked out a while back because we did
the listeners top 20 goon shows and we worked out just in terms
of all the votes cast, even those that didn't make the top
20. I think it was, I think I'm
right in saying it might be Series 6, but I think, I think
it was either Series 6 or Series 7 had the most shows that
Lister's enjoyed, you know what I mean?
And and it is a bit looser. Series 7 is a bit looser than
Series 5 certainly, and even Series 6, although as you get
towards the end of Series 6 it loosens up quite a bit.
What do you mean by loosen exactly?
It's not so heavily plotted. I mean, they're not.
They're never heavily plotted. Let's face.
It. But but like the ending of this
is just kind of a a nothing the ending of the the main show,
it's just kind of a bit of a damp squib.
And that's often how shows around, you know, late series 7
into certainly series 8 would would end up, but not in a not
necessarily loose in a bad way, just kind of anything goes.
And and the voices were becoming a bit loose.
And Moriarty, of course, by this point was, you know, Spike was
leaning into that slightly strangulated Wretch kind of
voice that Moriarty would take on.
Yes. Do you have a favorite
character? My favorite 2 characters would
be Neddy and Grid Pipe. I love Neddy.
I think he's often overlooked. He's just, yeah, he's just so
much energy. And I love Grid Pipe because
he's so suave. And yeah, I'm, I'm OK.
Obviously I like Echols and Blue Bottle as well, but I was never,
you know, all that into Echols and Blue Bottle.
I always feel that they sort of stop the that they sort of stop
the story. Going anywhere, Yeah, yeah.
Well, I'd say do you enjoy the the shows in particular where
which is which is most of the where grip pipe is chiseling
Neddy? Yes, that's exactly, Yeah, I've
got my notes here. Actually, I I, I said yeah,
Neddy and Grid Pipe are my two favorite characters and I love
plots that revolve around Neddy being taken for a ride by Grid
Pipe, which is most episodes. So pretty much exactly exactly
what you just said. This show is certainly counted
among them. I'll give you I'll give you a
bit of background. So this was the 18th episode of
Series 7, broadcast 31st of January 1957, written by Spike
Milligan and Larry Stevens and produced by Pat Dixon.
And it was well, the week leading up to this recording,
all three of the goons had been due to appear on the television
show What's My Line? But this was cancelled as it was
discovered at the last minute that, surprise, surprise, Peter
Sellers had another commitment that clashed with it, and he
hadn't bothered telling anyone. So, so the so I mean the are you
aware of What's My Line, the television show?
Vaguely, I've never seen it. Yeah, I mean, the goons
themselves did a a did a show all about it called.
Apparently yes. Which wasn't very good, to be
fair. But, but, but no, I mean, that
would have been brilliant. Obviously.
I suppose even if they'd gone on, it would have been lost.
We wouldn't, we wouldn't be able to see it these days.
But I mean, I guess they must have been they they would have
been on the panel because the whole conceit was that you'd
have a panel of three personalities and then some non
entity would would come out and give clues as to his or her
occupation. And then the panel had to guess
what that occupation was. So I'm guessing that the goons
would have been on the panel, which would have been brilliant.
Yes, it would have been. Brilliant such a thing.
And the night before they recorded this episode, The Moon
Show, Spike appeared on The Eamonn Andrews Show on
television. All right, Eamonn Andrews.
Yeah, I'm brilliant. Yes, one of your fellow
countrymen 1. Of my fellow countrymen, yeah.
Now, transcription services always, you know, when they,
when they sent these shows out, they included the synopsis,
which is usually quite pithy and gives a, you know, a good sort
of flavour as to what the show's about.
And for this one, the synopsis reads, it is 1853.
The poet Nadie Seagoon, in search of romance, cries for the
moon. Blood tests show that the moon,
which is owned by Count Moriarty, is French.
He is forced to sell it by public auction.
Neddy outbids all his opponents, and the moon is his.
But is it the genuine moon? We doubt very much whether this
program will tell you so. That's it.
It's. Great.
Now this show. I've said this before on Goon
Pod. I was obsessed with it, with the
Goon show when I was, you know, I first listened to it when I
was 14 by accident. I've said this so many times,
people are skipping forth 30 seconds now on their, on their
phones. But I, I was so obsessed by it
that it got to the stage where I remember, I remember really hot,
blisteringly hot summer afternoon, summer of 88 into 89.
Because of course, summer there when I was growing up was
December, January, February. I and I was, I was off school
because it was school holidays and I remember all my friends
were out, you know, playing in the sun and frolicking.
And, and I was sat inside, sat indoors at my dad's old manual
typewriter, old Remington manual typewriter, which I think the E
or the T didn't work properly. And I was transcribing the Moon
show. I was, I was typing out the
script or typing out a transcript of the actual show,
right? Don't ask me why.
I just remember doing it. And it taken me all afternoon
because I'd, I'd be listening to the episode and then, and then
pause again after a couple of seconds and typing out what was
said or what the sound effect was, you know what I mean?
And then playing it again for another few seconds and pausing
it and typing up. You know what I mean?
And I did that for the whole entire show of, you know,
episode of the Moon show. Right.
And I don't know why I chose the Moon show.
I do enjoy it, but it wasn't not necessarily my favorite game
show episode. I don't know what it was.
And also, I'm sure having having listened to it now and having
read the actual proper script and also the, the GSPS
transcript of the show, there's, there's lines here and things
like that that I would never have picked up my ear would not
have picked up as a, as a callow 14 year old youth, relatively
inexperienced in life and, and educated to a degree.
And listening to it for this and enjoying it very much.
It struck me that it was Spike's swipe at the modern poets.
I feel right now. I know that he, I mean, as, as
everyone knows, Spike went on to become a very accomplished poet
and very well regarded and his, his poetry is, you know, people
still enjoy his poetry to to this day, but he's, you know,
it's nonsense poetry. I, I don't really know how he
felt about the quote modern poets around this time.
So I'm talking the likes of chiefly.
Philip Larkin. Yeah, possible.
I think. I think Larkin was possibly a
little bit more conventional. Yeah, conventional.
As was the likes of WH Jordan. Anyway, I don't know enough
about poetry to speak with a new authority.
I know that Philip Larkin wrote this be the verse and things
like that, but I think things like people like Dylan Thomas,
particularly under Milk Wood, which was is quite a stream of
consciousness to a degree. It's quite absurd, which should
have appealed to to to Spike. But I've got a feeling that
Spike was a bit sort of bemused about avant-garde poetry, which
is what I want to call it. Yeah, it could be.
It could be that they were, that he felt that that they were
taking his shtick and making it something intellectual rather
than something humour. Maybe.
Yeah, could be that. Maybe, yeah.
So I, I, as I say, I, I this, I think this is a bit of a dig at
the modern poetry movement. If if there is such a thing or
was such a thing. Now there's there's a bit
memorably, this is the bit that many people remember about this
show. There's the the sequence where
where grit pipe thin makes up a poem.
And I've just put my notes here. Grit pipe recites crap poem.
There once was a beautiful moon. It was up in the sky charm when
he said what's the time? They replied what and the horse
departed leaving spawn. It's not just the words, but
it's the way it's delivered. Yes, and also what I love about
about grid pipe in this episode is that he's a bit more
cultivated than the usual sort of steam the stamp off and catch
it. I mean, he seems, he seems
generally put out that Neddy complaints that his poem doesn't
rhyme or scan. About a year ago, I guess maybe
more than that, on Gamepod, we covered the the the last one of
Peter Sellers, which was the fiendish plot of Doctor Fu
Manchu. And my guests on that were
Jeremy and Paul from the Trap Comedy Trio, and they mentioned
the poem from this episode. That contains our favorite
insanity inspired. Joy, Yeah.
Pure Miller. Miller Garner, I presume it is.
The Limerick is. Let me see if I can remember it.
There once was a beautiful moon. It was up in the sky, chum.
And he said, what's the time? They replied, what?
And the horse departed, leaving spawn.
Honestly, that's the maddest thing that's ever been
broadcast. Which is?
It was those exact words that crack the Enigma machine.
Right. Doesn't make any sense.
Who are they? What?
Exactly. He said what?
And I mentioned to a friend of mine last night that I'm doing
this episode and he said, oh, then once it was a beautiful
moon. It was up in the sky jump.
So it's it's resonated, yes. So I don't necessarily want to
go through because I don't tend to go through these episodes in
a linear fashion. Like I think you said about the
Black Eyed podcast you had, there's not a lot of purpose in
doing that, but there's some sense in me giving a bit of an
overview. I mean, that's synopsis I said
earlier, didn't really help very much.
But essentially we've got Ned Segan, who's an aspiring poet,
and he buys a poetic license from Grip Piper Moriarty, and he
begins composing poetic verse in tribute to the moon largely.
And Grip Piper Moriarty persuaded Neddy that the moon
was in Moriarty's family for many years, but it's now being
auctioned off. And Ned buys the moon.
And when he hears blood not singing, it was spring, and the
moon above Paris, he realizes the one above England must be a
forgery. And so on and so on.
And there's a joke, which again, that, you know, back in 1988 or
1989, whenever I was typing away, there's a joke that
completely passed me by. And it's only now as an adult,
but I actually get it. What, what, what, what, what,
what, what, what, what, what, what, what?
Only 10 watts? Oh, not very bright.
Hey, don't. Push the note and it's only now
if I get that that's a joke about WATTS.
Yeah, yeah. Did you always get that?
Yes, I definitely got it. Yeah.
Although to be fair, I first heard this when I was about 25,
so it would have been rather silly and.
Of course. OK, so yes, so, so Sea Sea Goon
is being swindled, fooled by Grip Piper Moriarty, who claimed
to have ownership of the moon. There's the bit where Grip Pipe
asks Neddy to write a check on the side of a horse.
Now that was a joke, of course. But didn't there used to be
something that you could, you could write a check on anything
and it would be valid like you could.
And the famous thing was you could, you could write a check
on the side of a cow and it would still be valid.
Have you heard that before? No, no, I just thought it was.
I thought it was just weirdness for weirdness sake basically.
No, I am. I'm sure that used to people
that used to be a thing that people would say you could write
a cheque on anything and the bank would have to honour it.
Even if it was, you know, if you painted I owe such and such 5
lbs on the side of a cow, then took it to the bank, they'd have
to cash in that cow. Probably the the.
There was probably more than a gem of truth from that, but.
It could have been yes, it could have been because he gives him a
receipt on a banjo. That's.
Right. Yes.
So. What, what bits of this show, of
this particular episode appeal to you?
Right. My favorite bit is when Neddy is
invited to Good Pipes office in the tree and as they climb up
the tree you can hear the sound of a busy 1950s office.
So typewriters clacking the hung of conversation and I just think
that's brilliant. That is my favorite part,
definitely. Listen, Neddy, you're very.
Fond of the moon, aren't you? Yes, if only two of mine.
Neddy, it can be. Step up into the tree, into my
office. Good morning now, Neddy.
Pull up your trousers and sit down.
Neddy. The moon has been in Mariati's
family for many generations. You mean the mood is of French
origin? So the blood tests show.
Yeah, so I, I, I think that this episode is very front loaded.
There's an awful lot of good stuff at the start and it sort
of runs out of steam with at the end.
As always. As always, yes.
Yeah, I want to talk about because you'd listened to, you
were familiar with the transcription services version,
yes, editor version of this, which lasts 27 minutes all in.
But you'd also I think you said your version had had Ray and Max
cut out of it. Yes, which was my doing.
It's like right, there we go. So there's my next question.
Are you not a fan of Ray and Max?
I think that, I mean the chromatic harmonica is when he
play, I mean, obviously he's a, he's a genius.
He he obviously he's, he's absolute master of the
instrument, but it just sounds so awful compared to when Stevie
Wonder played it, for example, and it just sounds so joyous and
magical and it's the same instrument.
So I could all out Max Geldry generally.
I do like some of Ray Ellington's stuff.
I do like it when he plays Fats Waller or stuff like that.
But yeah, it's not what I'm there for.
OK, fair enough. Fair enough.
So yeah, so I checked with you. You you'd heard the edited
version, so I sent you the fully restored version that you can
get on the Goonshoe Compendium. And there's, there's, there's a
few bits that you're would not have been accustomed to, I
guess. Yes, there was quite a lot about
Stanley Matthews. Right.
He was an an English footballer, he.
Was He was probably the most famous English foot.
In fact, he's myself. I've got a complete tin ear when
it comes to football. So I cannot hold my own ever in
conversations with people. You know, if I if back back in
the day when my kids were little and I used to have to take them
to bloody kids parties, you know, and very often, usually
there'd be mums taking their kids to these kids parties, but
they'd generally be one or two rather gloomy faced dads there
as well. And, and you kind of go up to
them and sort of nod and then make small talk at these at
these affairs, OK. And generally speaking, the
conversation would turn to football.
Yes. That is the default topic of
conversation, which I sadly just said completely at sea.
You know, I I can't join in these conversations at all.
You're not the only one. Yeah, so, but, you know,
sometimes I would try and pretend that I knew what I was
talking about. And so, you know, if, if the
conversation went along the lines of, you know, did you see
the match last night, I, I knew it was fairly safe ground to
say, well, yeah, it was a game of two halves and usually get
away with it, you know, because you're not, you're not being
specific about anything. Sorry, can I just interrupt you
very, very quickly? You know, there's an IT Crowd
episode about exactly that. Is there?
Oh yes. Oh right, I didn't know that.
I'm not plagiarizing the IT crowd, but my knowledge of
actual footballers extended to around this time, probably David
Beckham, Rio Ferdinand and Stanley Matthews, which is
complete anachronism, of course. But no, he was he was probably
the most famous English footballer of of his.
Well, he would have been of his day.
And it's very interesting because I've got a copy of Larry
Stevens actual script for this show.
OK. And presumably he must have been
there at the rehearsal on the, on the Sunday that they were
recording this ahead of them recording this.
And we've got the, the sequence with Blue Bottle and Echoes.
And they, they are astronomers that Nettie is going to consult.
And in the original script, So if you read the Blue Bottle echo
sequence in the original script, it's relatively short,
relatively short leading up to before Minnie and Henry arrive.
It's quite short. OK, if I'm, I'm talking about
the original and I'm looking at the original script here and
Larry Stevens has crossed out the what, half a page of Blue
Bottle and Echo's dialogue here. And then on the back of page
nine of the script, he, I'm assuming it's he, Larry has
written a, a bunch of brand new dialogue between Blue Bottle and
Echo's. So I'm, I'm assuming that what
what's happened is that he's been there at rehearsal with
Spike and Peter and Harry and they've decided amongst
themselves that the sequence as written in the script is a bit
flat. So let's, let's bulk it out a
bit, let's add a bit of extra colour to it.
And they add this dialogue between Blue Bottle Knuckles
that includes references to Anisa Eckberg.
Hey, Professor Eckles, that Anita Eckberg's a fine big
guarantee. Yeah, here, let me share that
postcard 0. Oh yeah, she's a fine big girl,
all right. That's not her.
There's a picture of Stanley Matthew.
Oh well, he's a fine big girl too now.
Done. Please Professor Bottle my good
mind, let me get on with my mathematical work.
Not getting. Oh, why would you let me say no
computations? I am mathematics.
Hello mathematics X is the unknown X.
Who do you think Arsenal will beat the Spur this week?
I should think. I should think it's most
unlikely. Why?
They're playing Blackpool. Oh, who here?
Doesn't Stanley Matthews play for them?
Yeah, he's a fine big girl, isn't he?
I need Redburg. She doesn't play football.
Who cares? About football.
Most of that new material was actually cut from the
transcription services edit of this particular show.
And it's quite interesting as well because we get Minnie and
Henry arriving and I think Henry is meant to be a professor,
although maybe heads up the, the, the, what is it?
Observatory? That's what it would be, isn't
it? But Blue Bottle refers to many
as Auntie Men. Auntie.
Men, Yeah. Which he's done a few times in
the show. Many and and Blue Bottle have
this little scripted dialogue where many asked Blue Bottle why
he's out of bed without his pajama trousers on and he says.
We was playing from the latest films, Eric.
Little Jim had my pajama trousers over his neck.
He got one arm down, the Lego waving about like a trunk.
He was an elephant, you see. But suddenly I sneezed and I see
the my trousers fell out, knocking Little Jim into the
bath. Oh dear, dear Little Jim.
Little Jim, Little Jim. Tell them what happened, Little
Jim. Zarac, does that meant, does
that mean anything to you at all?
No. OK, so this is where the whole
Anita Ekberg thing comes in. Because Zarac was a feature film
which had literally been released in cinemas in the UK
what fortnight before this show was recorded and it was causing
quite a bit of controversy and quite a lot of harrumphing in
the media and and in Parliament. It was a 1956, what do you call
it, adventure film. And it was directed by future
bomb director, I think Terence Young.
And it starred Victor Mature, Michael Welding and Anita
Eckberg and also a very young Patrick Mcgoohan.
And it's basically a forget. I mean, I've never seen it.
In fact, I've never heard of it really outside of this show, but
it's it's basically the, the, the, the, the, the title
character Zarek becomes a bandit chief and an enemy of the
British Empire. But Anita Ekberg was quite
famous or infamous around this time for being quite voluptuous,
quite quite busty and a a poster promoting the film in which she
was very much front and centre even though she wasn't the star.
Of the film. Questions were actually asked in
the house. All right now I want to thank, I
want to thank friend of the show, Paul Abbott, by the way,
because Paul is the guy to go to what I want.
You know, well, not just it's not just Paul, but Paul, Paul is
one of the friends of the show who can summon up newspaper
archive material at the, you know, at the stroke of a of a
key. By the way, listeners, I'm a
avid listener every Monday morning to Paul and his brother
Gary's podcast The Big Beatles Sort Out, which is known to its
third series, I think, which is The Big 60s Sort Out, in which
Paul and Gary examine and discuss every number one single
in the UK from the 1960s. And I think they're up to
something ridiculous like episode 28, not 2930.
And they're only up to 1966 for Cliff's sake.
Fascinating. Very, very informative, very
funny. And it's a really good listen.
So please seek out big 60s sort out.
Brought to you by the big Beatles sort out.
And also, I'll embarrass him now.
But Paul is also the man behind the music biopic or biopic?
Not sure. I can never know which
pronunciation to use. Music biopic story on Instagram.
You can check that out. It's instagram.com/music under
score biopic and Paul is putting up content there from basically
every film about musicians or a musician or such like.
So yeah, check that out and that's on Instagram.
Thanks again, Paul. And can I have my cat back now,
please? There was a little column in the
Daily Telegraph on the 10th of January 57 saying ban on Ekberg
film poster nudity. Objection, said a film poster
showing Anita Ekberg. The actress has been banned by
the joint censorship committee of the poster advertising
industry on the grounds that it is too nude, too nude Right now
I've seen it. It ain't too nude.
It's it's. Works time.
No, I wouldn't even say that it's quite, it's quite quite
tame I think. But it was attacked recently by
Lord Lucas as bordering on the obscene, would you believe?
So it's a little bit of pill clutching going on there I
think. The poster advertised in the
film Zarek shows a 12 foot long Miss Ekberg reclining in a
desert in front of a shake on a prancing horse.
So far it has appeared on 8 hoardings in the West End.
But yeah, so this poster was was causing all no, no end of bother
in the media at the time. And as a result, we have this
reference going back to it, going back to the show where
Blue Bottle and Little Jim have been playing at Zarac.
And hence we get the reference in this speedily rewritten
sequence with blue bottleneckles on the day, you know, including
Anita Ekberg. But it's an interesting example
of them writing on the fly, still writing the show on the
afternoon of the recording, you know?
So was that the actual script that Larry Stevens had and was
and had written on himself? It's a copy of it.
It's fascinating. Look at these scripts because as
I say, there's all crossings, outs and amendments and
additions, you know? So, yeah.
And we mentioned Little Jim. What did you think of Little
Jim's appearance in this? Yeah, I don't find Little Jim
very funny particularly, especially since I heard that
Spike introduced him as a kind of bet that he could introduce a
catch phrase. And he wasn't inherently funny
either. And and even less funny when
when you hear how contrived it was so.
Yeah, that's all it was. And he was introduced in The
Rent Collectors officially, although Spike can't resist
doing a little he's he's falling in the water in Wings Over
Dagenham, which was actually recorded, I think I'm writing
saying the same night as The Rent Collectors.
But officially, Little Jim, his debut was in The Rent
Collectors. And that's where we hear this
catch phrase is falling in the water for the first time
officially. And then you have the show after
Rent Collectors, which is Shifting Sands and which Little
Jim doesn't appear at all. And then you have this show and
Little Jim dutifully trots out his catch phrase, which everyone
seems to enjoy because it's still quite fresh.
And then a little bit later in the show, he says that again and
gets just as much appreciation. But but unlike you, I'm with
you. I, I was never a big fan of
Little Jim. No, despite trying to make a
point, I don't quite know. Or just it was another voice for
him to do. Yeah, he's been quite
contemptuous of his audience, really.
I mean, he's saying, oh, we'll give him any old crap and, and
they'll laugh and and they'll if it's a catch phrase that they'll
love it. Yeah, well, the very cynically
they he has form for doing that, although it doesn't exist
anymore. There's there's early goon show
or an early goon show or goon shows where he's tried to
crowbar in catch phrases which never taken off, generally
speaking, like more Cole, Larry, Larry, more Cole.
That was one of them and others in that vein.
Yeah. I mean, it might be a savage
indictment against the state of radio comedy in the 1950s by
Spike. I'm not quite sure.
Or just meant that he you know, it's an easy bit for him to
write in the script every week. Tail you.
This is an enjoyable show. There's there's a couple of
lines in particular. I loved the bit when when Grip
Pipe and and Moriarty are on a train, they're catching a train
to Tangiers I think. I especially asked for the sheet
grip pipe with our backs to the engine.
I wondered why we were sitting on the cow catcher.
When I first heard that as a kid, it just the whole image of
that, it just, it was like a cartoon image in my head.
That is so funny. And of course, Sellers doing a
comedy Italian at one point. You saved my life.
Well, we all make mistakes. I know I saw your wife etcetera,
etcetera, all that all that is very, very good.
But it is, you know, it is fairly, it is a fairly by the
numbers going show. Well, I, I would just think that
it's my favorite of the shows that not all would know it's my,
I mean, I would know all the classics.
I would know all the ones in your top 20, for example.
But these will be ones that a lot of people wouldn't know, for
example. And I think they're missing out
because there's a lot to like about this.
There's a lot of good gags. There's also we mentioned Ray
and Max before. You won't have heard this
because you cut this bit out, but in the Ray number.
I heard it today. Oh, you heard it today.
Yes, as as as it reaches its climax, Men decides to join in
and makes it makes Ray Breakdown laughing.
Is this the word? And I love it that they kept
that in and they didn't try to redo it or whatever, but it
really adds to it. Yeah.
So one thing I was wondering actually was whether people were
more poetry literate in those days.
Well, perhaps. For example, OK, Philip Larkin
sort of came to prominence in the mid 50s, and I would imagine
he was pretty much a household name.
OK, perhaps not a household name, but if you ask people
nowadays who is the current poet laureate, I don't think you're
going to get many, many answers, no.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how famous he was back then.
He was, he became famous. I mean, I chiefly know him for
his friendship with Kingsley Amos, for this be the verse with
with that infamous opening line, and for the fact he was a keen
connoisseur of pornography. Yes, yes.
But no, I'm sure that the 1950s audiences would have been much
more poetry literate than than scumbags like us in 2024.
Let's face it, people would have been listening to the radio a
lot more and and you'd have had improving programs featuring
poetry readings and things like that.
I'm sure you know every other day at least.
Yes, yes, I'm sure. Yeah, sure.
And Speaking of that, actually, because you're, you're a, you're
a queen fan. You're a huge queen fan.
I'm guessing in general, you're a big music fan.
Are you of that period, that that period, that sort of queen,
that 70s into the 80s period or, or?
Not yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
Where are you going with this Tyler all?
Right. Well, OK, well, there's two how
do I put this? How do I put this?
It's just occurred to me now I was going to mention it earlier
and I completely forgot, but you've you by you mentioning
about the audiences being poetry literate.
There's there's there's two poets at least directly or
indirectly referenced in this particular episode who inspired
2 very popular popular music acts, if you like.
Robert Browning was mentioned. Well, Robert Browning, yeah, but
he didn't inspire anyone in terms of popular music, as far
as I know. He may have, he may have
inspired Taylor Swift, I don't know.
But as far as I know, no, not him.
Not him. There's a bit where Blood Knock
refers to Neddy as as Neddy under Milk Pudding, which is
obviously a reference to. Dylan Thomas, Yeah.
And of course, Dylan Thomas. In what way did he inspire
someone? Can you?
Can you think? Bob Dylan.
Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan was going, I believe Bob Dylan
was going to was going to call himself Bob Dylan anyway, but it
was going to be spelled DI double LON.
And then he read, I don't know if whether he read under Milk
water. He read some of Dylan Thomas
poems and decided now I'm going to, I'm going to call myself Bob
Dylan Dylan. There you go.
But more interestingly, at one point earlier on the show, when
Grip Hub and Moriarty first meet Ned, Neddy refers to himself as
Neddy Davis Seigen, celebrated ink writer and tramp poet for
East Clun. Did you pick up on that?
No. Well, yeah, I heard, he said
Davis. But I I don't understand the
things. Well, I didn't for the longest
time. I didn't know what that meant,
who that was referring to, Neddy, Davis, Segan.
Now I think it's the fact what gives it away is he refers
himself as a tramp poet. And excuse me, there is the poet
WH Davis, who was a Welsh poet who travelled around Britain and
and the United States pretty much as a hobo, as a tramp,
living, living rough. But then he started publishing
poetry as a means of earning a living and he became quite
celebrated. He died in, I think he was born
in the 1870s. He died in 1940.
Yeah. So he was this, this tramp who
was a poet essentially. And he wrote his Probably his
most famous work was The Autobiography of a Supertramp.
OK. And that's where Supertramp got
the name from, right? That's where Supertramp got
their name from, and that was chronicling the life of a
gentleman of the road. And not only Supertramp the
Band, but it was, it was championed by the likes of
George Bernard Shaw and it was thought to have influenced
Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London.
And Dylan Thomas recorded it for broadcast on BBC Radio in 1948.
Right, so there we go. So we're back there.
So, you know, a couple of, I mean, you know, Dylan's OK, but
Supertramp, you know, that is Major League Music legends
there, aren't we? And I do like, I do like me some
Supertramp being honest, I really do.
In fact, I prefer, I mean, I like Queen, OK.
But if you, if you, if you ask me, what would you prefer to
listen to the best of Queen or the best of Supertramp?
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
It would be. It would be the best of
Supertramp every time. OK, now what I'd love to do now
is to play a goon's clip of feet walking away.
The door's slamming. Yes.
Well, yeah. There we go.
I'm sure you could help someday. Yeah, OK.
So look, it's, it's a slight show, the moon show, there's not
a huge amount to to to talk about, but we've we've I think
we've covered the major points. So now, now that we've got that
unpleasantness out of the way, I'm only joking, listeners.
Now I want to talk a little bit about Blackadder.
Yes, if you don't mind. And I just don't want to
infringe upon any plans that you've got in terms of content
for your show. No, no, no, no.
But I do recall you have some quite heretical views.
Do I? In what?
In what fashion? I'm a leader.
Well, I well, in the sense that, but you're in agreement with me
because I think that Series 1, the Blackadder is criminally
underrated. I think it is after series 2.
It's my favorite series and I preparing for this because I
knew we were going to talk about Blackadder a little bit.
Anyway, I just jotted down a couple of favourites.
OK, so I've jotted down my favorite episode of each of the
four series and cards on the table, by the way.
It used to be, I don't know what's changed as I've got
older. It used to be that my my
favorite series of Blackadder would would run series 2, then
the Blackadder, so series 1, then Blackadder Goes Forth, and
then Blackadder the third. I always used to be quite cool
towards Blackadder the Third, comparatively speaking.
Yes, that's what I remembered. But in in recent years, having
watched rewatched bits of goes forth, I'm not as I'm not as
into it as it used to be. Yes, I heard you talk about that
with Chris. Oh, Chris Diamond, Yeah.
Yes, with Chris Diamond, and I think he said it was a bit more
self referential. Was that it?
There was a lot. There was a lot more Ben
Altonisms, yes, that they kind of relied on, I felt.
But anyway, I've written down my favorite episodes from each of
the four series. So from series one from the
Blackadder, it's always been this.
The Queen of Spain's beard has always been yes, My favorite
yes, just for Jim Broadbent more than anything.
Yes, absolutely. Then from Series 2, Blackadder
2, it's beer. So a return again of Miriam
Magalies, because I thought she was, she was the Spanish infant.
Yes, that was the that was the most popular among viewers and
the least popular among the cast for that season.
Oh, why was why was it at least popular?
I mean, you know, I know that Miriam Magalies kept hitting
people. It could be that actually, yeah,
yeah. From Blackader the Third, it's
Sense and Senility, with Hugh Paddock and Kenneth Connor as
the actors. Yes.
I love that and from goes forth, it's actually, and I don't quite
know why, but it's General Hospital.
Could be Miranda Richards. Yeah, Miranda Richardson episode
with Bill Wallace as Yeah, as is it Smith, Smith, Smith.
Yes, yes. It's just for it's for the post
coital cigarette sequence and a few lines here and there, but
mostly it's for the bit that it just completely pulled the rug.
It's the bit right at the end where Blackadder reveals that
it's actually Miranda Richardson, her character, Nurse
Brown. Is that right?
Who's who's the German spy? And then you have that, that
tender moment when she looks him in the eye and she says, oh,
Edmund, I thought. I thought she loved me.
And there's a heartbeat as he stares at it.
And he just goes, Nah, and sends her away.
Yes. You all romantic here.
I remember laughing so much at that.
Favorite character overall from you know, regular character I
would say would be Percy. I really love Percy,
particularly series 2 Percy. And my favorite one off
character would be Warren Clark as Mr. Hardwood.
You know, I had a feeling that you're going to say that and
actually, yes. And in the episode we're going
to be recording on on Sunday morning, he's going to be a
scene stealer. Oh, brilliant, yes, but you can
mention me on the on the show when you when you record it, you
can mention that's my favorite, my favorite one off character.
So yeah, I mean, I just wanted to throw that in because when,
when else am I going to get a chance, unless I guessed on your
podcast sometime to talk? About You have been invited
several times. Well, I will, I will turn up
now. What is the form?
Do I have to come on with six favorite episodes or something?
Is that is that how it works? Well, we have yeah, the Ark for
want of a better word of the first season, for want of a much
better word is a newbie list. So what happens is a friend of
ours, it was a podcast, Shakespearean actor, comedy
nerd, but he's American, so he doesn't hasn't seen Blackout
before. So what we, what we're doing
with our listeners is getting people to list 6 episodes that
will be an introduction to someone who has never seen a
black guy before. And we're going to show it to
this, this friend, he's going to come on in in a couple of months
time and talk us through them. So I would imagine that by the
time you come on, we'll be, we'll have moved on to the
second season. So yeah, you'll be spared, be
spared that fair enough. But now I'd love to come on and
talk about, I don't know what. What would I come on and talk
about what? What aspect of the Blackadder
universe could I talk about? That's, that's the beauty of
doing a Blackadder podcast. The universe is, is there's so
much, so much stuff there. There's, there's really, you
know, there's no danger of that running out anytime soon.
No, OK. So guys, as as we said at the
top of the show, the podcast, Ian's podcast is Lord of That is
Black, which is a great title as well.
Brilliant title and it's available in all the usual
places. I guess.
Any plans for any other podcasts?
Well, we are going to do a couple of a couple of off topic
episodes where, for example, that I introduced Michael to a
sitcom he's never seen before. I'm not going to say what it is
now. And Michael has introduced me to
a sitcom that I'd never seen before.
And and so we're going to be doing sort of bonus episode for
just when, you know, if life gets in the way.
And, and we weren't able to manage having an episode every
two weeks, which hasn't been so difficult so far, But I was in
holiday. So we then then we released the
bonus episode and that might be something to release over
Christmas when we take a bit of a break.
OK, OK. And and you're not going to tell
me the names of these sitcoms, of course, But because he's
Australian, Mike, isn't he? So is his sitcom from Australia.
No, it's not. It's not.
No, no, no. OK all.
Right. No.
Intriguing. But if I were to tell you that
that mice coming from Ireland, you would probably guess what it
is. Oh yes?
Well, oh, you're telling me he's never seen that?
He's never seen that, no. Oh my God, Does it travel?
Has it travelled Down Under? Really.
I don't, I don't know. Well, apparently not, because he
he he was trying to find it on DVD and he had to import it and
then it wouldn't work on his DVD player.
That's crazy. Yes, yes.
Oh, before we before we totally wrap up, can I just be because
it's my show, so I can, I just want to promote.
I just want to promote last week.
The latest episode, this month's The month of October's edition
of Goon Pod Film Club dropped and this month it is Carry On
Screaming You a Carry On Film Fanny and.
No, no. Stuff like Carry On and Benny
Hill and all that. That was never allowed in our
house. Like it was a bit sinful.
It's nutty. Yeah, it's nutty.
OK, I don't. I don't really get the sense
that I've actually missed anything to be honest.
Carry on screaming is is is one of the better ones for sure.
And myself and Andrew and Lisa from around the Archives
podcast, we spent 90 minutes or so talking about the making of
the background to it, the stars, the jokes, the the everything,
everything and everything. And, and as they are TV archive
nuts, there was lots of references to the likes of
Doctor Who. There's a danger that, you know,
if you start talking about Doctor Who in a podcast, I can
just take off and just just sort of envelope the whole
conversation. So I tried to keep it at a
minimum. But also Z Cars and Steptoe and
Son and loads of loads of sort of telly references that were
relevant to care on Screaming as well as of course, The Addams
Family and The Munsters, both of which to a certain degree
inspired certain scenes in Carol screaming.
If you want to check that out, it's go over to patreon.com/goon
Pod and you can, there's a free trial if you want to listen to
that and see if you like it and want to sign up for the rest.
Other than that, Ian, I think, I think we're done.
I. Think we're done?
Yes. Lovely.
Thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to being
a guest on your podcast in the coming months or years.
Yes. Well, thank you for having me
and thank you for listening. And yeah, we'd love to have you
on in about in a couple of months time.
Brilliant. Thanks, Ian.
OK. Thanks, Tyler.
Bye bye.