Hello, listeners. And I'm speaking from
Churchstone Prison, the new Social reform prison.
And standing next to me is the prison governor, Mr. Norris
Luka. Good evening, Mr. Luka.
Good evening, Grand. Mr. Luka, this is is it not a
prison without bars? Yes, I.
Believe that when man gives us his word not to escape, that's
good enough for us. We have no restrictions on the
prisoners whatsoever. Whatsoever.
Anytime they like, they can walk out of hell.
No bars. No bars at all.
All we have is that word of honor.
Yes. Grand Grand, Could we interview
one of these honor prisoners? Certainly good, good.
James. James Wilson.
Patty Wilson, Hamilton Hamilton, Johnny Brown, Willoughby,
Crouch, Crouch, Danby, Jack Hamilton.
This isn't. Good enough, you know.
Hello and welcome to Goombod, the oral resting place for Dead
Comics. My name is Tyler Adams, and this
week I am talking to somebody stateside.
It's Brian Phillips. Hello there.
How are you doing, Tyler? I'm very good.
Thank you. I'm very good.
So you're where are you? Where are you based?
I'm based just outside of Atlanta, GA in a town called
McDonough, but I was originally born in Spring Valley, NY, which
is just outside of New York City, so there's a lot of
parallel there. I decided to go for the suburban
life just like my folks did and I first heard of the Goons when
I was living in San Diego, CA. Are you familiar with a show
called Doctor Demento? Yes, I am, but I couldn't tell
you why. Doctor Demento was run by a
musicologist by the name of Barrett Hansen, and he had such
an extensive record collection he boasted the fact that he'd
moved houses because the weight of his collection actually
started to drag the foundation into the ground of his old
house. God.
Was between LP's and 78, mostly 78, and he had played the Ying
Tong song, which I thought was odd and it was reasonably funny
without hearing anything about the goons.
And so he said, one of these days we may play an entire goon
show if we have the time. So that puts put the bug in my
ear. And over here we have the public
broadcast service or WNETI think it was known at the time.
Then they started broadcasting Monty Python's Flying Circus and
they mentioned in passing the fact that they were upset that
Q5 had done what they had done just before what they had done.
And they said then they mentioned the goon show.
So I should pay attention to the goon show.
So I borrowed A Goon Show scripts book from the library
when I honestly found one, and it made no, no sense, absolutely
no sense to me whatsoever. A couple of the puns here and
there makes that A and I'd had no idea what it sounded like.
Fast forward a few years, I was in Los Angeles and there's a
show called Weekend Radio and he played the mysterious Punch of
the Conquer. That was my first Goon show and
I was on the floor laughing. I just absolutely.
By the time they got to write it down on a piece of paper, I was
absolutely no good. So that's that's what really
started my interest in the Goon Show.
And that would be around 1989 or so.
Oh, wow, that late? OK, OK.
Am I right that Spike Milligan once called you annoying?
He didn't call me annoying. This is what happened.
I went to a weekend called Fred, the first one and this would be
I guess that would be 97, correct?
I think so, yes. So the listeners this this was a
Guin Show Preservation Society event.
Correct. I presented this to my wife.
I said, sweetheart, there's something I'd like to do and I,
I don't think you'll say yes to it, but I'd like to attend this
convention and it's in the UK. And she said, well, when is it?
I said, well, it's going to be 3 days.
And then we'd be able to come back home and say, what do you
mean 3 days? Let's go for two weeks.
Let's go here, let's go there. I said, OK, you're on board.
So we decided to fly there and we'd had a great time.
I met, I met a lot of great folks.
And then the night came that they brought in Spike Milligan.
And he came in and he was mildly smiling.
And he said no shaking the hands, no shaking hands.
And what it turns out was, is that there was another fellow
that was there that was there to pick him up, help pick him up.
And he would not shut up. And he was another.
And that's another herd, not me. Don't, don't, don't, don't.
Pick on me. That's correct.
I, I won't call his name out because I, I, I, I don't, I
think I know who I think I remember his name, but I don't I
just of being a gentleman, I won't say who it was, but he is
the one that ticked him off. And so if anything else that
that evening of questioning, I asked a question that he liked,
which was I asked him if he was a fan of John Kirby.
John Kirby was a a jazz musician that parodied that, that took
classical music and decided to make jazz versions of it.
So that actually was a break in the question.
After the questioning was done, the legs said, hey, that was
that was a good question. So if nothing else, that was
something that he liked. But I didn't speak.
That's the only time I spoke to him directly.
Yeah, he did. He'd have loved that because
it's getting getting away from the usual stock question.
Yeah. Where did the character of blood
not come from or whatever? It's right, it's.
Appealing to somebody who was, it was telling me, oh it was
Neil Brand who had on as a guest recently.
He met Spike briefly and asked him about the Bill Hall trio,
right, which immediately appealed to Spike.
And so he got a good 5 minutes out of him then.
They showed that clip. They showed that clip at the at
the event too. Oh, OK.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've been so since the
since what, the late 80s you've been a a Goon Show fan?
I'm an an arduous one. I'm I'm sort of the Louie Leakey
of fans, if you will, because I heard mysterious punch up, the
Conquer said. Great, got to get more of this.
Well, the only time I had seen any kind of goon shows at all
was at Tower Records. They had the one BBC record,
which I eventually got. So I started collecting the the
records and I found out that those were edited, as was the
mysterious punch of the Cocker, which was also in fake stereo
because they'd, some of the transcription services have gone
to fake stereo. I bought the Wilmot book, the
The Gunshow Companion and found just how many of these things
there were. So I acquired some when I'd gone
to, when I, when I'd visited England and Scotland.
By the way, there was another fantastic musicologist who's
passed away, whose name I will invoke by the name of Lou
Curtis, who was people don't really know what they lost in
the, in the mind of Will Curtis. I was just incredible folklorist
and musicologist and collector. He had some goon shows and they
were in horrible, horrible condition.
You could actually hear as the transcription transcribed it.
He transcribed it from a very squeaky reel to reel tape so you
could actually hear, you know how low bottle and you hear in
the background as well. But that's where I first heard
the missing scroll was from his collection.
Oh, OK. Yeah.
So yeah, the missing scroll, which is, which is a goon show
that's never really talked about much.
Yes. Which I think is I re listened
to it, obviously preparing for this and I I'd forgotten how
great it is and how consistently funny it is.
It is and it, and it really shouldn't work on the terms of
which you described previous shows in the sense that there's
a certain point where it just absolutely says I've got to fill
time with something silly. And this is one of those shows
where that actually works because there's two blatant
sections that don't need to be there at all.
And they're, they're, they're absolutely hilarious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there anything in particular
was it that that appealed to you the two sort of what I would
call non sequitur sections or or was was it just the overall show
that you enjoyed? The show I enjoyed the show
quite a bit. I I'm a big fan of the this is
what the sound. This is what 2 real idiots sound
like section with with seek him and Sellers.
And I also thought it was nice because I I, I'm the way I view
comedy scenes. I like to stick up for the
people that don't get as much love.
And the fact that this is a nice point to show that seek him be
could be very funny as well, because if you read that part
outright, just straight, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work at all, But it's just the way they deliver it is
absolutely hilarious. And that's one thing that even
Wilma does make a point of this is that Secombe holds his end up
very, very well. He's he's, he's under, he's
underrated in the sense that you have to have somebody that can
actually deliver a line, but can also be the the, the somewhat
straight person because there's really no traditional straight
person in these, as you know. But he's absolutely hilarious in
this and he's actually putting on a voice which he didn't do
all that much. It's in a cage, you say?
When I bought it, you know. What kind of bird is it?
Well, I'm not sure really. You see, I got it off a sailor,
you know. I say, what's the colour of its
bloomage? Oh, you can't see it?
It's covered with feathers. Nature's wonderful, isn't it?
I don't know what they'll think of next.
Sailor gave it me. You know why, Sailor?
It's got a red beak at one end and the tail at the other.
And. The bird in between.
It's in between then, is it? That's a good place for it, you
know. He seems to be happy there, you
know. Well then I wouldn't move him.
I don't think I shall, really. You know I'd won the same build.
Beat one end, tail the other and the bird dead in between it.
They look lovely too. I do look nice.
You can't. You can't comment, you must
admit. I say, what's this I've heard
about your missus? Well, you know, it's very funny
that she had an operation on the kitchen table amongst all the
cornflakes. The good thing about this show
is that it really does have a plot that does end up with a
fairly reasonable, fairly reasonable conclusion, which
some of them really don't. And I'm glad you've addressed
that in past shows that there's some case where he just said,
well, I've got to stop somewhere.
OK, we've stopped. This one actually does have a a
fairly decent stopping point and a through line, which is nice
and which does happen a lot in the fifth series, that these do
have plots. And as they get into the later
series, they do get more and more anarchic.
And sometimes that's to the good, and sometimes that's to
the worst. Yeah, it's, it's it's got a
beginning. It's a series 5 shows.
It's got a beginning, a middle and an end.
And it's got it's got what I what I would call a sort of a
similar sort of end to the lost gold mine of Charlotte.
Well, Eccles has the final line of both shows, basically, yes.
OK, so before we sort of talk about the show itself, I just
want to talk about what was what was going on around the time it
was recorded. So it was it was recorded on the
30th of January 1955 and on the same evening they recorded the
second the the re record of 1985.
Ah. OK.
Yeah, have you? I mean, there, there is a
version of that on the Goon Show Compendium.
It's Ted Kendall did it, did his best with what he had to work
with, but it's not a great quality recording.
Have you, have you heard that sort of that remake?
I did meet Ted Kendall, by the way, he was also at the event
and I've not heard that one. I have the, I have the LP
version of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Actually, what
was Ted like? He was wonderful.
He's a very nice fellow. He was, he was open to the
questions. Unfortunately, I didn't ask him
a great question, but he was he was very open to the fans and he
was talking about the great struggles that he'd had.
And one thing that I don't know if it's been mentioned in your
shows that was a depressing thing, is that Max Geldray's
widow apparently had all the shows and then threw them out.
So because she wanted to record her husband.
So the ones that her husband were on.
So that would have been big Phil, a big feeling of the
second series, much of the third, any of the first.
So and they're all gone. So that's.
That's. That's that's that was a
heartbreak. Why would you do that?
Ted was great. Why would?
You do that widow girl Dre, That's that's that's craziness.
Yeah, I suppose A, it's laziness, B, it's just another
thing to lug and it's just that. Could you imagine?
Yes, it's just my husband tootling along again.
Why do I, why do I have to be bothered with that?
And also maybe the fact that let's let's think about this is
that you have memories of your, your, your ex-husband and you
hear that again, that's something you just don't want to
think about. Yeah, fair enough.
Yeah, OK. We'll let her off just on that,
just on Max, Good, good opportunity for me to ask you
the the time honored question. Do you or did you ever skip
through the the Ray and Max numbers?
I do and I don't because there's certain things that my degree is
in music and I have, I, I, I play and I read music very much
like a foreigner reads a phrase book.
But I also, I, I can appreciate technique and I can appreciate
music and the music is older and I, I collect records.
So I'm not averse to older music.
So there's some that I do, I do go all the way through and some
of them I don't. This one I, I did like because
his technique is absolutely impeccable.
It's really, really incredible. So between him, Larry Adler,
those are is, it's really nice to hear hear that through.
And this one, this particular was I Can't Believe You're in
Love with Me, which is not a song that readily comes to mind,
but I did a little research and found out that that was first
written in 1926 and I was composed by Jimmy McHugh and
Clarence Gaskells together, did the lyrics.
But it's a it's a very nice tune.
Ellington, I've had my ups and downs with I, I've grown to I've
grown to like him. But at first I thought some of
it is a little on the square side, but he he gets better.
And also, if you view it in context, they're very much
cutting edge with what they're recording.
For example, they not this show, but another show they do framed
by the coasters, which had to have just come out.
So, yeah, so he's, he's as hip as he's going to be in that at
that point. And I'm fairly plausible for
that point because I, I don't know if you know, Ian Whitcomb
had a show here on Pasadena Public Radio on KPCC.
And he revealed partially how The Beatles heard some of these
very obscure covers that they did because Devil in Devil in
his Heart was not a hit. And it was his heart and Boys
was not a hit by the Shirelles. But what, what he had said was
that merchant Marines would come into Liverpool, which is a port
and they would bring in all these 45.
So they, they just realized that the A&R men would snap up
anything. They said what's, what's the
newest rock'n'roll stuff from America.
So they get the any record in particular.
So that's what perhaps how someone would get even say my,
My Boy Lollipop was recorded by Barbie Gay and Devil in Her
Heart, which was by the donays, which they covered in Mr.
Moonlight was recorded by Doctor Feel Good and the interns.
And so that's, so that's how some of those really, really
obscure records got over there. Yeah, we we've discussed on here
that the possibility that Ray's rendition of Shake, Rattle and
Roll possibly was the first time that the young John Lennon may
have heard it. That's not impossible.
And The funny thing about Shake, Rattle and Roll is that he does
the clean up cleaned up version of Bill Haley and the Cobblers
had a hit with the original version by Jesse Stone is really
a rude song for the time. It's it's pretty dirty, but
every version extant, every last one of them has the dirtiest
line in it because there's a drummer.
And you can actually see footage of him in a documentary called
The Last of the Blue Devils, which was a Kansas City jazz
band that didn't record much. But a lot of legendary musicians
came through there. The guy who was named Baby
Lovett, he was a drummer. And Jesse Stone, the writer of
the song, said, yeah, Baby Love was always saying crazy things
like one eyed cat peeping in the seafood store.
Then I really listened to that line.
I said, oh, that's what he's talking about.
And but every version missed that, even the BBC.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with a cat looking into a
store and wanting food. I'll live.
I'll be as, I'll leave it at that.
Yeah. But I the I will say that I
guess I was perhaps primed for Goon Show humor because my first
real exposure to that kind of humor at all was the fact that I
was a huge fan of Yellow Submarine.
My brother and I used to pay 2:50 to go to the local movie
house and they would show Yellow Submarine.
And I will guarantee you, of all the people on this show, there's
nothing cuter than a little boy, a little African American boy
speaking in a Liverpudlian accent after they listened to
that show. Blue Glass must be from
Kentucky. It's it's great when you're 7
it. Yeah, we covered that film just
before Christmas, actually. Yes, I did and you've and I'm
thinking about redoing getting the next version, the latest
version of the DVD because of that.
Yeah, it's a, it's a really good film and really enjoyable just
watching that again. OK, so, so the, the the show,
the missing scroll was it was broadcast 1st of February 55.
It was the 19th episode of series 5 and it was down as
being written by Spike and Eric Sykes.
Well, it's largely thought that Spike did the majority of the
writing of this doesn't surprise me.
See, I'd always had it in my head that it was an Eric script.
And the reason for that is because there's a there's a
scene set on a bus in Oldham. And Oldham is where Eric was
born. Oh.
OK, and if you remember Logy Strikes Britain, which was the
first show that he wrote, there's a reference to Oldham in
that as well. OK, so I just assumed must be in
it must be, you know, heavily Eric written this one.
But no, and it but it does make sense.
It it's more it's it's funnier. I think it's clearly a spike, a
small script. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's, it's just so far out there.
I think that it may have been a case where there may have been a
little bit of reining in with Eric Sykes, but this, this does,
this does smack to me of a of an Eric Sykes script.
Also the fact that Peter Eaton directed it.
I, I think I've read in Willis books that when you got around
to mentioning dustbins, that's when Peter Eden's humor would
kick in. So the fact that it ends there
is an een touch. Oh, also I I, I did a little
looking around to see if I could find a synopsis for this in the
Radio Times, which I didn't, but just mentioned that Eric Super
Miracle and Eric and Eric Seitz wrote this, but I found a
snippet of somebody that actually saw Harry Secombe
performing Cinderella. Oh, did you?
Yes, if I could read this. This is from a woman named
Marian from Canada. After Harry Secombe had passed,
she wrote. I first saw Harry Secombe when I
was seven years of age. He was playing buttons in
Cinderella at the Coventry Hippodrome.
I thought he was just great. I always liked listening to him
sing and there were times when I was troubled that if I listen to
him sing I would feel quite peaceful.
He had a wonderful ability to reach people through his comedy,
his singing, his books and his television programs.
I will miss him very much. He was a good man.
I would like to extend my condolences and my prayers to
his family. Very good.
He was doing Cinderella. Peter Sellers was also appearing
in in pantomime. He was doing Mother Goose rather
unhappily. We have talked about that show
previously. And Spike.
What was Spike doing at this time?
He was actually on the bill at the Metropolitan on Edgeware
Road in London. It was like a variety show.
And he was second billed as Spike Echols Milligan from the
Goon Show. And I just want to tell you who
else was on the bill because it's because it's, it's just,
it's so 1950s. So the bill also included Russ
Henderson and the Trinidad Steel Band and, and they'd gone down a
storm recently when they appeared at the Lord Mayor's
Show. And parts of that have been
televised. So they they were hot at this
time. I'm not sure if they were top
build over spy catcher that they might have been.
And there was also a singer called Marcia Owen with Albert
Sadler at the piano. There was there was Mundy and
Earl's famous miming act, a boy, a girl and a gramophone.
There were instrumental acrobats called White and Simone.
And there was a comedian called Ted Carson who was described as
the new style. Now I looked to find anything
else up, you know, in the news at the time about in the
newspapers about Ted Carson at the time, I couldn't really find
anything. So he, he, he vanished without a
trace. There was also, this is very
much of the time, the little lady from China, Dali Kin.
I'm not sure what her act involved, but this is the best
bit. There was a dog act, right?
Oh good heavens. Rusty the calculating collie.
He was presented by his owner Victor Manns, and Rusty's act
included calculating simple mathematical puzzles, picking
correct flags, and also skipping and dancing.
And, and I'm sure I'm sure there's a critic in this, says
that the the integral calculus section was rather poor, but
nevertheless. It would have been something
like, I know what it would have been.
It would have been Victor, his owner would have said 3 + 3
equals and the dog would have barked 6 times that that's how
it would have been. Yeah, that probably, that
probably would be the case. That tracks pretty accurately.
Have you ever heard Lenny Bruce's routine comic of the
Palladium? No, I haven't.
Lenny Bruce, are you from your family?
Oh, absolutely, yes. But yes, that's probably his
best bit that I've heard. Lenny Bruce this, Lenny Bruce
that. And you have to know something
of the times to really appreciate him fully.
But he talks about this comic. He used the natural name of a
comic. I don't know if he actually did.
This guy named Frank Dell, who was not a successful comic, who
decides that he wants to play a class room, he wants to play an
Uptown gig. So his manager books him at the
Palladium, and he says, OK, starting at the Palladium, we've
got Bobby Breen, the Scottsboro voice for Poetry and jazz, Wanda
and her birds. And so it's this absurd, absurd
at the time to us, Bill, but apparently that's somewhat
historically accurate. Oh, hello, son.
How do you do? My name is Val Parnell.
I'm the house Booker here. And you had quite a grim crowd
out there, didn't you? I don't think I've seen anything
like this in quite a few years. You just couldn't get off the
ground. You were out there for a couple
of hours, weren't you? Boy, that was certainly rough.
Unfortunately, I didn't see you work while I was in New York.
Jack Duran told me that you did quite a good job in Rochester
and bit for bit to take your act apart.
Let's see now that hep smoker reefer bit was quite
avant-garde. We never heard any reefer humor
here. And see if Miss Toklas is in
with a candy for me. And you're quite a sensitive
performer. That was evidenced by the
continual references to Liberace and Christina.
I guess my wife thought you were marvellous.
She, she got all that good hep stuff you did After you went
off. We had a bit of a meeting and we
kicked a lot of ideas around and one of them was that there's a
boat leaving Thursday and I was wondering if you'd mind signing
this release here, here. Now there is I do have the a
synopsis for the missing scroll which Spike wrote.
And it goes. The director of the BBC Home
Service learns by stealth that the ancient Babylonian scroll of
Purdum, the beginning of Allmusic, has been found by 1/2
witted Syrian dustman in a cave in the valley of the Euphrates.
He immediately fits out an expedition under Ned Sea Goon
LRAM to locate the scroll and bring it back by hook or crook
for the Home Service to broadcast every Tuesday night,
thus leading to a revival of interest in sound radio.
And I want to start off as well because the show begins with
with Wallace. Oh, by the way, have you
listened to the the full fully restored version?
The without the the edits? I don't believe so.
I this is one of those ones that I only have the bad recording
and there's another site that I was able to pull that I was able
to pull it down from and all of my edits go to 26 minutes.
The script that I read has some restored bits in it, but not
anything I have doesn't have it. So the in which case I might be
referring to some stuff in this chat that you haven't heard, but
we can talk around it, OK? Yes, I have it.
I have this. I have.
I pulled the script up just to to see what what was out because
I I'd seen there was stuff that was out and there's one edit I
want to ask about a little later that doesn't seem to be an edit,
but it's it sure sounds like 1. See if that got restored.
I think, I know, I suspect which one you might be referring to,
but we'll see when we get to it. Sure.
I wanted to begin talking about Wallace at the beginning because
he's he's picking up the BBC and and John Snagg this.
Is the BBC Home Service. Johnny Gunn, Rama.
Thank you, gentlemen, for praising my announcing, but I
was merely doing my duty in upholding the final traditions
of my alma mater, the Home Service.
And. And furthermore, gentlemen, may
I say how splendid I think the Home Service is thanks to the
alpha prodig of the corporation, Mr. John Snares.
Yes, yes, it was he who, in my darkest hour, handed on to me a
copy of the Radio Times, on whose friendly pages, couched in
beautiful Victorian English, I found a wealth of jolly good
programs. Good opportunity for me to
discuss the Radio Times because the week that this was
broadcast, the issue of the Radio Times, which was out on
sale, had a full page article about the goons.
It was it was the Radio Times in question had Benny Hill on the
cover for a young fresh faced Benny Hill.
But yeah, the the the article was called 6 hours in the
Goonery. All right.
And it's basically a bit of Radio Times Hack has gone to the
Camden Theatre on a Sunday and observed what was going on
leading up to a Green Show recording, which was
fascinating. Yeah.
I wanted to share much of this because it it's a fascinating
glimpse behind the scenes and the show in question, the actual
show that he witnesses is not revealed.
It's it's really annoying. He doesn't say which which show
it is that he's watching, but it has to have been after the first
version of 1985 was broadcast because the writer quotes from
it. But we'll come to that.
I think it was written several. I think the article was written
several weeks before, you know, the Radio Times issue was
published. Well, it would have had to have
been. So it's likely that the show he,
he saw would probably have been the case of the Missing Air or
China story or maybe had a push under 2 floorboards.
And I, I looked, I even went as far as looking for topical
references penciled onto those scripts because he mentions A
topical reference in the article.
But I couldn't, I just couldn't narrow it down to which show it
was that he attended. But anyway, I wanted, I'm not
going to read the whole thing. I want to read much of it
though, if that's OK, because it's really, really interesting.
And yeah, and I'd, I'd welcome your thoughts as well.
OK. OK, so it begins.
What happens before a goon show goes on the air?
What sort of atmosphere prevails at a rehearsal?
Why does goon humor make such an appeal?
Richard Hewson went to a went to a recording session to find out,
and here he recounts some of his impressions.
And he's he begins. If I say I was in a foreog of
mental depression, those of you who are goon fans will know
exactly what I mean. You will probably also guess
that I also am a goon knight. I am, and I was in this for of
mental depression when I received the invitation to
attend a goon recording session. It's good to be alive in 1985, I
said, and snatching up my passport to the goonery, I
skidded northwards over the ice slippery streets of London.
I was happy. Now I was about to learn who
wound up the goons and what made them tick so smoothly.
OK. So yeah, so he's, he's he's
quoted from 1985 there. Which?
Makes me think it's got to have been, you know, the week after
or something like that. It it does look like there's
somebody that's actually hip to it as opposed to calling them
the go ONS. So absolutely.
Yeah, he knows of what he speaks.
Yes, basically, Yeah, absolutely.
OK, so he's he says. 4 PMI arrive at the studio, once a
theatre. I wave my passport at the
commissioner and at his direction, bundle down some
stairs and knock on a door marked Control Cubicle.
The door is opened by an attractive girl and I'm beckoned
into a kind of large aquarium tank.
A stocky, smiling chap comes forward and introduces himself
as Peter Eaton, the producer. The girl is his secretary,
Valerie Simons. Never heard of Valerie Simons
before. It's one of those because if she
was, you know, Peter Eaton's secretary or or assistant, she
would have had have had a wealth of stories.
I wonder if the GSPS ever tried to track her down.
The The article continues over the sleek head of John Browell
who sits at the control panel. I see through the glass 2 rows
of empty seats looking down to the stage and the mikes.
Then Eaton says just a little briefing for you and tells me
that with the exception of Spike Milligan, who writes the scripts
and collaboration with Eric Sykes, the cast has not set eyes
on it until today that their first run through will take
place in a few minutes. At this point Barry Wilson comes
in from the adjacent gramophone effects cubicle and in making
the introduction Ethan explains what a vital part recorded
effects play in a goon production.
Other people drift in now. Wallace Greenslate, the
announcer, Peter Sellers, the man of many voices, ebullient
Harry Seekon, the exponent of mad laughter and operatic Arias.
Spike Milligan, the true living goon.
And last but not least, John Hamilton, the spot effects man
Eaton reads out the cuts which have been made in the script and
pencils get busy marking in the fresh queues suddenly spike
things up, a new gag, a very topical one, and this is
inserted. Then Eaton says well let's have
a stumble through and see what happens.
That's what I meant before when I said about there's a, there's
a very topical gag included in this show and I couldn't and I
went through those, those 3 show, looked at the actual
original scripts and couldn't find anything.
Yeah, and it's not impossible that that part might have been
cut out entirely. Absolutely, Absolutely.
Yeah. 418 To my untrained ear, the stumble through seems to be
pretty good, but Eton is making copious notes. 450 A brief
conference, some pertinent directions from Eton, then
another rehearsal of cuts and effects cues.
The goons begin to laugh uproariously at some particular
line. Eton says Come on, chaps, let's
get on. And they get on.
So that's an indication. We, we, we knew that Peter
Eaton, who who had been a military man, he did, he did
instill a lot of discipline into the show.
He didn't put up with a lot of nonsense.
Yeah, and even Million had said, you know, I really need a strong
producer. And it seems like Peter Eaton
was the guy for the job. And there's a nice little
foreshadowing that John Browell is there as.
Well, yes, absolutely, Absolutely.
At 5:00 now, a 10 minute break for tea in the canteen.
There is a dash for biscuits and packets of chocolate.
Sellers opens a letter. It is from a person who wants to
understudy Blue Bottle. Blue Bottle, however, does not
think much of the suggestion. Eaton hands me the second cup of
tea and tells me the story of the Goon fan mail.
And what a story. Hundreds of letters a week from
all over the country. Letters from generals, bus
drivers, Padres and char ladies, from the schoolboy and from his
master, from all sorts and conditions.
One of the appeals of the Goon show, says Eaton, is that it's
humour is classless. I agree, thanks.
It also sometimes carries a very sane message to a very mad
world. So again, the writer showing
that he's a genuine Goon Show. Got got the thinks in there way
to go. Absolutely 525 in front of the
mic. There is a final smoothing out
of roughnesses and then the warm up is agreed upon.
This transpires to be a crazy kind of introduction to the
show, which is not recorded. 545 The goons dispersed for a while
and while members of the audience begin to drift on the
stage and take their seats, there is dapper Max Galdry, the
harmonica wizard and Wally Stott, the conductor.
As I watch from the stalls. Suddenly the friendly seek and
joins me. We're all such good pals.
He says. This is one of the reason for
our success, which is nice. We wouldn't expect Harry to say
anything less, really, would you of?
Course not, of course not that he and he was by the way.
He was just he was everything you thought you would be.
When a week I got I did get a chance to shake his hand and get
his autograph. He he was very, very nice. 6:00
Band call and Galdrey and Ellington rehearsed their
numbers. Then the music links are gone
over until they are perfected. Some passage is being recorded
and then played back to the orchestra so that Ethan can more
easily explain what he requires. 725 and now all on stage for the
first and last complete run through with artists, orchestra
and effects in control. Valerie times the performance
against the stopwatch and Eaton makes further notes.
Then another briefing for artists and effects men, and
again the sticky patches are rehearsed.
And so it goes on, polishing and repolishing, tightening up,
timing, stressing this word, throwing away that nothing left
to chance. By the time Easton finally says,
all right, that's got it. Thank you, everyone.
The audience is already filtering in.
So it's amazing amount of, you know, honing of, of the show
before it's even properly recorded.
Yes, yes. And that it shows in the IT
shows in the product. Yes, there's a lot of horsing
around and there's the occasional ad Lib and crack up.
But by the same token, they really do they're they're on
their queues. They are doing everything to
maximum effect. And considering the, the, the
absolutely chaotic and a deadline conscious man air in
which they did this, they they're really are very well
polished. So I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad
to hear that has been proved by this article.
Yeah. Totally.
And then finally, 915 Zero Hour. The red light goes on and
Greenslade says this is the BBC Home Service.
I look around the control room. The floor is littered with
pieces of paper, cigarette cartoons, chocolate and biscuit
wrappers. But everything is tidy in the
minds of the people here. Valerie keeps a watchful eye on
the script and stopwatch. Now and then Eaton throws off an
aside to gramophone effects fade here.
That's it. Cut.
And as the seconds on the face of the clock flick past, he
sometimes acknowledges a well timed line with the thumbs up
sign Browse. Fingers slide over the panel,
keeping the balance of sound, damping down the sudden bursts
of laughter. The show was going well and
running to time. At last the signature tune and
Greenslade makes the closing announcement.
A terrific round of applause. And then Galdre and the
orchestra begin the play out music.
The show is over, as is the article.
That's that's a very good article for the time, isn't it?
I'm very impressed. Yeah, I did.
I didn't read it totally, but I I read the most interesting
parts and it's just gives you a really, really good
understanding of what went into making a goon show.
Yes, considering that we all we have is that little teaser with
a back when Benteen was with the goons of any kind of backstage
memories are are very, very precious.
And so I'm very glad that you found that.
That's that's gold right there. I'm glad to, and also because
there's that one that I brought up some time ago that every so
often after the music ends, there's an extra burst of left.
Laughter sometimes and it turns out and this this showed up on
one of the other Goon Show Facebook groups.
When they would have the music on, there would be a light that
would be just above the microphone to show that the
music was going and no one's to make any sounds.
And then when the light was off, you could go back on mic and
continue the episode. Well, Spike was able to time it
that he would sense when the light would go off and he'd blow
on it and then the light would go off to look like he's blowing
out a candle. So there'd be this lecture burst
of there'd be applause and a little extra laughter.
So that might be sometimes what it is.
OK, yeah, I think I remember you.
I think you messaged me about that.
Yeah, that's really interesting. And and look, I'm I'm conscious
of the fact I've been reading out printed words quite a bit
already. But I'm going to continue, I'm
afraid, because not as much, not as much by any means, but I want
to just talk about the show because or the missing scroll
because it it begins with Neddy, who is working as a translator
at the Norwich Castle Museum under the supervision of the
aged Roger Fudge Knuckle, right, which is Peter Sellers playing
at an elderly Scott. What's the time?
3 minutes to midnight. Oh well, might as well have an
early night. Shut up, your mean old bounder
def is a coot. Good night, needy.
Good night you bald old bass bun.
Good night, Oh needy. Yes, I just start to tell you
one day you're going to be a bald old bass bun too.
He's one of the few, certainly at the time people that his
accents are impeccable, especially his American accent.
It's it's darn near bulletproof. And I've even to this day,
because I I'm a big fan of listening to more current radio
comedy that some of them you can actually tell when that they're
biting down a little bit too hard on certain certain
syllables. But his is very, very good.
And this one is I love the Scottish accents, in particular
when they're company with bagpipes.
Oh, absolutely. That that comes a little bit
later in the goonshare of the bag pubs, just on the on the
Cellars. American accents.
I'm sure you're familiar with Doctor Strangelove.
Yes. His President Muffley to To my
ear, that accent sounds impeccable terms.
Yes. Does it pass as a as a genuine
American accent? As as a as a as a full blooded
turn, yes, it absolutely does it.
It's it's truthfully very, very it it, it plays out very nicely.
There's no, there's nothing dropped as that one else went
being there. Same thing.
I I've watched Doctor Strangelove, I have the DVD I've
watched any number of times and I can't catch the moment where
he said there's that one word that that that he stumbles on.
So yeah, it's it's dead on the money.
Brilliant. Yes.
OK, so so Roger Fudge knuckle in the script, in the actual
original script, the characters called Mr. Rage King, which
which I just can't work out what where that comes from, what that
means. There's got to be some meaning
behind Rage King. But anyway, but I just wanted to
mention I was saying about reading stuff out in the the
Norwich Evening News, that fine organ on the 3rd of February
1955. There was a columnist for that
newspaper who wrote This Reason is their Enemy.
So when goon show addicts heard Harry seek him assume in this
week's comedy radio show the role of Keeper of Ancient
Manuscripts at Norwich Castle Museum, No one should have been
surprised. Although the award for the best
new radio show organized by a national newspaper recently went
to Arthur Ascii's Hello Playmates, my choice for the
funniest half hour this year and last would be the Goons.
What prompted the reference to the Castle Museum remains
shrouded in the incomprehensible but highly amusing doings of
this crazy team. OK.
And that was written by a columnist called Wiffler.
And so, yeah. So I mean, nothing much
obviously happens in in Norwich. So much so that when it's it's
Castle Museum gets mentioned on the radio, They they have to,
they have to write about it and, and, and interestingly, a couple
of days later in the same newspaper, Wiffler comes back
and and writes. A reader suggested to me the
other day a possible answer to the question of how it came
about that Harry Seekin recently assumed in radio's Goon show the
role of Keeper of Ancient Manuscripts at Norwich Castle
Museum. My correspondent points out that
two of Harry's fellow comedians were in a show at the Norwich
Hippodrome last November. It rather looks as if in the
course of their stay, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan paid
a visit to the museum and it made an impression which
remained in their subconscious minds.
Well, maybe not, but anyway. It, it's, it's, I will say that
there's the the only granule of truth I will extract from that
is that and I, I, I tried to find this before we recorded,
but I couldn't come up with it. But there's this one fellow
talking about the absolute pain it is to try to be funny on a
weekly basis. And he he comes to the point
where he's basically shaking down his children.
Did you think of anything funny, anything at all I can write
about? So maybe at this point he just
said Norwich. OK, let's put that in there.
So absolutely, absolutely. Before we continue on to about
Norwich, I want to go back a little bit in the script.
How does Sigun introduce himself?
My name is Sigun Neddy Sigun, you've possibly seen my name in
the mirror. It reads New guys Aiden New guys
in the year Nintoon 100 and Scranson screen.
I was implied to the knowledge. Stan Freeberg, another prominent
radio comedian of the time, had this weird habit where he would
spell something backwards and figuring that would be the
funniest thing in the world. And sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't. But there was a product that,
well, the days before all of this called Serotan, which is
nature's spelled backwards. It was a laxative.
And so I think that people made fun of that slogan because they
say you, you remember serotonin spelled backwards is nature's to
hope, hopefully sell the products.
So I think people picked up on that.
So that was sort of in the cultural zeitgeist at the time.
OK. I'm just trying to think of
famous products or brands that are words spelled backwards.
And the first thing I can think of is cell tape, you know, sell
tape. Well, that's Beetle spelled
backwards. But yeah, I do.
I do I I remember seeing that reference every so often when I
was it was going from a big Beatles phase.
It was the company that was set up either by Brian Epstein or in
in conjunction with Brian Epstein to sell Beatles
merchandise. OK.
And he and he he really did himself out of out of a lot of
money, the deal that he put together.
But anyway, the cell tape. But yeah, that's that's seeker
Nettie Seeger spelled backwards. But at the museum where he is
working as a translator, we have his his interaction with his
boss, Roger Fudge Knuckle. And I love, I love this little
bit where Nettie thinks he's deaf.
That's that. That is fantastic and I've
imitated that many times to myself when they get to be in
and being being an American, I had to look up what a bath bun
was. Yeah, I didn't really know what
1 was until I came to this country, Moriarty calls on the
phone on behalf of the London antique dealer.
Hercules grip pipe thin and Mariachi is calling without the
aid of a phone as he's on top of a bus.
Yes, if I were to take any, if someone would say what was
what's so funny about the goon show, the writ piece of paper
bit from mysterious punch over the Conqueror would be 1, but
this bit would be another one. This this is a perfect example
of the great goon. So illogic in in, in, in, in in
full force. And then you just play that
little bit and say, Oh yeah, that that's why that's funny.
And it's still funny to this day.
Yes, and a couple of shows ago we discussed the case of the
Muckanese battle horn. Yes, and they visualized A gag
from this show where Moriarty is talking to Sea Goon.
Is it? Moriarty gets his cigarette lit
through the phone by Sea Goon. Yes, I think yes.
That's it, isn't it? And they did that with Jervis
fruit and quilt in the Muckanese battle horn.
And he he offers Moriarty offers Seagoon X pounds to to become.
A grip times. Assistant.
Right. And yes, so the BBC Home Service
are offering 50 lbs. Or a live subscription to the
Radio Times for the recovery of the manuscript in which Purdum
wrote The Lost Music of Babylon 4000 years ago.
Did you, did you do any, did you do any research on Purdum?
What, as in, did Purdum actually exist?
Yes, now this is I, I did a little bit of I did a little bit
of diving and haven't helped me some watching Dick Baker, who
was the the runner US Zoom show. He made mention of the fact that
he said, by the way, did you know that there was a a film
called the Egyptian which started Edmund Purdum.
I wonder if this was a reference, an inspiration for
the show. Oh.
So I looked at, I looked this up and the Egyptian was a book that
sold very, very well and eventually became a film.
And Edmund Purdum was a relatively unknown actor and he
played a Sinhuwe SINHUE. That's how they pronounce it in
the film. And this was a huge, huge
Cinemascope movie widescreen that premiered in 1954.
And Purdum has a really weird distinction.
He is the only person that had his handprints put in at the
Grorman Chinese Theater and then had them removed because many of
the people that were there were well loved celebrities and they
had long careers. This was his first big break.
And I think that some overactive Asians thought it would be a
good idea to say, hey, since this is a big splash, it's going
to be a huge hit. Let's have him put in there and
we'll really establish the stardom.
And people took offense to that and said, no, no, no, he
doesn't. He doesn't.
He hasn't earned the right to be next to this legend and that
legend. So they removed it.
So that is and so he he is the. So you have the missing scroll
there. He's the missing handprint.
I wonder if you don't know Spike used to go to the cinema a lot.
I wonder if the name stuck in his head perdem.
I wouldn't be surprised because there's a remember a later in
the script. It's called Mesopotamia City of
filth, which does get a laugh, but there there's a part of his
narration in the film, which, by the way, if you, if you want to
live longer, don't watch this film.
It's one of those films that it's everything that is said
that's an importance is said very slowly.
And so it, it's, it's just a, it's, I zip through it because
it's about 3 hours long and, and, and which is about 4 hours
too long for that film. But it mentioned lines that
Queen of City Thebes and that comes up brilliant.
So that may have stuck in his head to, to put that line in.
That's I think I'm almost positive that's where Purdum
comes in, this million inspiration.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he meets that, meets the
honorable grip pipes, then who is standing, warming himself in
front of the big open fire with his big open trousers.
Yes. Now, is that where you thought
there's a clear edit point? No, not there.
OK, because there is, to my ear, there's a clear edit point, but
I checked that I think it has been edited, but I'm assuming it
was just edited to remove lots of audience laughter, right?
Because there's no there's nothing in the script to
indicate there's a line that's been cut or anything like that.
Right there is the script that I'm looking at.
There's a which is a great gag about breaking over a bottle of
wine, which I think that that's one of the greatest gag running
gags in the show. Yeah, there's a couple of lines
down that there seems to be in some lines removed.
And I did do they mention raise a laugh in the restored?
Version they do. Yes, OK.
Right. Come there, dear, warm yourself
with the fire. Oh, I'm Mariart here.
I break open a bottle of wine. Thank you.
No, Ned dear. What experience have you had in
translating ancient scripts? Three years with Raise a laugh
a. Graduate by Joe Well, this calls
for a drink. Moriarty, break open another
bottle. Thank you.
So, Neddy, you've been on the radio, have you?
Yes, though I feel it's a dying medium.
I knew a dying medium once he got better.
Tell me, Jolly for the spirit, yes.
Neddy, director of the BBC Home Service, is looking for new
ideas. How about suicide?
Yes. Yes, the point is, you're here
when the gunshot finishes. They want to try to restore the
dignity of Tuesday nights. How about closing down?
Oh, you good joke, I said. Mariotte, thank you.
And the irony of that, of course, that's really close to
the bone, because Sellers had had finished working on Razor
Laugh in April of 54. Oh, is that recent?
But yeah, but he was at this time he was working on a show
called Ted Ray Time. Oh, he, he, he was working on
that from N54 to March 55. So he was appearing in that at
this time. So that's a real Yeah.
But yeah, the, the breaking open the bottle of champagne is, is
brilliant. Something else I I picked up on
as well, it's a grip pipe at the beginning when he's when he's
calling for champagne, he's referring to Moriarty, but then
a few lines later he's it's gone from conventional pronunciation
of Moriarty to Moriarty. Right.
And the received wisdom is that Sellers would refer to the
character as Moriarty when he was a little bit annoyed with
Spike for maybe over acting or whatever, or just generally
annoying him, right? But that wouldn't appear to be
the case. And I think it's just maybe just
Sellers just being a little bit impish.
So change it up a bit. I think I think that in this
case it would be. It's just I think that it it
goes to the fact that grip pipe is so thrilled that if he's he's
hoped Nettie on something else again, that he's he's he's
feeling very much at home with himself in the character.
So I don't think this is one of those cases.
No, no, they're, they're always taking the rise out of the BBC,
right? None more so than here when
they're basically calling for the director of the BBC Home
Service to commit suicide. Yes.
So, yeah, so we have the the the sequence carries on with grip
pipe, right? And, and Wallace has to step in
to explain the plot, right? And he says that the the BBC
Home Service are offering 50 lbs for the recovery of this lost
manuscript of Purdam, £50 or a live subscription to the Radio
Times. And then he introduces Max, who
will play a frozen Arab sock from the waist.
From the waist down. You talk about if you let your
mind wander, what you come up with that's that's hilarious.
Absolutely. And there's a line that in her.
Oh, by the way, I I don't know if it's been mentioned the gun
show did run here, but after this it read it for in 57 yes
yeah, and there's one there's one there's one line in here
that would go completely over American has about what's a souk
Souk it in sea. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that that's very familiar to you.
But we didn't know that it was a fisherman's friend.
Yeah, but when I first heard this as a teenager, I didn't
know the phrase Suck it in sea. It's only it's only since I came
to live over here that so. So when I first heard it, I
didn't understand it either. I didn't understand the
reference. Seigen sets off to Mesopotamia
in search of the lost papyrus. And this is where he meets
William, who's a who's playing a mysterious Arab who under orders
from Yakimoto and Eidelberger is supposed to abandon him in the
desert now, Right. I love the fact you get a
mention of Yakimoto and Eidelberger who are the seldom
heard minor characters in the Goon show.
Right, Japanese and and German respectively.
Another fact that they mentioned the ones who never referred to
again. Yes, that may have been just him
being absurd or he thought that me I should I if I run out of
time, I'll throw in a Yakimoto and and then I little burger.
I never did. But that's interesting because
as well, as we'll mention, and it's a very dense show, very
packed show. There's a lot of stuff going on
in this. You've got those who mentioned
but not featured. You don't have Blood Knock at
all. That's right.
And Blue Bottle is is just inserted right at the end,
almost as an afterthought as in we need to have Blue Bottle in,
right. Isn't he doesn't, he's got
nothing to do. He doesn't add to the to the
story. So you could easily have not had
Blue Bottle as well. Yeah.
Because 1. You could lift him right out and
it wouldn't. It wouldn't affect the show at
all. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And this may be my favorite William appearance.
I just, I just like the fact that, you see, I leave, you know
where you leave me? Nowhere.
Why did you follow me? I was lonely.
He just loves that. That's definitely a spike gag
Tell that's that's got spike written all over it.
I love the bit and and I anticipate.
I remember anticipating as a kid when I first heard this show.
The running board gag. Can't stand on the running
board. I anticipate that pay off.
Perhaps you'll be so kind as to give us a lift to the nearest
settlement. OK, there ain't no room in my
car, but you can run behind. Thanks.
That'll save walking. Hold tight.
Can I stand on the running boat? Certainly.
Now hold tight. No.
Well, it's no good standing here on this running board.
Might as well follow him. I'll come with you mind if I
come to? I love that the old car sound
effects with the Aruga horn and and everything Echoes turns up
because he lives in a pyramid nearby and there's a reference.
Did you get the reference to the Piltdown skull?
Yes and it's it's weird because I, I got that on a very
roundabout way because my brother, my brother who's 8
years old and his name is Steve is a big progressive rock fan.
And so we he we bought tubular Bells when it come out and
there's that one bit that's credited to the Piltdown man.
So because there's this one bit where the, I think it's the
second side and you hear this guy go and that's, that's the
Piltdown man. So I looked it up and I found
out what the big hoax was about the Piltdown Piltdown skull.
So that, that's how I that's how that's my first reference to it
was back when in 72 when it was first.
So, yeah, so if you will, that's that's my first moon show
reference. Fair enough.
Just so in case people are unaware, it was it was a fraud.
Supposedly bone fragments were found which were presented as
the fossilized remains of of a previously unknown early human.
And, and they would, they were quote discovered in 1912 by this
guy, this amateur archaeologist called Charles Dawson.
And, and it was only exposed as a hoax in 1953, right?
And he that Dorset had died like 1916.
So it was long after he was dead.
Yeah. But it's very, very fresh in the
mind by 53 to 55. So that's absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a very timely
reference. Yeah, I love, I've written in my
notes here. I love the phrase egg stained
nightshirt. Yes.
Conjures up such an image. Image Yeah.
The one thing that I think that does get down plays the fact
that let's take all the humour out of Spike Milligan.
He's a good writer when he really he's a very descriptive
writer when he wants to. Be he is, he is he can't do.
He does do sometimes, which is which is undermined with a gag
at the end. But he can write dialogue or
descriptive sequences which are very straight and very well
written. Yes, and I I thought that I
can't remember what show it is, but he just says that the the
said that the sun had purged the desert of shade, which I think
that's a beautiful line. And then of course, William
shows up the rice fish and the bowfish is the bowfish is off,
mate. Right after that it just
destroys it. But it's just that it it was
nice to see that there was a real serious writer trying to
get out. Look at his poetry, of course,
his serious poem. Certainly.
Wonderful way with words. And this is and we get.
So we have the running board gag and then we get to the
aforementioned sequence conversation between two men on
a bus from Oldham to Cleethorpes in Lancashire about a parrot and
someone's wife having a an operation at home on the kitchen
table. And it was inserted to show
listeners what a couple of real idiots sound like.
Yes, and I think that is that is that that's a great cutaway and
it will you know what it just it just occurred to me.
Do you know that really predates and I wouldn't be surprised who
was a fan of it predates Family Guy.
I think that Seth MacFarlane, Seth MacFarlane definitely likes
to write a lot of cutaway stuff that that has nothing to do with
the plot and then shows back. I think uses a bit too much, but
the the the seeds of that are definitely here.
Maybe not directly, but filtered through, you know, Python or
whatever, but yeah, absolutely. And by the way, the the conceit
that it's inserted to show distance, what a couple of real
idiots sound like, that was again used in Muckney's
Battlehorn a year later. Absolutely.
With the character of Maurice Punk.
I I think Maurice Punk is perfectly funny, but I think
this is the better use of that and I don't know how Operation
on the Kitchen Table got through the BBC.
It gets faded out, isn't it? It does.
And then we have 4 real edits, the the Ray Ellington Quartet
doing Mambo Italiano, which then takes us to Seagoon in Aleppo
and he visits a little antique shop run by Minnie and Henry
with rather problematically, Ellington as Alinga who who's.
The. Assistant.
Yes, I this is this is where, as I like to say, there's a case
where Spike turns to be very English, where the racial
attitudes of the time were very backward.
Oh, by the way, I had to, I, I want to look this up because
there's another reference that I couldn't, I couldn't quite track
down. But Aleppo's in Syria, but I
didn't know that I had to. I'd look that up.
But yeah, of the various and sundry where he gets referred to
as Black Rod or he's he's you, you hear him go, you hear him
say yes, master. I just I just wince.
But this one, as bad as it is, didn't bother me as much as some
of the other stuff that the racial stuff they had him do.
I don't mind him as the red bladder.
I think he's hilarious as that. And the very fact that his voice
is so coarse. It's a nice, it's a nice
contrast to the other, the other accents.
But I take that and I, I, I, I like to use the word in context.
There's if you take it in the context of time, it's very fat.
That he's there at all is pretty cool because there weren't a lot
of folks of color on the radio at the time.
And, and, and remember that there was even an an edict in
the BBC that the general public shouldn't be subjected to the
female voice. And so women were a rarity.
And I think they was broken with a petticoat line.
I think that was the one they first finally allowed.
They allowed girls on the radio. Horror of horrors, so.
On American television, or was it the radio depictions of
people of color, was things like characters like Rochester from
Jack Benny and Amos and Andy? Is that right?
Yes, Amos and Andy was interesting.
Amos and Andy were two white guys, Charles Freeman and
Freeman and Gospel. I can't remember the full names.
And the they were enormously successful.
And we're talking about you could walk down the street and
you could hear Amos and Andy coming from the, from, from
various windows. That's how popular they were
both. And they show up in a film
called Check and Double Check, which was a castration from the
show. And that's them in blackface,
which of course does not get shown.
Duke Ellington's band was in the in the film.
And that's the part that they will show because Amos and Andy
aren't there at all. But by the time it got to
television, they actually hired black actors and that ran all
the way to 1966 until the N8N double ACP said that'll be
enough of that. But if you once again to putting
on the context helmet and things like our gang, which is also the
Little Rascals, the fact that they had black people, black
boys and girls playing together was huge.
And the fact that Rochester in Jack Benny was just as
irreverent to Jack as anybody else was, was enormous.
And that shouldn't be discounted.
The issue that I have and I that's one thing that I do when
people try to and not you, I'm not, but other people try to
say, well, you have to understand the conscience that I
understand the times I did the times, but you have to move
forward and I won't I won't put current mores on previous shows,
but it's just that I won't hold that up and saying, Gee, wasn't
it great when yeah, that's fine then, but we can't we have to
move past that. That's and that that's that's
right. So I'll I'll I'll forgive Ellen
Gun the very fact that he's just awash in there and talk about me
strong me build big man with one hand.
It's great to add to the absurdity and that that sound
montage. I just thought of something as
well when you mentioned about Rochester giving as good as he
got. Right.
Was the character of Benson and Soap homage to Rochester in some
respect, do you think? I don't, I don't think so.
And if we go further down a rabbit hole that that's one
thing that Guillaume was very firm about is that he because he
when he first starts out, he has they, they grayed his hair up
and they, they got they got rid of that later.
But he eventually asserted himself that, that he wanted to
portray that character with some dignity.
And the fact that he ends up an assistant to a congressman, I
thought was a a good move. Oh, by the way, a complete
anorak moment here. Guillaume's real name is
Williams. And he was he shows up on a
gospel record. There was a gospel group called
the Pilgrim Travelers and they tried to, it might have been the
Pilgrim travels, but nevertheless they tried to
upgrade their to a folk image. So they they called, they called
them the Pilgrims. And there, there he is in his
in, in Pilgrim gear. But yeah, he was, he was
originally Williams and they changed to Guillaume.
He changed to Guillaume. Sounded classier.
Yes. OK, so back to Minnie and Henry.
We get we get this this extended scene, of course, which ends up
in chaos. There's a reference to Anne
Ziegler who who I was aware of the name she she was famous for
singing light operatic duets with her husband Webster Booth,
right. But she the reference to her is
is made with regards to her great age, it would appear, but
she was only she was only 44 at the time in the original script.
I saw that the reference was going to be to Evelyn Leigh and
Evelyn Leigh was a musical actress and she she would only
have been 54. So they crossed her out and they
put Anne Ziegler, who was even younger.
Did you pick up on men's singing a snatch of Mambo Italiano as
well? Yes, I did.
I thought that was a that that was a great little call back
because there's not very many times where they actually
announced acknowledge that there's music in the show.
But the fact that that she that that they threw that in there, I
thought was pretty cool. And I think next time with
dustbin, they they're actually singing along with the end
theme. So I did like that.
I did like the fact that they made mention of that.
By the way, if anybody wants to get a fuller version of Mambo
Italian, the the hit version by Clooney, there's a movie called
Big Night in which there's some of the characters, some of the
people in the film are miming along to that that record.
So. By which Clooney, Rosemary.
Rosemary Clooney. Yeah, George.
George Clooney's on. OK, yeah, yeah.
So they have this minion, Henry have this Contra Tom, if you
like. And yeah, but I love the bit,
this bit where Henry says, look, man, I want you to send this to
Mr. Name Master the Bond Street Art Galleries.
Look, Min, I want you to send this to Mr. Name Master, the
Bond Street Art Galleries. What is it?
It's a rare wine bar. Be careful with it, Min.
It's worth nothing. My, my, my very patient good
lady wife, Rhonda, who, who's put up with my various
recessions over these years. It's not a Goon show fan in
particular, but even she found that one funny.
But that's, that's one of those cases where everything is
working. In this case, that, that the,
the, the, the big sound montages are ridiculous.
And by the way, second pass, I don't know if you noticed this,
the second pass has bagpipes. The first one doesn't.
Oh, I didn't pick up on that. Yeah, yeah, the second time
around you can hear a bagpipe threw even more of the kitchen
sink at it. And there's a reference to the
name Master. Mr. Name Master Which?
Yeah, I didn't pick up that struck.
Struck me as being that's a very particular name.
Did a bit of digging. There wasn't a lot I could find,
but there was a gentleman called John Jack, name Master, born 19
O five, who was an art dealer who became an acknowledged
specialist in English watercolors.
And from 1924 until 1962, he worked at Walker Galleries on
New Bond Street. So I'm assuming Spike perhaps
must have known him or was aware of him.
Must have been, yeah. Saw the pictures and stuck in
his mind and said OK I'll throw that in there too.
Yeah, pretty cool. Henry had the scroll.
Back to the plot. Henry had the scroll.
He threw it out, of course. And just like next girl, Dre's
widow and and he directs seek into the Arab dust heap, which
then gives us this the second sequence, which is just from out
of nowhere with this BBC reporter called Mondigent Klute
or something like that. And he's interviewing the prison
warder who is Norris Lurker. And this is at Churchstone
Prison and it's a new social reform prison where the
prisoners are kept on their honour with no bars.
And Norris Lurka, the name. Did that ring a bell?
Did did that sound familiar to you at?
All it sounded familiar but I couldn't place it.
He was also, well, Norris. Lurka was also the name of the
last tram driver. In the last tram.
So there you go. To the point that because Green
stayed having to make up time, he he reads the name out a
couple of times and then spells it.
So it's, it's a very memorable name.
Now that little sequence, Obviously it's, it's, it's, it's
an obvious gag. This whole, this whole sequence,
yes, what really made me sit up and listen was when Harry as
Norris lurker is calling out the names of the prisoners and
getting nothing back because he think back to that Radio Times
article I read earlier. Yes.
He calls out names, including Barry Wilson.
Right. And Barry Wilson worked on Grams
on the Goon Show and he was, he was, he was mentioned in that
article. Harry calls out Hamilton.
And Jon Hamilton was mentioned in that Radio Times article as
spot effects man. And he also, he either shouts
Charlie Brown or it could be possibly Charlie Browell.
I don't, I don't know, right? He could have could have a
reference to the to the peanuts or to the coasters.
I don't, I don't know. Yeah.
And possibly also at the end, Tom Ronald, who was ABBC
producer who produced a couple of their shows in the 8 series.
I just like the the fact there's a couple of little in jokes
there or, or, or, you know, references to actual tech guys
on the show. You just think that I think
it's, I think it's kind of sweet in the sense that you can now
these guys can go home and tell their families and say, hey,
guess what? My name got mentioned on the
radio of all these years that they've been.
And since I work tech at my church is that it's, it's nice
to know that the people behind the scenes get just a little bit
of love there. So you, you never know who Barry
Wilson was or Hamilton until now.
And it's there for it's there for eternity, which is very
cool. Isn't it?
Yeah, yeah. And then finally back at the
dust heap, Neddy and Echols, empty dustbin, fine blue bottle,
he was sleeping inside it. And then has a very perfunctory
30 seconds or so. And then Echols finds the
ancient manuscript and we get the the clincher to the show
here. Come here often.
Only during the mating season now have you seen an ancient
musical document signed Purdum. No, my Capitan I have not seen
an ancient musical documents and Perdiums thinks I have not seen
an ancient music of document. Wait, wait.
Look. What's this I found?
Let's see. This is it.
The last music of Purdum echoes. Let the world hear it.
The lost music of Purdum. Oh, the other thing is of course
the, the, the. Do you come here often?
Only in the mating season that proliferates throughout the show
as well. It does, yeah.
And that's where I thought the edit had come in.
Is that right? The there's one part where he
says it's this is one of my favorite echoes lines is that he
said no one, no man has ever fallen off the Eiffel Tower and
lived. You're called this living, he
said only during the mating season.
Good luck. Oh yes.
Yeah, if if you listen closely, there's, I think you can
actually hear just a little bit of change in the ambience.
But I think that there was something that was sniffed out.
Maybe somebody hit something or there was a flood line or
something like that. But it's just that only during
the meetings are you a good luck.
Why was the echo staying? Good luck to Nate Nacey Goon.
Well, good, good luck. It was a kind of like a way of
saying well done or yes, OK, or just just a way of kind of
punctuating a conversation. Yeah, I suppose so.
I, I just, I guess that he may be good luck during the mating
season that that could have been it.
But it's just, it seemed, it seemed a little odd the way that
it just not not the the line itself, but it just seemed weird
juxtaposition, like they they'd taken something out.
For example, in Call of the West, there's a there's a line
when Blue Bottle is talking and he's he's talking about his his
little schoolmate. He says whoever the most gets
me. And that's the version I heard,
not whoever shows the most gets me.
So shows got knocked, got ticked off.
OK. Yeah, that makes makes a bit
more sense. Yeah, absolutely.
Single words would often get just clipped out because they
they were suggestive of something.
So yeah. That the one reference I
couldn't track down was the they said they empty all Arab dustbin
at city revoke was zake. Yeah.
I couldn't find that city at all.
Well, now I presume it's just made-up, but yeah.
And it's presumably a play on words, but I the reference is
lost on me. So if listeners can help, please
oblige. Yeah.
So overall, a really good show, really strong show.
And I'm really glad that you asked to do this one.
Do you have a favorite Sellers film or what's what would you
say is your favorite solo goon project?
If you like, my favorite solo goon project would probably be
being there. My introduction to sellers would
have been the Which which is the 1975 Pink Panther.
Oh, return of. Return of the Pink Panther.
That was my first big introduction.
No, I'm sorry. I, I, I Strangelove would have
been, but I was so young. I couldn't, I couldn't get all
the 60s references. But that was my first one.
I remember just laughing out loud at Sellers and that was the
first Pink Panther film that I'd seen.
But my so that's the that'll be my initial one.
But being there is so very subtly done because he is he's
under acting and he's and he's excellent at it.
And I truthfully think that he should have gotten the best
actor that year for the Oscars. So that would that would be that
would be my favorite. Saying that, saying that, sorry,
I I rewatched Kramer versus Kramer recently because Dustin
Hoffman picked up the Oscars set of sellers.
Yeah, he puts in a blistering performance in Kramer versus
Kramer. Dustin Hoffman.
Yes, it was, it was good and and there's a lot of legacy.
There's a lot of legacy voting. For example, Dustin Hoffman put
in a great performance in Midnight Cowboy and he was good
and very sudden and he said, well, this one grossed a lot and
it's and it's good enough and it's about time.
Not that it was a bad performance by any stretch of
the imagination, but it's just that it was sort of a crowning
moment. Yeah.
Well, OK.
And it just so happened to coincide with Sellers.
Now, as far as cameos, I haven't seen any of I haven't seen any
of Spike Milligan's starring roles per SE or Postman's knock
or what have you, but my brother and I thought he was fantastic
in Three Musketeers. Oh, yes, absolutely.
Yes. To this day, to this day, my
brother and I will will say that that is not the man.
I don't know this man. We, we we say that one.
We quote that endlessly ever since we've seen it.
So, but yeah, I would say being there would be my big, my big
favorite. And Speaking of acting, you
yourself get involved, don't you?
I do I do. I am involved with a group
called the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company and we're going to be
the company itself is celebrating 40 years.
I've not been with it that long. I, I'm somewhat of a, of a
latecomer and I've been there since 2007.
And so I did that. But I originally started doing
radio theater with a group called the Philco Radio Players
with the late Scott Lindquist. And he loved the fact that I was
big into old time radio. And so therefore, if he said,
OK, you, you went ahead and do this.
And I knew who he was talking about right away because I grew
up appreciating The Shadow and a lot of the older radio shows.
And in one case, I'm very proud to say I actually played my own
grandpa. So at some part of the time I'm
speaking like this and. I'm also speaking like the old
grandpa's will. So it was fun to do that on the
stage and one of the one of the weirder compliments I ever got
being black. I'm doing I'm on stage and we
did a two person Love and Abner. Now.
Are you familiar with Love and Abner?
Not, not not, little Abner. No, Lum and Abner.
Lil Abner was the comic strip, which was also very good.
But Lum and Abner, imagine, weirdly enough, if you will, the
white Amos and Andy, that's almost exactly what it is.
The difference is as opposed to 22 black characters, you have
two hillbilly characters. And we did a two person Lum and
Abner script that he had written.
And I did, I did the various voices and what have you.
And we did it at his church. We came off the we came off the
stage and they I did not attend his church was his Unity Church
in a town called Gainesville. And they'd said someone had
said, who is that guy that was next to you?
He said, well, that's Brian. He said, well, he's, he's very
good to say. Yeah, it's it's very rare that
you find black people that are interested in old time radio.
And with absolutely no irony in her voice that I did not know
that he was black and she was looking dead at me.
And I said, now that's acting. But I've been I've been
fascinated by voices ever since I was a little boy.
I I watched Bugs Bunny slavishly.
And one time one of the non bug Bunny cartoons had come on and
there was a cat that was pampered and spoiled by its
owners. And he had a but he had his own
Butler named Meadows who used to torture horrendously.
And eventually Meadows gets fed up with it and writes note and
resigns and leaves and he cries out for him.
And I thought to myself, I can do that voice.
And so there's a point in the cartoon where he reads the note
and he says Meadows, meadows, Meadows.
And that's where I started doing voices.
And it's right around time of 11 or 12 I started doing that.
Mel Mel Blanc. Yes, Mel Blanc and I, but I
would like to also and others his contract still that he would
be the only person credited. But there are many, many people
that did voices for the Warner Brothers cartoon.
And not that take away from his genius.
He was he was brilliant to what he did.
He he did a lot of voices, but the one voice he could never do
was Emma Fudd. And there's only one or two
cartoons where he did Emmer Fudd, but art do Helmer Fudd was
voiced by Arthur Q Bryan. And yeah, the if you listen to
there's, there's a later cartoon after Arthur Bryan had died.
He could, he could not, he could only approximate it.
It's, it's not, it's close, but not there.
But yes, I, I, I'm a big fan of a big fan of, of radio voices.
So of course I gravitated to this and the the the many, many
voices that sellers does and the the the the select and wild few.
That's a Milligan do. And it took me a while to
finally get goon literate where I could say, Oh yeah, that's
sellers doing that. That's Milligan doing that.
And oh, the to show how much I research, I dug for that this
record on February 1st, 1955, and it said the weather was
lending experienced a very cold, wintry day characterized by
heavy snow, light snows, showers and smoke.
So you know, what I thought of is that I thought that that's
almost winds like to variable. God, that is going the extra
mile for research that is looking at the weather.
Brian, it's been a it's been a wonderful hour and a half we've
spent together and really enjoyed talking to you today.
Definitely want to get you back. So, so thank you so much and
thank you all for listening. Bye now.
Music.