Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.
The Goon Show is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled Crazy People; subsequent series had the title The Goon Show.
Eric Sykes was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, which include collaboration on some scripts for The Goon Show. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.
Bluebottle is a comedy character from The Goon Show, a 1950s British comedy radio show. The character was created and performed by Peter Sellers.
Max van Gelder, professionally known as Max Geldray, was a Dutch jazz harmonica player. Best known for providing musical interludes for the BBC radio comedy programme The Goon Show, he was also credited as being the first harmonica player to embrace the jazz style.
Surreal humour is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, thus producing events and behaviors that are obviously illogical. Portrayals of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions, incongruity, non-sequiturs, irrational or absurd situations, and expressions of nonsense.
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne was a character from the British 1950s comedy radio programme The Goon Show. He was voiced by Peter Sellers. In the episode "Who Is Pink Oboe?", Valentine Dyall filled-in for the role in Sellers' absence.
Major Denis Bloodnok is a fictional character from the 1950s BBC Radio comedy The Goon Show. He was voiced by Peter Sellers.
The Telegoons is a comedy puppet show, adapted from the highly esteemed and successful BBC radio comedy show of the 1950s, The Goon Show produced by Tony Young for BBC television and first shown during 1963 and 1964. Two series of 13 episodes were made. The series was briefly repeated immediately after its original run, and all episodes are known to have survived. Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan reprised their original voice roles from the radio series and appeared in promotional photos with some of the puppets from the series. Among the puppeteers were Ann Field, John Dudley, and Violet Phelan. The original radio scripts were adapted by Maurice Wiltshire, who had previously co-written a number of radio episodes with Larry Stephens.
This is a list of running jokes and catchphrases in the 1950s British radio programme The Goon Show.
The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn is a 1956 British short comedy film directed by Joseph Sterling and starring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Dick Emery. It was written by Harry Booth, Jon Penington and regular Goon show co-writer Larry Stephens, from a story by Stephens, with additional material by Sellers and Milligan.
The Idiot Weekly (1958–1962) was a radio program made by the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
"Six Charlies in Search of An Author" is an episode of the British radio comedy, The Goon Show. It was first broadcast on 26 December 1956.
"Any Old Iron" is a British music hall song with lyrics written by Charles Collins and Fred E. Terry, and music by E.A. Sheppard. Harry Champion sang it as part of his act, and recorded it in 1911.
The Dreaded Batter-Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea is an episode from series five of the 1950s BBC radio comedy The Goon Show, first broadcast on 12 October 1954. It was written by Spike Milligan, who chose Bexhill-on-Sea as the location because he had been stationed there in World War II.
The Last Goon Show of All is a special edition of the BBC Radio comedy programme The Goon Show commissioned as part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the BBC. Simulcast on radio and television on 5 October 1972, the performance reunited Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe as well as other contributors to the programme's original run. It was later released as a long-playing record and on compact disc. The video recording of the television broadcast was also released on VHS and later on DVD, although with some omissions. In early October 2007, 35 years after the original broadcast, a full unedited version was broadcast on BBC 7, the digital radio channel dedicated to re-runs of classic shows.
The "Ying Tong Song" is a novelty song written by Spike Milligan and performed by the Goons, usually led by Harry Secombe. It is a nonsense song, consisting of small verses interspersed by a completely nonsensical chorus. The origin of the title is said to have come from Harry Secombe's mispronunciation of the name of Milligan's war-time friend and fellow jazz musician, Harry Edgington. When Secombe repeatedly called him "Edgerton", Milligan replied, "it's Edgington, Edgington" and emphasized the point by saying "Yington, Yingtang".
Patrick "Pat" Kenneth Macneile Dixon was an English radio producer for BBC Radio.
