The Goons on This Is Your Life 1958

[AndrewGilmore1986]

Is it possible you could upload the rest of the episode?

[TheBmoll]

These guys STILL make me laugh until I cry!

Thank you Spike, your creative genius cost you so much we know...but what you gave the world can never be equalled.

[thecubanism]

I have been laughing at the goons since their first radio airing, they are irreplaceable, Python was the Goons with pictures and also very funny, thanks to the internet I can relive those happy days.

[neighbour666]

I give thanks to God that I was in bed and wearing my incontinence apparel upon watching this. I am an old age poisoner, mate, and the Goons are as hilarious now as when I first heard them aged 12. As for radio being the 'Medium', I can also recommend the Telegoons - different but still wonderful.

[Glenmed]

I fell on the floor and I couldn't get up!

[Shabannie]

@Glenmed I don't remember the Goons, but I do remember This is your Life! Thank you for sharing this funniness.

--------Ellen

[CurzonRoad]

@Glenmed

Good fun! While not sure the Goons made it this side... it would clearly have been our loss! Thank you michtyme3 for posting, and thank you Barry@Glenmed for sharing! Cheers, etc. Doug --

[THEMRlewisadam]

i thought that was realy funny but i think there should be more

[EireGoon]

Any chance of the full episode getting put up???

[goonshowTV]

Check out my new Goon show channel. It features a rare TV version of the Ying Tong song sung by the goon show gang.Simply click on my link.

[djoutrage18]

I love the goons, and they were ground-breaking in just about every possible way, i mean shows like take it from here, itma and that lot were funny, just not in the same way...

[blackpudscoffer]

Sorry to disagree but some of the Goons was on the TV! with the brilliantly done Telegoons, it may not have been the purists idea but it certainly worked for me and many others

[Georgie2047]

Folks, please remember, the Goons were on the radio, not television like Python or Izzard. The Goons were pure theatre of the mind. There can be no comparison with any post radio humour; complex or otherwise. Post war Britain didn't have mass TV until 1959/60 when the working class could afford it. The Goons were essentially made up of 2nd World War buddies who took their idea to the BBC and ergo; the radio audience. Radio ruled in Britain until 1959/60.

[HEV29]

Excuse I: Goonery is found at its pure-ist in "What time is it Eccles?" - neither simple nor easy. It's all a bit more existential than that.

[amarone1956]

It was sheer brilliance.

[blackpudscoffer]

sorry to disagree but goonery is very simple and easy on the mind, some of the stories are quite complex but the humor is not!!!! modern comedy is taking the p**s out of someone in the news, as we have seen just recently!!goonery is making fun out of yourself and all in the show.

[Mimm42]

I dont think "complexity" is the right word... it's silliness to the extreme that we enter an entirely different system of logic, making it a little confusing. For example, the "what time is it Eccles" bit. The basic joke of it is simple and effective, but the joke continues so long that the words are twisted out of shape, making it funnier. Thus I invent the label "Complex-silly". Pythin was not complex-silly, Izzard can be complex-silly, but the Goons are the best example.

[blackpudscoffer]

Whatever, thank god for technology, so that the Goons will last forever not just in people's minds but recorded so we never forget, the humor and the fun they had in making us laugh.

[blackpudscoffer]

crackers!!! there will never be anyone to come anywhere near them, modern comedy is far too complex.!!!!!

[citizen2k1]

modern comedy is too complex??! Have you heard the Goon shows?...it doesn't get more complex than that....

[flimpkin4]

Good to see the Goons ridiculing this crappy program & its host. What was Secombe thinking even going on this?

[Georgie2047]

The concept behind "This Is Your Life" was to surprise the guest. Most of the time the guest was "tricked" into being there without realising until the last second that they were appearing. Secombe showed a lot of class by remaining while Eamonn Andrews presented the show to the audience.

[pillockbrain]

The Goon Shows are available on 6x mp3 C.D.s;

60 shows in all!! I have them, they are magic!

[LhodaKblerz]

Somewhere around my house I have got a copy of some Telegoons episodes on VHS. Unfortunately it is poor quality as it is on "long play". If I manage to find it, I will try to get it onto the web, if it is legal!

[Bluequotations]

fantastic! pure joy to watch!

[cossacks2]

What great humour loved it

[Hickey66]

I've never seen this so thanks Mich. hear the genuine laughter. So wonderful. Make life worth living.

[egapnala65]

Scylla, try and get hold of some of the Radio shows, it took comedy to a whole new dimension, a complete sound world of its own.

"Tales of old Dartmoor" is a good start. Check it out.

I must say though a lot of the nonsense stuff was already going on in the Music Hall tradition.The monologues of Billy Bennett are equally surreal. Also the American burlesque tradition. Anybody who digs this should check out the Olsen and Johnson and Spike Jones postings on here.

[cbak12sg]

Peter Sellers and Ray Ellington came on, but what happened to Eric Sykes? Eamonn Andrews kept calling his name but he never appeared.

For non and younger Brits, Eric Sykes is a comic veteran from Oldham, but to younger audiences, he was the old man who got killed at the start of the fourth Harry Potter film. He was also the gardener in The Others.

[scyllaandcharybdis]

i don't understand how you people find the goon show so amusing...i guess it was easily to make people laugh back in those days, i was born in 1985 so i don't usually talk about ppl like spike milligan. Although i must admit, sum of the monty python films are quite funny

[nokiagaming]

You have to compare it to comedies at the time, it was the first ever piece of alternative comedy. People found the Goon Show funny at the time because it was totally new. Nowadays we see Python and Little Britain and other surreal stuff all the time, we take it for granted, but it was the Goon Show that laid the foundations for all these series, that did weird freeform jokes with no set punchlines.

[tattiemanie]

You were born in 1985? - When I think back on who, and what I was in that year, and where I was.....Christ I feel old!!

What is PPL?

[RobinCarmody]

Yoofspeak for people.

[banrionaiasc]

and, just for the record, 'yoof' doesn't cover everyone under the age of 25, i was born in 1990 and I don't use language like that...

and I love the goons :)

[Dyynamo]

I liked the way the guy who put the end titles in cocked up on purpose, or did he? Whatever, he added to the fun, and yes, Sellars was playing Major Bloodnock.

[RobinCarmody]

I doubt it was deliberate. Mistakes like that were commonplace at the time.

Original tx date for this is 31st March 1958 - though this must be sourced from the 1986 repeat (as part of TV50).

[hawkeye448]

More than likely. It was probably in his Major Bloodnock character

[Flickerfly]

Haha! You can almost hear that marvelous giggle of his! I love his laugh so much....I can't tell who that was...Spike, Ray, and someone? Was Peter one of them, or did he not show? (I wouldn't be surprised in the least)

[xela12345]

I don't want to sound offensive to any of his fans, but if you listen to the Goon Show clips, Ray Ellington is a TOTAL pervert, you LISTEN to his songs!

[Eruadhiel]

Ha ha! Gotta love the Goons, it brought tears to my knees. The most insane people ever to have lived, and I love them!

[rocky5554]

absolutely brilliant i rolled on the floor from beginning to end

[MoonBarrett]

Oh my god! Thats HILARIOUS

[DewiDavies]

Anything with that lot on it has to be a classic.

[Frev4]

Hysterically funny. Brilliant. My knees dropped from laughter! Now, round the back for the ole' brandy!

[NaviLight]

Wonderful! Thanks for this vid. I wish you had the whole episode. I propose a Youtube group to gather all Goon Show related material

[blackflower75]

Harry Secombe used to torture my life every sunday when my dad watched that thing called highway ...arghhh!!

[shoveitmonkeyboy]

just brilliant! you can just hear the Secombe insane laughter!!!!

[mrspivvy]

flip! where did you dredge that up from? great stuff!

[michtyme3]

He does introduce Peter Sellers, its just the microphone barely picks it up. Listen very carefully as soon as PS appears

[goaliegal31]

how come he doesn't introduce Peter Sellers? Oh well, still awesome!

[whiterobin5151]

Wow, that is a rare gem. Great!