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The Goon Show: Spike Milligan
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The Goon Show Preservation Society’s Patron is the Prince of Wales. Its Honorary President is last surviving Goon, Spike Milligan, and it has 650 members in Britain and 150 members abroad. Most of its collection is kept with Society secretary, Dr Steve Arnold, at his home in Tilbury, Essex.
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The Goon Show (1951-1960) was a half-hour radio show broadcast by the BBC, starring, for the most part, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe. The three all played numerous characters in the absurd comedy, which became immensely popular and, in it's own way, groundbreaking and influential to much of today's comedy.
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The Goon Show paved the way for surreal and alternative humour. Many of the sequences have been cited as being visionary in the way that they challenged the traditional conventions of comedy.[9] Perhaps one of the most famous is from "The Mysterious Punch-Up-The-Conker", where Bluebottle (Sellers) asks Eccles (Milligan) what the time is. Eccles consults a piece of paper, on which is written "Eight o'clock" – the answer he received the last time [H]e asked somebody what the time was. The implications of this method of telling the time are then explored at some length:
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The Goons’ alternative, surreal view of the world captured the nation when this fondly remembered BBC radio show began in 1951, and was an inspiration to the team that later created Monty Python. The first series was actually called Crazy People at the behest of the BBC, but the Goon Show title was in place by the end of the year. The original cast of four – Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine – now reads like an entertainment Who’s Who. Michael Bentine left the show after the second series in 1952, but the madcap comedy carried on until 1960. Immortal characters included Neddie Seagoon, Eccles, Bluebottle, Major Bloodnok, Grytpype-Thynne, Moriarty, Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister. The three Goons ... appeared in several TV shows and made records, including the famous Ying Tong Song, a surprise hit in the 1970s.
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From 1952 to 1960, the Goon Show featuring Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, spawned a cult of quickfire humour. This DVD is a lasting tribute to their genius, as the original goons make their last appearance in 1972 after 12 years of silence. Order yours today.
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The Goons' influence was spread well beyond the UK; the members of the American comedy troupe Firesign Theatre recall listening to The Goon Show at different times in their lives. Phil Proctor claims that was enthused by the group's surrealist style of comedy that they adopted that style into their performances. Peter Bergman ... met and got to know Spike Milligan while Bergman was a television writer in England during the mid-1960s.[24]
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