Trivia / The Goon Show

• Acting for Two: Everyone played multiple roles, especially if someone was absent. Sellers sometimes filled in for absentees, but it took four people to fill in for him the day he was absent.
  • For contrast, in certain episodes where Milligan was missing, Sellers filled in for him... and until the credits were announced, no-one listening at home noticed.
  • This also happened to characters within the show, e.g.:
    Brutus Moriartus: Why don't you stop him, Julius Caesar?
    Bloodnok: How can I when I'm playing the part of Bloodnok?
  • Or:
    Englishman: I am the Manager, the Proprietor, the Head Waiter, and the Chief Cashier of the Restaurant Fred.
    Seagoon: Who's Fred?
    Englishman: I am!
    Seagoon: Gad!
    Englishman: Yes - Fred Gad!
  • Or:
    Henry Crun: Who was that knocking?
    Moriarty: It was my friend, Grytpype-Thynne.
    Henry Crun: I can't see him.
    Moriarty: That's because you were playing him.
    Henry Crun: What?
    Moriarty: He's never here when you're here.
    Henry Crun: I don't understand...
    Moriarty: Neither do the audience, that's why this isn't getting a laugh!
  • Sellers periodically found it impossible to remember which voice he was supposed to be using at any given moment, leading to conversations that made very little sense (even for The Goon Show). Hilarity ensued.
    Bloodnok: Sellers! How dare you change from my voice to his for one joke only!
  • Also very rarely with Harry Secombe
    General (played by Harry Secombe) [talking about Neddy outside] Wait! Don't let him in!
    Bloodnok: Why not?
    General/Harry: I can't play two people in the same scene!
• Corpsing: They frequently set each other off, or the studio audience did, or after they flubbed a line. In "The Case of the Missing CD Plates", a running gag involving absurd sped-up cod-Eastern music and nonsense words sets off a storm of giggles that completely halts the show in its tracks for 20 seconds or so.
• Creator Breakdown:
  • Spike Milligan was manic-depressive and during the show's run personal and professional pressures, including Executive Meddling, caused him to snap occasionally. The resultant hospitalizations are a big reason he sometimes was absent, and the whole experience is dramatized in Roy Smiles' play Ying Tong: A Walk with the Goons.
  • ...And, while Peter Sellers himself was in a black mood, Milligan knocking on his door, stark naked in broad daylight, and delivering a punchline - accounts vary as to whether this was "Do You Know The Address Of A Good Tailor?", or that Milligan was pretending to be selling matches, culminating in Sellers buying a pack and then closing the door. The "good tailor" joke was, according to Milligan's autobiography, a catchphrase of the eccentric in the battery (well, one of the battery eccentrics) during Milligan's service in the artillery... who also used "Gentlemen - I think there's a thief in the battery".
• Defictionalization: (sort of) "I've got it written down on a piece of paper!"
• Edited for Syndication: When the show was picked up for distribution by the BBC Transcription Service their copies were cut to standard lengths, and to remove any potentially offensive content. In many instances these are the only versions that survive in the archives. Over the years the BBC's restoration experts have made heroic efforts to find and reinstate the missing material, often from private off-air recordings.
• Life Imitates Art: In "The Dreaded Batter-Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea", one of the show's throwaway surrealistic moments has become mundane — the idea that Seagoon can receive calls on a telephone that he carries in his pocket.
• Missing Episode:
  • Very few episodes from the first four seasons weren't purged by The BBC, meaning that fourth Goon Michael Bentine, who left after season two, has been virtually forgotten. A handful of season 4 episodes have now been found and remastered, but that's still no consolation to Bentine fans.
  • Twelve episodes were omitted from the uncut BBC releases on CD because EMI bought the commercial rights years ago and prepared heavily shortened versions which omitted the musical interludes (to save on costs). As of December 2016 the rights to all of these episodes have reverted to the BBC, and all have been reissued on BBC compilations.
• The Pete Best:
  • Michael Bentine, who left the show early in its run and is largely forgotten due to the early episodes mostly being lost.
  • Subverted by announcer Andrew Timothy, who returned for The Last Goon Show.
• Referenced by...: "The Dreaded Lurgi" later became the basis of an episode of Numberjacks, in which lurgi is an illness that only affects Numberjacks, and causes headaches, body aches, lethargy, and in Six's case, a cough.
• Throw It In!: The ad-libs in this show run the full gamut from spontaneous to carefully-rehearsed.
  • Of particular note is the episode The Evils of Bushey Spon where the entire last third of the program, including the guest appearence from A. E. Matthews, is ad-libbed.
• Write Who You Know: The popular Goon show character of Bluebottle began with a really eccentric and physically odd-looking Scoutmaster who Bentine encountered in London. Discovering the scoutmaster had a truly unique voice, Bentine grabbed Sellers by the arm and said "You have got to meet this man!" After the encounter, Bentine said to Sellers "Look. I can't do that voice. You can. There's your Bluebottle!" The rest became radio history. Even when invited to a Goon Show recording, the life-model for the character still did not twig who Bluebottle was based on, and complimented Sellers on creating such a funny character who could not possibly exist in real life.
  • The character's unique voice was introduced to a new generation of comedy fans in the shape of Pierre from Count Duckula and subsequently Hugo of Victor & Hugo. David Jason added a French twang to his take the Bluebottle voice.
  • Similarly, Bloodnok's voice was based on that of a drunken Major who caught Sellers Impersonating an Officer.

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