The Goon Show

The Goon Show was a radio comedy series which was broadcast over the BBC Home Service from 1951 until 1960. The series was developed by Spike Milligan, who was the primary writer and starred alongside Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe. Michael Bentine was involved in the early shows but left following the second season.

An unusual mixture of sketch comedy and oddball storytelling, the three Goons developed a roster of rather bizarre continuing characters, who each week would engage in surreal adventures across time, space, literature, and sanity. Secombe played the protagonist, the dim Ned Seagoon, and occasional minor parts, while Sellers and Milligan between them populated the rest of their audio world: Sellers played the villainous Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, cowardly army man Major Bloodnok, cheeky child Bluebottle, decrepit old Henry Crun, William "Mate" Cobblers, and showbiz agent Lew (modeled after Lew Grade), among others, while Milligan played "The Famous Eccles," Grytype-Thynne's associate Count Jim Moriarty, Henry's spinster companion Minnie Banister, Little Jim, and more. These odd characters were complemented by an even odder range of running jokes and catchphrases, from Little Jim's "He's fallen in the waa-ater" and Henry Crun's "You can't get the wood" to the nonsensical "Needle nardle noo!" (most often spoken by Seagoon). The offbeat characters, surreal happenings, music hall variety elements, and "show within a show" aspect later had a pronounced influence on The Muppet Show, which had both Milligan and Peter Sellers as guests.