Editing The Goon Show (section)

==Background==
The series was devised and written by Spike Milligan with the regular collaboration of other writers including [[Larry Stephens]] (contributing to around 140 episodes), [[Eric Sykes]] (who co-wrote most of the episodes in Series 5), Maurice Wiltshire and [[John Antrobus]], initially under the supervision of [[Jimmy Grafton]].<ref name=Spike&Co/>

Milligan and [[Harry Secombe]] became friends while serving in the [[Royal Artillery]] during the [[Second World War]]. Famously, Milligan first encountered [[Lance Bombardier]] Secombe<!-- If you change this to another version of this story, please cite the source (preferably Milligan or Secombe) --> after [[Gunner (rank)|Gunner]] Milligan's artillery unit accidentally allowed a large [[BL 7.2 inch Howitzer Mk.I|howitzer]] to roll off a cliff, under which Secombe was sitting in a small [[radio|wireless]] truck: "Suddenly there was a terrible noise as some monstrous object fell from the sky quite close to us. There was considerable confusion, and in the middle of it all the flap of the truck was pushed open and a young, helmeted idiot asked 'Anybody seen a gun?' It was Milligan."<ref>{{cite book | last = Secombe | first = Harry | title = Goon For Lunch| year =  1975| publisher = M. and J. Hobbs | location = London | isbn = 0-7181-1273-3 | chapter = Goon Away - Try Next Door}}</ref>  Secombe's answer to that question was "What colour was it?" Milligan met [[Peter Sellers]] after the war at the [[Hackney Empire]], where Secombe was performing, and the three became close friends.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Carpenter|first=Humphrey|title=Spike Milligan|publisher=Hachette UK|year=2011|isbn=9781444717884}}</ref><sup>:20</sup>

The group first formed at The Grafton Arms Pub & Rooms, 2 Strutton Ground, Victoria, London,<ref name="LR/goon">{{cite web |title=The Goon Show |url=https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/the-goon-show |website=London Remembers |access-date=15 November 2024 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="camra/grafton-arms">{{cite web |title=Grafton Arms, London |url=https://camra.org.uk/pubs/grafton-arms-london-128899 |website=The Campaign for Real Ale |access-date=15 November 2024 |language=en}}</ref> Jimmy Grafton's<ref name="BEHP/">{{cite web |last1=Threadgall |first1=Derek |author1-link=Derek Threadgall |title=Martin Gibbons President : The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society |url=https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/martin-gibbons |website=[[British Entertainment History Project]] |access-date=15 November 2024 |date=2016 |quote=it's a spit and sawdust pub. Very big spit and sawdust. And what if you went into it? And you went to the bar, order a drink? If you're wearing a tie, the barman cut the tie off and stick it up behind the bar with the other 500 ties. Unbelievable.  -  Derek Threadgall}}</ref> London public house in 1948.<ref name="standard/spike-dies">{{cite news |title=Spike Milligan dies at 83 |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/spike-milligan-dies-at-83-6330142.html |access-date=15 November 2024 |work=The Standard |date=12 April 2012 |language=en |quote=After serving in the Second World War he returned to London where he got a job behind the bar at the Grafton Arms in Victoria, run by part-time BBC scriptwriter Jimmy Grafton. He spotted Milligan's potential and began using his material.}}</ref><ref name="telegraph/obit/Spike">{{cite news |title=Spike Milligan |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1386241/Spike-Milligan.html |access-date=15 November 2024 |work=The Telegraph |date=28 February 2002 |language=en |quote=He found his true metier at the Grafton Arms, Victoria, a pub run by a scriptwriter called Jimmy Grafton. There in 1948 he joined forces with Michael Bentine, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe, to delight the customers with riotous and anarchic persiflage directed against bureaucracy and officialdom. Before long Milligan was living in an attic at the Grafton.}}</ref><ref name=Spike&Co/><ref name=ScudamoresMilliganbio/><ref>There is some confusion in the literature about the actual name of the pub (e.g. Scudamore 1985, McCann 2006). It was "Grafton's" according to ''The Goon Show Companion'', Wilmot/Grafton, not the "Grafton Arms". [[Lewis Carroll]] has said there is a difference between what something is named, and what is called, q.v.: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/24489951@N06/2317439334 Photo of Grafton's pub]</ref> Sellers had already débuted with the BBC. Secombe was often heard on ''[[Variety Bandbox]]''. Milligan was writing for and acting in the high-profile BBC show ''Hip-Hip-Hoo-Roy'' with [[Derek Roy (comedian)|Derek Roy]]. [[Michael Bentine]], who appeared in the first series, had just begun appearing in [[Charlie Chester]]'s peak-time radio show ''Stand Easy''.<ref name=Spike&Co/>

The four clicked immediately. "It was always a relief to get away from the theatre and join in the revels at Grafton's on a Sunday night," said Secombe years later.<ref name="Secombe Autobiography">{{cite book |last1=Secombe |first1=Harry |author1-link=Harry Secombe |title=Arias and Raspberries: An Autobiography |date=1997 |publisher=Pan |isbn=978-0-330-35463-9 |page=72 |url= |access-date= |language=en}}</ref> They took to calling themselves "The Goons" and started recording their pub goings-on with a [[Aluminum disc|Pickersgill aluminium disk recorder]].<ref>{{cite AV media|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b086tw3q|date=28 April 2020|publisher=BBC|access-date=28 April 2020|url-status=dead|format=television documentary|title=Bob Monkhouse: The Last Stand|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170823034837/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b086tw3q|archive-date=23 August 2017}}</ref>  BBC producer Pat Dixon heard a recording and took interest in the group. He pressed the BBC for a long-term contract for the gang, knowing that it would secure Sellers for more than just seasonal work, something for which the BBC had been aiming. The BBC acquiesced and ordered an initial series, though without much enthusiasm.<ref name=Spike&Co/>

The series had its premiere in May 1951 and audience figures grew rapidly, from around 370,000 to nearly two million by the end of the 17th show.<ref name=Spike&Co/> No recordings of any episode of this series are known to have survived. The BBC commissioned a second series and a number of other changes occurred. The musical interludes were shortened, and [[Max Geldray]] joined the lineup. [[Peter Eton]], from the BBC's drama department, replaced [[Dennis Main Wilson]] as producer. Eton brought stricter discipline to the show's production. He was also an expert at sound effects and microphone technique, ensuring that the show became a far more dynamic listening experience. However, a few episodes into the series Milligan suffered a major [[nervous breakdown]]. He was hospitalised in early December 1952,<ref name=":0" /><sup>:136-139</sup> just before the broadcast of episode five, but it, and the following episode, had already been written, and the next 12 episodes were co-written by Stephens and Grafton. Milligan was absent as a performer for about two months, returning for episode 17, broadcast in early March 1953. As with Series 2, all episodes were co-written by Milligan and Stephens and edited by Jimmy Grafton.

Bentine left the show at the end of series 2, citing a desire to pursue solo projects, although there had been an increasing degree of creative tension between him and Milligan.<ref>There are three or four versions of this story regarding the split. Jimmy Grafton's account is in ''The Goon Show Companion'' p. 39; Secombe's account is in ''Arias and Raspberries'' p. 208; Milligan's account changed over the years and the bitterness shows in the interview ''Now That's Funny'' p. 16; and Bentine's account is in ''The Story of the Goons'' p. 30 and also in his autobiography "The Reluctant Jester" (1992), p. 321 of the paperback edition.</ref>

Milligan blamed his breakdown and the collapse of his first marriage on the sheer volume of writing the show required.<ref name="MoreGoonShowScripts">{{cite book | last = Milligan | first = Spike | title = More Goon Show Scripts. | year = 1974 | publisher = Sphere | location = London | isbn = 0-7221-6077-1}} (a)p. 13</ref> His then ground-breaking use of sound effects also contributed to the pressure.<ref group="nb" name="p217">{{harvnb|Lewis|1995|page=217}} "owing to the complexities of the technical side, the BBC were wanting the scripts delivered earlier and earlier—so that the boffins in the electronics department etc. could experiment with the new noises"</ref><ref name="Life&DeathofSellers" >{{cite book
| last = Lewis
| first = Roger
| title = The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
| year = 1995
| publisher = Arrow Books
| location = London
| isbn = 0-09-974700-6}} (e)pp. 205-206</ref> All this exacerbated his mental instability that included [[bipolar disorder]], especially during the third series.<ref name="Billen ">{{cite news
 |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_/ai_n9623932
 |title=Goon with the wind 
 |author=Andrew Billen 
 |newspaper=Sunday Herald 
 |date=2 January 2000 
 |access-date=12 December 2008 
}}{{dead link|date=May 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} "Writing the third season of The Goon Show in 1952, he suffered a relapse. 'I went into a psychiatric home and even while I was there I kept on writing these bloody shows. I had a wife and two kids to support, you see. That was the bottom line.' Inside, he had a full manic episode, including a hallucination that a lion was sitting on the wardrobe."</ref> The BBC however made sure he was surrounded by accomplished radio comedy writers—Sykes, Stephens, Antrobus, Wiltshire, and Grafton—so many of the problems caused by his ill health were skilfully covered over by composite scripts.{{Citation needed|date=July 2017}}

Many senior BBC staff were variously bemused and befuddled by the show's surreal humour and it has been reported that senior programme executives erroneously referred to it as ''The Go On Show''<ref name=Spike&Co/><ref>{{cite book | last = Wilmut | first = Roger |author2=Jimmy Grafton | title = The Goon Show Companion: A History and Goonography | year = 1976 | publisher = Robson Books | location = London | isbn = 0-903895-64-1 | chapter = The Birth of the Goons | quote = ...one puzzled planner was heard to ask, 'What is this "Go On Show" people are talking about?' }}</ref>{{rp|37}} or even ''The [[List of ethnic slurs#C|Coon]] Show''.<ref>{{cite book | last = Milligan | first = Spike | title = More Goon Show Scripts | orig-year = 1973 | year = 1974 | publisher = Sphere Books | location = London | isbn = 0-7221-6077-1 | chapter = Interview | quote = Goon. What's a Goon? D'you mean The Coon Show...? }}</ref>{{rp|13}} The show's title was inspired, according to Spike Milligan, by [[Alice the Goon]], a character from the ''[[Popeye]]'' comic.<ref name=Ayto2006>{{citation |year=2006 |author=Ayto, John |place=Oxford, UK |publisher=Oxford University Press |title=Movers and Shakers: A chronology of words that shaped our age |page=144 |isbn=0-19-861452-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yfb4NIo3d20C&q=%22spike+milligan%22&pg=PA144 |access-date=23 August 2010}} Alternative {{ISBN|978-0-19-861452-4}}</ref>

Several of the Goons' nonsense songs were recorded in the late 1950s such as the "[[Ying Tong Song]]", number 3 in the [[UK Singles Chart]] in 1956.  The radio show had high audience ratings in Britain at its peak; tickets for the recording sessions at the BBC's Camden Theatre (now known as  [[KOKO (venue)|KOKO]]) in London were constantly over-subscribed and the various character voices and [[catchphrase]]s from the show quickly became part of the vernacular.<ref>{{cite book | editor = Farnes, Norma| title=The Goons: The Story | date=6 November 1997| publisher=Virgin Publishing | location=London | isbn=1-85227-679-7 | chapter = Harry Secombe's Story | quote = ... people used to fight to get in there, fight to get tickets for the recording at the Camden Theatre}}</ref>{{rp|96}} The series has remained consistently popular ever since, with the show being broadcast weekly by Australia's [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation|ABC]] network as late as 2012.<ref name="abc.net.au/rn/goons">{{cite web |title=Goons Channel - Comedy |url=http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/comedy/goons/ |website=[[ABC Radio National]] |publisher=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] |access-date=15 November 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140816050741/http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/comedy/goons/ |archive-date=16 August 2014}}</ref> The show is also broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4 Extra]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072vdz|title=The Goon Show|website= [[BBC Radio 4 Extra]]|publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref>

[[File:Blue plaque - Last Goon Show.jpg|thumbnail|The blue plaque from the old Camden Theatre, now Koko, the site of the recording of ''[[The Last Goon Show of All]]'' in 1972.]]

The scripts exist mostly in fan-transcribed versions via dedicated websites. Although three books<ref name= MoreGoonShowScripts/><ref name="thegoonshowscripts">Milligan, Spike. (1973) ''The Goon Show Scripts''. London: Sphere</ref><ref name="thelostgoonshows">Milligan, Spike. (1987) ''The Lost Goon Shows''. London: Robson</ref> were published containing selected scripts, they are out of print, and typically available only in libraries or second-hand. Some more recent biographical books contain selected scripts.<ref name= TheEssentialSpikeMilligan>{{cite book | last = Games | first = Alexander | title = The Essential Spike Milligan | year = 2003 | publisher = Fourth Estate | location = London | isbn = 0-00-717103-X }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Farnes | first = Norma | title = The Compulsive Spike Milligan | year = 2004 | publisher = Fourth Estate | location = London | isbn = 0-00-719543-5 }}</ref>

There were 10 series in total, plus an additional series called ''Vintage Goons'', recorded at the same time as the eighth series, which featured recordings of redevelopments (by Milligan) of short sketches from early shows which had not been recorded by transcription services. The first series had 17 episodes plus one special, ''Cinderella'' (1951); the second series had 25 episodes, (1952); the third series had 25 episodes plus one special - ''The Coronation Special'' (1952–53); the fourth series had 30 episodes plus one special, ''Archie In Goonland'' (1953–54); the fifth series had 26 episodes plus one special - ''The Starlings'' (1954–55); the sixth series had 27 episodes plus three specials, (1955–56); the seventh series had 25 episodes plus two specials, (1956–57); the eighth series had 26 episodes, (1957–58); the ''Vintage Goons'' were re-performances of 14 episodes from series four; the ninth series had 17 episodes, (1958–59); and the tenth series had six episodes, (1959–1960).<ref name="Wilmut1976"/>{{rp|101}}<ref name="Spike&Co"/>