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Before political correctness, there was The Goon Show.
I started to think about The Goon Show last week when someone sent me a Spike Milligan card, and right on the front was one of his silly poems:
"Today I saw a little worm
Wriggling on his belly,
Perhaps he'd like to come inside
And see what's on the Telly."
The Goon Show ran from 1951 to 1960, with "The Very Last Goon Show of all Time" in 1972. If you are too young to remember them, you missed a treat.
Spike Milligan was the driving force behind The Goon Show, and wrote most of the episodes, although the show's strength was in its improvisation. Spike was the one who was most "on the edge" and in his "silly poems" showed a very childlike quality. More of his silly poems . . .
"Said Hamlet to Ophelia
I'll draw a sketch of thee.
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?"
"My sister Laura's bigger than me
And lifts me up quite easily
I can't lift her, I've tried and tried;
She must have something heavy inside."
Milligan often joked that he wanted to be buried in a washing machine, "Just to confuse the archeologists" but he is actually buried with a headstone that reads (in Irish) "I told you I was sick."
For more about the Goon Show, go to www.thegoonshow.net and you can actually download episodes of the show at www.thegoonshow.net/downloads.asp
The official site of The Goon Show Preservation Society is at www.thegoonshow.org.uk
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