The Last Goon Show of All (1972 TV Movie) User Reviews

Thegs *

[Spondonman · 9/10 · 12 August 2005]

12 years after the last Goon Show on radio came the last Goon Show on TV, in honour of those crazy people, the BBC. In this the 3 old friends Milligan, Sellars and Secombe trotted out the old gags and silly voices one last time, mainly for their own obvious pleasure, but also royalty was present this time. Eccles, Bloodnok, Bluebottle, Minnie and Henry, Moriarty and Grytpype-Thynne and of course Neddie Seagoon all came back to life in one final glorious reprise. Ellington and Geldray were there with their usual musical breaks as if they'd never been away, old Wallie had long since died but Timothy as link-man was spot on.

To a fan it's a joy to watch, to think how effortless they made it seem to the original 1950's radio audiences and also the realisation of how the over-work drove Milligan to madness. It's not as sharp as the radio programmes, but I'm glad we've got this as a memento of a golden age of humour we will not see or hear again. We have this to compliment all of those mental pictures of Fred the Oyster, Minnie trying to find her boots in the dark, passing glue factories lighting up the way, Bluebottle permanently clinging to Seagoon's hairy leg, the Loouuvvrre, Sapristi Noodles, Bloodnok's gas attacks, Eccles smugness at knowing the right time, and Little Jim's immortal remark about the accidental immersion of the man into the water. The list is absolutely endless! Milligan the genius comedian has now goon, but he and all of his creations will live on in many peoples hearts and minds, for a long time to come.

And of course the Goons are the only exception that the 20-30 year olds in charge of the BBC today make to their "Let's Ignore Bury And Alter The Past" motto - only because they must have been making a nice profit from LP, cassette, video, and now CD sales of recordings of the show for the past four decades. Bet they don't release any MP3's though!

(* Often announced on the John Snagge Service of the BBC ("Hold it up to the light. Not a brain in sight") as "The Highly Esteemed Goon Show".)

Great fun for fans, but don't start here

[max-crack · 8/10 · 18 December 2008]

A Goon fan from an early age, thanks to radio repeats in the mid-1970s, I can now revisit the source of so much of my childhood mirth via the regular Goon reruns on cable radio. And to me, the original shows now vary from plainly terrible (early), through spotty (mid period), to inspired genius going into orbit (last couple of years). They do really seem to have become "more switched on" as they progressed.

Then there's this one-off special, taped in 1972. Fans will probably know the story by now: t'was the 50th anniversary of BBC Radio; Milligan supposedly didn't want to do the show at all and had to be cajoled into it, finally cobbling together a script in a couple of days; some of yer actual Royals were present in the audience... yes all true but the main attraction here is to actually see a Goon Show taking place, since apart from a couple of very dodgy films and 1960s TV recreations, this is the only visual record we have available. (Surprising -perhaps- that nobody thought to film any of the original performances when the show was at its peak).

There's no real plot to this reunion effort, but since when did that matter much with the Goons at their best? Some of the actual gags here might be weak (although I'd disagree with their being especially crude, as mentioned elsehwere), but there are moments of Goonish genius throughout. And it's great fun for fans. The team's comic timing is pretty much still there. Spot the in-jokes, of which there are many (watch for the orchestra tapping their batons back at their conductor!). Listen out for a brilliant, inspired sound collage (BBC Radiophonics?) representing Major Bloodnok taking a dose of his "perversions" to ward off the approaching Red Bladder. Watch the cast corpse repeatedly. Marvel at the period fashions (or lack of). And yes, you can finally see why Max Geldray was nicknamed "Conks".

Various edits exist, and some are fairly severe, with up to 30 minutes of material missing.

The end of innocence

[[e-mail] · 24 September 2002]

Now that all the Goons (including Bentine) are finally gone, some appreciation of the Goon Show's central place in twentieth century humour can be made. From its fertile loins sprang the Python series and movies, the exasperatingly uneven but lunatic 'Q' series, and even The Goodies. Goonery was a gentle humour of punning, semantics, mind imagery and class satire. No archetype of English life was left spared, from the military to officious doormen, spinsters, cads, upper-class homosexuals and wandering minstrels. All this was done with a deft mixture of mimicry, inspired lunacy and sometimes groan-inducing music hall clangers. There were no swear words, violent images (except of course for Bluebottle being regularly 'deaded' at the end of each episode, much like South Park's Kenny) or intellectual pretensions, and no need. To listen to the Goons now is to be transported back to a world of ration cards, London bomb sites and dusty vaudeville halls beginning with the immortal words of Wallis Greenslade - "This is the BBC". To listen is also to recapture a certain innocence, never to be seen again. I have often thought of Spike Milligan as the James Joyce of 20th century humour. His recent death filled me with as much sadness as the death of a relative. Vale, the Goons

Hilarious Goon reunion

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 2 October 2002]

"The Goon Show" was a long-running BBC Radio comedy programme, but the individual Goons had long since gone their separate ways by the 1970s. In 1972, for the 50th anniversary of the BBC, someone decided to reunite the Goons for one more radio transmission ... and, even more brilliantly, it was decided to have tv cameras present so that this once-in-a-lifetime radio broadcast could also be aired as a television special.

On 5 October 1972, Archgoons Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe were reunited for this historic broadcast, playing many of their beloved Goon characters one last time. All of the Goon shows had featured a live studio audience; this time round, the gallery was packed with hand-picked Goon fans. Among the members of the studio audience were Prince Philip and Princess Anne. (Prince Charles was otherwise engaged that night, but a congratulatory telegram from the Prince of Wales was read out at the beginning of the show.)

In strict accuracy, "The Last Goon Show of All" was not actually the LAST Goon show of all. On 31 December '72, Milligan, Sellers and Secombe reunited one last time to host "Festival of Entertainment", a one-off special on BBC1.

Alas, all three of the Archgoons are gone now, as are the subsidiary Goons such as Michael Bentine and Kenneth Connor. But the Goon Show will Go On (and Goon) forever. Needle nardle noo!

Modern crudity and a total lack of plot spoil it a bit but it is fun for Goon fans

[bob the moo · 16 May 2004]

In 1972, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the BBC, the three original members of the Goon show came back together for one final show. However, several decades have gone past since they last performed together and they struggle to get the show started – a fact that isn't helped by the Queen's inability to attend and Her being replaced by 'Hairy' Secombe in a floral print dress. With efforts to raise the 20 shillings necessary to get the goon show started, Secombe comes across all manner of characters in his travels.

The absence of any of the goon radio shows on this database (for obvious reasons) means that this review could easily become a gushing review of their original shows or a discussion of just how cutting edge they were in the 1950's or how influential they have been since. Suffice to say that I love the goon show and they helped form my sense of humour when I used to listen to repeats on BBC radio 2 as a child (11 years old was when it all started!) and it was with an insatiable appetite for more that brought me to this VHS. As with the radio show, this show opens with some scatological material but, unlike the radio show, this doesn't settle into even a rough story. Instead the show is basically a succession of the old characters coming back into the show around the framework of Secombe trying get the show going.

In this regard the show is a bit lacking in structure for my taste and it suffers for it a little bit. However, given that the radio shows' 'stories' were really just an excuse for the characters to interact, then it's not too bad here. The humour is still there and the characters are fun, given their usual routines to do again for an adoring audience. The downside of this modern show is that the humour is a lot cruder than it was back in the 50's.

To modern audiences this will still seem quaint (no more crude than the Carry On movies of the period) but I still didn't feel it did justice to the imagination of the Goons to have them deliver crude lines that are a bit too obvious. However that said I still enjoyed the show despite not really feeling it compares to their best work of the radio series.

The cast are good and are all having fun, and it is only slightly off-putting that they will be laughing a great deal more than you will be. Secombe is strangely not allowed to play Neddy and is called Secombe all the way through the show. He is a great presence and his show (and the radio show) show a crazy humour that many of my generation will not credit him with, only knowing him for his Songs of Praise work. Sellers is a good return; arguably he had had the greatest success since the goons and had become famous worldwide in a way the others had not – but he never shows it and he feels like he is back at home rather than gracing his friends with his appearance. Milligan may not have really done his best with the script (too self indulgent) but he is good as ever and it is interesting to see how he manages to do all the voices. The three friends all work well together and they lift a sub-par script into something much better. It's sad that Greenslade had died and his distinctive welcome of 'this is the BBC' was not to be heard however both Geldray and Ellington were still there, even if both their music and their looks have dated badly now.

Overall this show is evidence of the bad side of the goon show – very weak plots, average structure and the feeling that the cast are occasionally enjoying themselves more than the audience. However it also serves as a reminder of their good points as well – they are funny, they are imaginative, they use characters well and they share their fun with the audience, despite modern touches of crudity and self-indulgence spoiling it a touch. The Goons were incredibly influential and very funny and their reputations continue to live even after their deaths. This may not be the best way to remember them, but it is a good bit of fun for fans.