Goon Pod

“ I like the Pickwick score, it’s robust and British. I’ve often been offered parts in American musicals but I’ve always turned them down. No matter how good they are, I always feel they are not part of us. That’s why I waited and thought of this idea of making a musical of ‘Pickwick.” - Harry Secombe, 1963. And so the idea was realised, based on the 1837 Charles Dickens novel The Posthumous Paper...

"What's become of that crispy bacon we had before the war?" Yes, this is that episode. 'Fireball' doesn't perhaps get the love it deserves, as it contains a fairly strong plot (by Goon Show terms). Henry Crun believes the sun is on fire, ergo the world is coming to an end and soon his fellow villagers are drawn into the drama. Seagoon is dispatched to see the Queen, a dissenting lad climbs a 200-f...

This week Goon Pod welcomes Gavin Sutherland, conductor, musician, composer, arranger and general music nut with a passion for both the high-brow and the not-so-high-brow. As well as all that he's just released an album of old TV tunes, idents and ephemera: 'The Next Programme Follows Shortly'. Gavin has long been a fan of the Goons and thanks to his job and connections has met a numbe...

In 1966 Jonathan Miller's BBC Television adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic children's story caused something of a moral panic, even before it was broadcast. Amidst much foot-stamping, harrumphing and letters to the Editor the point was very much missed - yes, it was to be screened after nine o'clock in the evening and was not aimed at children but not because it contained quest...

In May 1991 At Last The Go On Show was broadcast on BBC Radio 2, designed to celebrate the Goon Show's 40th anniversary. It was a stunning documentary that still sounds fresh and relevant today and two of the three men behind it - Dirk Maggs and Ted Kendall - joined Tyler and Graeme Lindsay Foot to discuss how it all came about and the challenges they faced. Ted (who it turns out wanted to be...

John Antrobus is 92 years old and still going strong! He is the last living link with the Goon Show inasmuch as he co-wrote (with Spike Milligan) two shows from the eighth series and would later go on to collaborate with Milligan on a regular basis - mostly notably on The Bed Sitting Room. Fifteen years Milligan's junior, young fresh-faced Antrobus joined Associated London Scripts soon after its f...

“At least 53 ‘bloodies’ in half-an-hour last night. This is definitely not British sir! I suggest you study the British working man more!" So thundered a disgruntled viewer in 1969 after watching an episode of the Johnny Speight & Spike Milligan sitcom Curry & Chips. One notes with interest it was the word 'bloody' which triggered him, as opposed to any of the other bad langua...

Over a long and rightly celebrated career Ray Galton and Alan Simpson were careful to file away, log and generally archive much of their written output, correspondence, contracts and other ephemera. Now York University's Borthwick Institute for Archives is attempting to secure the collection for the nation and the Institute's Gary Brannan joins Tyler to talk about the G&S archive and the fund-...

There is absolutely no connection between the Goons and the Simpsons so what on earth is this special bonus episode all about? Well, my very good friends Ian and Michael over at the Lord Of Adders Black podcast - celebrating all things Blackadder - joined me to share our love for The Simpsons and talk through our favourite episodes! (Their podcast is really good - find it here: https://shows.acast...

How young Ned Seagoon journeys by steam packet to the Americas to find the Lost Gold Mine and how, after being foully tricked by several desperadoes, he eventually triumphs. The action takes place aboard the S.S. Filthmuck, in a New Orleans dustbin, near the desert town of San Fairee Ann, and in a dried-up gulch near Hammersmith. Sandwiched between The Whistling Spy Enigma and The Dreaded Batter P...

One of the few actors who could genuinely command respect and admiration from Peter Sellers, Irene Handl is mainly remembered now for her multitudinous 'mum', 'gran', 'landlady/charlady' and general 'dotty old dear' roles in films and on TV. She and Sellers appeared together in films, on record, on stage and on television. Perhaps the pairing is most well known from the 1959 film I'm All Right Jac...

Commissioner Dreyfus had for years wanted to see his infuriating underling Inspector Jacques Clouseau dead and buried and for a while, with the death of Peter Sellers in 1980, it seemed like the shambolic Sûreté shamus had indeed been laid to rest... ... Until somebody had the bright idea of filming two new movies back-to-back trading on the Clouseau character - after all, the Pink Panther film se...

When Adam Faith and chums decide to make a fake Loch Ness monster they set off a chain of events too hilarious to describe. With a script by Terry Nation, What A Whopper! is a serviceable British comedy film of the early sixties slightly let down by rather colourless leads but lending solid support are the likes of Sid James, Wilfred Bramble, Charles Hawtrey and - you guessed it - Spike Milligan,...

Issued on BBC LP in 1979, The Rent Collectors is still often overlooked which is a bit unfair. Although given of a slight plot - not unusual for a Goon Show! - it has some marvellous set pieces and gags and an interesting guest performer in the shape of actor Bernard Miles. It also heralded the first official appearance of Little Jim whose catchphrase has delighted audiences ever since (it says he...

This week a slight departure as we go back forty years to the alternative comedy landscape of the 1980s and Tyler chats with Rowland Rivron, that difficult-to-define Swiss army knife of a man who has done a bit of pretty much everything: musician, comedian, actor, writer, voice-over artiste, panel game captain, television presenter, dancer and at least a dozen other things.   Rowland was partly re...

This week Tyler talks to Robert Sellers, author of a new book detailing the entire history of the Pink Panther/Inspector Clouseau film series from Peter Sellers to Steve Martin. There's loads of interesting stuff discussed - did you know: Peter Sellers was once upstaged by Richard Burton & Elisabeth Taylor at the premiere of Return Of The Pink Panther? The creator of Asterix tried to claim...

This week we fire up a Wurlitzer and crack open an oyster as we celebrate one of the aspects of the Goon Show that made it so unique: the sound effects. Joining Tyler to talk about some of our favourites are Chris Smith and Graeme Lindsay-Foot and the idea for the show first occurred to Chris when he heard a news item on the radio several years ago. According to Chris: "They covered the recen...

We revisit some beloved children's television series from the seventies and eighties this week as Chris Diamond returns to talk about those occasions when Spike Milligan would pop up as a special guest in shows such as Super Gran, The Sooty Show, Pob's Programme, Jackanory, The Muppet Show, Number 73, Tiswas and The Ratties (which Spike narrated). Wiping a nostalgia-fuelled tear from his e...

"Ah, here is is Christmas Eve and still no offers of pantomime!" One of the best-known Goon Shows ever, Dishonoured - Again went out in January 1959 and before the year was at an end was commercially released (with Tales Of Old Dartmoor ) on the LP The Best Of The Goon Shows . It was subsequently repeated more frequently than most Goon Shows and its script was published in a Roger Wilmut book. A r...

This week we’re turning our attention to Peter Sellers’penultimate film (if we disregard those pesky ‘flogging a dead Panther’ posthumous farragoes), and the film for which he came closest in his career to carrying off a Best Actor Oscar: Being There from 1979.   Very much a passion project for Sellers, the film, directed by Hal Ashby (Harold & Maude) and based on the novel by Jerzy Kosiński,...

Can you believe that for half a century student bars the length and breadth of the land have resounded to the excruciating cries of "Nii!"? Yes, the film the Spanish call 'The Knights of the Square Table and Their Crazy Followers' turns 50 and to mark the occasion here's a bonus episode with Tyler and writer, podcaster & performer Tom Salinsky in which they talk at length about the film. Tom t...

"Do you want a taste of the lash?" "No thanks, I've just had some cocoa." In 1974 the BBC issued the first Goon Show Classics LP. On one side was The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea and on the other side was the show we're talking about today: The Histories of Pliny the Elder , Spike Milligan's attempt to pen a sword-and-sandals Goonish epic. It has become one the most beloved Goon...

According to Peter Sellers: “It all started because Spike Milligan and I once said we wanted to experiment in visual humour. We got as many friends together as we could and went and found a field. That was all we had – friends, a field, a roll of film.” What resulted was 'The Running, Jumping & Standing Still Film' (1959), directed by the up-and-coming Richard Lester, a friend and coll...

A darkly comic satire about an increasingly deranged leader of a Western power, tensions with Russia and the threat of World War 3 breaking out – sound familiar? That’s the premise of Whoops Apocalypse, the 1986 feature film very loosely based on the sitcom of the same name, created by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall. Sadly where the film fails to imitate real life is the presence of a female Pr...

In 2024 we asked Goon Pod listeners to nominate their all-time favourite British comedy film. It didn't have to have a Goon in it - no, we wanted to put together a comprehensive Top 20 chart which covered all the bases. This week as we wind up the show this series Simon Meddings from Waffle On podcast joins Tyler to count down the list from Number 20 to Number 1. While there will be films you'd ex...