Editing Vivian Stanshall (section)

== Bonzo years ==
{{main|Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band}}
[[File:Fenklup1968BonzoDogDooDah5.jpg|thumb|200px|Stanshall with The Bonzo Dog Band on the [[Television in the Netherlands|Dutch TV]] show ''Fenklup'', 1968]]
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were named after a word game that Stanshall played with co-founder Slater, in which they cut up sentences and juxtaposed fragments to form new ones. 'Bonzo Dog/Dada' was one result which they liked. The band initially performed under this name, but grew tired of explaining what [[Dada]] meant; hence they changed it to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, 'doo-dah' being a [[Placeholder name|quaint expression]] that both Slater's mother and Stanshall himself used to describe everyday objects. Later this name was shortened to The Bonzo Dog Band, or just The Bonzos.

Much of the band's original repertoire was based on comedic re-workings of songs from the 1920s and 1930s, found on [[78 record]]s, bought for [[pennies]] from local [[flea markets]].<ref name="Originals" />

For a while the band operated semi-professionally, playing local pubs and the college circuit. After acquiring a manager, they went full-time and were booked on the [[working men's club]] circuit, mainly in the north of England. The band dominated their lives, as they frequently travelled to low-paying gigs in an old van crammed with any number of musical instruments, an assortment of props, and prop robots. In 1967, they appeared in [[the Beatles]]' television film ''[[Magical Mystery Tour (film)|Magical Mystery Tour]]'', in which they played Stanshall's "[[Death Cab for Cutie (song)|Death Cab for Cutie]]" during the strip club scene. The appearance led to a spot as the house band on ''[[Do Not Adjust Your Set]]'', a weekly children's television revue series that was also notable for early appearances by [[Eric Idle]], [[Terry Jones]], and [[Michael Palin]], who later became half of  [[Monty Python]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6973c8f7|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129153818/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6973c8f7|url-status=dead|archive-date=2014-11-29|title=Do Not Adjust Your Set No. 2|publisher=BFI}}</ref>

According to their manager/agent [[Gerry Bron]], after a perhaps ill-advised agreement that the band should be left to their own artistic devices, Stanshall was allowed several weeks in a hired rehearsal space to write songs for the new Bonzo Dog Band album. When Bron arrived at the location to check the progress of these endeavours, he found that Stanshall had not written anything at all and had instead built a variety of hutches for his pet rabbits.<ref name="Originals">''Originals – Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of His Mind'', BBC/October Films, BBC4, 2004</ref> Bron mentioned in a television documentary that this occurred in May 1968 in a hall in [[Acton, London|Acton, west London]];<ref name=welch/> the actual location is Askew Road Church Hall, at the start of Bassein Park Road in [[Shepherd's Bush]].{{citation needed|date=December 2016}} The date would suggest that these were rehearsals for the album ''[[The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse]]''. During recordings for the album proper at Morgan Studios, Stanshall, wearing just a rabbit's head and underpants, interviewed members of the public in Willesden High Road. On the album track "We Are Normal", one interviewee can be heard to remark, 'He's got a head on him like a rabbit.'<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.radioclash.com/archives/2014/03/26/vivian-stanshall-english-tuppence/|title=Vivian Stanshall – English as Tuppence|date=2014-03-26|website=Radio Clash Music Podcast & Blog|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-06-16}}</ref>

Later in 1968, the Bonzos scored a surprise top-ten hit with "[[I'm the Urban Spaceman]]" co-produced by [[Paul McCartney]] and [[Gus Dudgeon]] under the alias 'Apollo C. Vermouth'.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/515090/|title=Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–69)|publisher=BFI Screenonline}}</ref> Meanwhile the band toured incessantly and recorded a multitude of radio sessions for the BBC, alongside several albums. They also embarked upon two poorly organised but well-received tours of the United States. (Neil Innes remembers that the band were stopped by a local [[Sheriffs in the United States|sheriff]] and asked if they were carrying any firearms or drugs. When they denied both, the officer asked how they were going to defend themselves. Stanshall piped up from the back of the minibus, "With good manners!") It was during the particularly disastrously organised second tour that the Bonzos decided to break up, partly because of Stanshall's growing [[stage fright]] – combined with his increasing use of [[valium]] to help combat this – but also because of anger with their management, after Spear's wife suffered a miscarriage while he was away, and no-one informed him. The band subsequently decided to split whilst they were still friends. They played their last show in March 1970, at [[Loughborough University]].