King Goon

[lauraxsynthesis]

I'm not a monarchist but this thread is a timeline cleanse https://twitter.com/stevehyett/status/1570851223871586304?s=46&t=0wUtNTW7_e6nVzURJvYydg

[Kankurette]

Didn't Milligan call him a grovelling little bastard?

[SpiderChrist]

"Little grovelling bastard", aye

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Terrible word order.

[Sex Wax]

must be tough gooning with those fingers

[JesusAndYourBush]

Charles appeared in a Goon Show-type sketch once.
(Anyone know what this clip is from?)

[Jake Thingray]

Some current affairs or documentary thing. Tee-hee-nicky-nacky-noo oh dear.

[lauraxsynthesis]

Secombe wasn't warned that he'd be mentioned in Charles' investiture speech. 1h 29m -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7zaLuA_DGI
I'd hoped to hear that bit in that episode of The Crown lol

I like the smirk particularly during the Welsh version.

[SpiderChrist]

Some current affairs or documentary thing. Tee-hee-nicky-nacky-noo oh dear.

Fucking hell, it's like the sun coming up.

[Jake Thingray]

You don't like criticism of the awful Goons, but Charles' being a fan is well known and you've been lashing out at monarchist Stigdu (who does seem remarkably naive in his conservatism, admittedly) on the CoD Funeral thread, make your mind up.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

i think there was supposed to be quite a bit of Charles mucking around and pretending to be the Goons, probably all long since destroyed now.

true or not hearing about it reminds me of the "don't you wish you'd had a childhood like mine?" bit from Smashie and Nicey.

[SpiderChrist]

You don't like criticism of the awful Goons, but Charles' being a fan is well known and you've been lashing out at monarchist Stigdu (who does seem remarkably naive in his conservatism, admittedly) on the CoD Funeral thread, make your mind up.

I don't mind The Goons being criticised in the slightest, and dragging my little contretemps with Stigdu into it seems irrelevant. One can surely be a fan of The Goons and despise the royals, and vice versa, so I'm not really sure what you're getting at here.

However (and correct me if I'm mistaken, I'm not going to trawl through all your posts) but my impression is that everytime Milligan or The Goons get mentioned it seems that the best you can offer is tedious repetition. Could we have some criticism of The Goons that isn't just the "tee hee nicky nacky noo" thing?

[jamiefairlie]

"Little grovelling bastard", aye

......Sessions.

[Jake Thingray]

However (and correct me if I'm mistaken, I'm not going to trawl through all your posts) but my impression is that everytime Milligan or The Goons get mentioned it seems that the best you can offer is tedious repetition. Could we have some criticism of The Goons that isn't just the "tee hee nicky nacky noo" thing?

My views haven't changed from the following post, for the record "tee-hee-nicky-nacky-noo" doesn't just apply to Milligan but also to infantile embarrassments like the Goodies, Kenny Everett and the horrible Hill, as in Benny.

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=52515.msg2772234#msg2772234

[SpiderChrist]

Thanks for clarifying.

[Mobbd]

Eccles? Is that it?

[Kankurette]

I like the Goons (but not Charles) and some of Milligan's humour but can't disagree with that post. A lot of it has not aged well. That Pakistani Dalek sketch being an example. LOL PAKISTANIS LIKE CURRY! SO HILARIOUS! Milligan was notorious for being a giant cunt as well.

And the silly sod is wrong, The Goons is very dated. I mean, it was made in the '50s.

[Bennett Brauer]

The Goons is very dated. I mean, it was made in the '50s.

So was Head Gardener, and his avatars are totally far out and with it in 2022.

[SpiderChrist]

I'm laid up in bed with Covid, watching the 5 DVD Q set, and I must admit that the hit rate has been pretty high so far (just finished Q6).

The Goons has dated, as you would expect, but it was certainly groundbreaking in its day and influential on a lot of comedy. The same can be said for Q, too, I guess.

Milligan was a massive influence on me when I was younger - yes he could be a right cunt, but the search for a hero without flaws is a fool's errand.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

There are at least a dozen perfectly self-contained Goon episodes where the structure of the show is well conceived and the experimentation with format, sounds, parodies of other programs, in jokes, all pull together into something remarkable. Now the lights are going out on most broadcast media I'd happily argue that where the Goons were in their element, they were never and would never be equalled. But probably half of every series is near unlistenable mush of Sellars doing a camp or foreign voice and Secombe forcing a laugh while Milligan phones in to pass enough time to get to the next musical number or sound effect cue. And then from 1958 on they really became an institution and we have the novelty records, endless reunions and all that guff that deserves to be dismissed as "tee hee nicky nacky noo"

But its hard to slate something that revolutionary for being inconsistent considering the circumstances under which it was made. Had Milligan and Stephens been left to write at their own pace, maybe six or eight episodes a year not nearly thirty, it would be very different and have a lot less interchangeable giggling. But the same would have happened to anyone, had Python, the Simpsons or Hancock's Half Hour needed 30% more episodes a year they would quickly have collapsed too. How bad would The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer have gotten if there were a hundred episodes of it? It was astonshingly unsustainable, even if its hard to have sympathy for Milligan now a lot of his personal behaviour is widely known it is frankly amazing that the Milligan-led version of the show lasted seven years. Come up with something that confounds expectations, uses audio in ways no one has before, maintain a sense of continuity with characters and fictional versions of the cast, but also have write well structured skits that stand on their own ...  invent the radio version of a cartoon, and then keep reinventing that twenty five times a year. While suffering from intermittent catatonia and paranoid delusions.

I grew up adoring the Goons so its hard to be objective, but the reality is the BBC forced the handle to be cranked for twenty five episodes a year when one of the writers had a life threatening breakdown and the other dropped dead. I don't think Milligan in the 1950s was anywhere near the monster he was in the 70s so I choose to believe the result of the world being kinder to him would have been better scripts and the Goons would be easier to judge on their experimentation and Chuck Jones structures rather than forty hours of hee hee hee hee hee HAA HAA HAA BRRRPSSTTT!

[Video Game Fan 2000]

thinking all day about the Goons introduction of a Quatermass sequel called "Quatermass OBE"

is the thread about "comedy lines that keep coming into your head" still rolling, that one has been with me since I was thirteen

[King Gizard]

...

[JesusAndYourBush]

And then from 1958 on they really became an institution and we have the novelty records, endless reunions and all that guff that deserves to be dismissed as "tee hee nicky nacky noo"

That was kindof my experience too.  In the 90's when I was collecting cassettes of the shows I found that the earlier ones had a plot which could be followed, but with the last few series I found that regularly I'd get 15 minutes in and realise I had no clue what the episode was about, so I'd rewind and start again, and then have to do the same again 15 minutes later and rewind again for a third attempt.  I'm pretty sure every episode was scripted but many of the later ones come off as improvised lolwhimsy.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

That was kindof my experience too.  In the 90's when I was collecting cassettes of the shows I found that the earlier ones had a plot which could be followed, but with the last few series I found that regularly I'd get 15 minutes in and realise I had no clue what the episode was about, so I'd rewind and start again, and then have to do the same again 15 minutes later and rewind again for a third attempt.  I assume every episode was sctipted but many of the later ones come off as improvised lolwhimsy.

I think the re-recorded "Vintage Goons" series might mark a cut off. I think it was around that time that Stephens died, or stopped appearing as a cowriter, and Milligan needed other cowriters to fill in, mostly Sykes. Establishing Milligan's pattern of treating his cowriters, who often did the lion's share of the work, as second bananas and treating them like garbage.

I remember getting a load of tapes once and being disappointed that so many of the episodes were unfunny and immediately digressed into repetitions of old bits, but some still stood out as great. As a kid who worshipped Milligan, I was crestfallen to discover that he did not write any of the episodes I thought were good.

[Jake Thingray]

As a kid who worshipped Milligan, I was crestfallen to discover

Honestly not meaning to be patronising, but have you read Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Milligan?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Honestly not meaning to be patronising, but have you read Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Milligan?

Not until much later. I think was already done with university when it came out. Carpenter's biography of Tolkein ruined that childhood hero for me despite its attempts to present the man as a genius, so I doubt Milligan would have survived it.
 
But even the hagiography around the man I saw on TV and checked out of libraries shed light on the truth that the endlessly repeated notion of Milligan as a tortured genius had only one source - Spike Milligan. Even the books I read that tried to place him as a Flann O'brien or Pirandello figure contained stories about him assaulting Sykes or shooting at trespassers that even a twelve year old wouldn't accept as just quirks of a troubled mind. As a kid I did buy into the idea that he was a serious poet and artist (having never read any of his terrible poetry) but even at the peak of my Goons obsession as a twelve or thirteen year old I could never buy the obviously staged pictures of him "campaigning" for animal rights and the like.

I still think the Goons were great. And I don't think Milligan shot out of the womb as the deranged, violent egotist he ultimately became after repeated breakdowns. For all the bullshot surrounding the man I don't doubt the severity of his problems.

[Jake Thingray]

That's very true (apart from thinking the Goons were great). Just mentioned it as Carpenter clearly started the book as a fan but gradually became appalled, won't repeat myself but could sympathise on reading it with finally seeing the Q's unedited, and getting fed up with having to constantly overlook the racism in his writing.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I think for me it was reading an interview with Speight that couldn't disguise Milligan's attitudes to race no matter how positive a spin Speight put on it.

Last time I posted about Milligan I said I thought he was someone who thought that because he had suffered greatly, he had a free rein to dismiss the suffering of others because he sincerely felt that he experienced empathy more intensely than any other person. He really seemed to believe something like this. I've read both Farnes and Antony Clare say that he'd told them things to that effect. Hard not to see it is as a decay into narcissism.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

If it matters for context, I grew up in a house where Python and alternative comedy were frowned on or forbidden. So those highly edited Q anthology shows and Goons cassettes were the world to me. The dream for me as a youngster was catching an episode of Big Night Out when my mum was out at the bingo or my dad falling asleep just before Fist of Fun started. So I was a real mark for those talking head shows that described Q as too brilliant to be rebroadcast, it was better than Python, etc. Had I been exposed to something more age appropriate first, I might have dismissed the Goons just based on all the Pakistani and camp voices. But then again, I still find the Goons and some Q very funny.

[Jake Thingray]

If it matters for context, I grew up in a house where Python and alternative comedy were frowned on or forbidden.

Were you permitted to see, or listen to, mainstream comedy?