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*All episode information comes from The Goon Show Preservation Society

*★ = There is a link to listen to the episode on youtube

SERIES 1's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES [1951]

8:00 PM - 1/1 [Untitled]
  • In Yukkabakaba, Sandy Fields (Sellers) interviews the alleged author of the programme—Jones (Secombe), who recounts the story of how the programme came to be.
  • In The Story of the BRM, Osric Pureheart and Ernie Splutmuscle build the BRM race car, so called because of the noise it makes (Brrrmmmm! Brrrrmmm!).
  • Dick Barton is a comic send-up of the radio adventure series, ending with Barton, Jock, and Snowey being blown up by an atom bomb (foreshadowing future Bluebottle-deading, perhaps).
  • In The Quest for Tutankhamen, Sir Harold Porridge and Harold Vest sail forth to Egypt and find King Tutankhamen in his royal tomb, but they’re too late—he’s dead!
  • The Festival of Britain parodies a radio “Salute to Britain” from various other nations, and points out Britain’s accomplishments in various fields—sport, cuisine, education, and hygiene.
8:00 PM - 1/2 [Untitled]
  • In the first, Herschel interviews the show’s alleged author, Jones, who tells the story of his son’s partially successful capture of a bank robber.
  • Men of Medicine focuses on the importance of good eyesight, and a less-than-successful experimental operation to remove the appendix of an elephant.
  • The Rat Catcher, Mr. Ernie Splutmuscle, tells the story of his honeymoon in Paris.
  • A Hundred Years from Today observes that crime is increasing so rapidly that by 1996 criminals will outnumber and out-vote honest citizens, even possibly reversing all the laws of the state. The sketch focuses on a man being tried for repeated and premeditated acts of honesty.
  • Adventure Unlimited recounts Sir Harold Porridge’s expedition across the Atlantic to Baffin Land in search of the East Pole.
8:30 PM - 1/3 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones, in which Jones recounts his schooldays and his 20 years of work with the mathematician Arnold J. Fringe, which resulted in the discovery that X equals nought.
  • The History of Flight starts in 42 AD with a medieval Irish monk, who, by jumping off a cliff with wings strapped to his arms, invents the compound fracture. It recounts further attempts at flight in ancient China, Wales, Vienna, and France, culminating with Orville Wright’s surprise invention of a machine capable of heavier-than-air flight.
  • In Russian Sports, athlete Ernie Splutmuscle recounts England’s defeat at the Russian Games of 1928, in which he lost the 880 to the glorious Russian athlete . . . and his glorious Russian horse.
  • Sound Effects is the trial of two BBC sound effects engineers charged with causing each other grievous bodily harm. Most of the nouns in their testimony are sound effects rather than words.
  • The Bluffs is the story of Sir Harold Porridge’s battle with the Mad Mullah on the Northwest frontier of India.
8:30 PM - 1/4 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones, in which Jones serves 17 years in prison. After serving his full sentence, he tells the warder he wants to start over and is put back in prison for another 17-years.
  • Slimming examines weight loss schemes.
  • Honeymoon Memories recounts the misadventures of Ernie and Sybil Splutmuscle on their honeymoon at Mrs. Higg’s boarding house for cultured dustmen, when the place catches fire.
  • Parliament in Session speculates on what would happen if the occasional humorous give-and-take in Parliament were to be replaced by a more professional approach to comedy in the House.
  • The Conquest of Everest recounts Sir Harold Porridge’s expedition to the top of that great mountain.
9:00 PM - 1/5 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones, in which Jones, attached to the British Embassy in Moscow, is captured by the Secret Police and sent to a prison camp in Siberia.
  • In A Visit to the Health Clinic, roving reporter Roger Fudgeknuckle interviews Dr. Evan Evans and his assistant, Ernie Splutmuscle, at their health clinic.
  • The Brabagoon recounts Osric Pureheart’s building of the Brabagoon, the world’s largest airliner, which has difficulty taking off—and then more difficulty landing.
  • Summer Holidays examines Britons on holiday sailing in a boat, on the seaside resorts, on the Continent, and exploring subterranean caves near Dover.
  • The Adventure Unlimited segment tells The Story of the Yukon Gold Rush, in which Major O’Shea and his old comrade Yogut Muleboot go prospecting.
9:00 PM - 1/6 [Untitled]
  • Further Adventures of Herschel has Jones recounting his ne’er-do-well past, culminating in his homeless wandering of the streets, until at last he collapses on the pavement and is buried in the snow, only to be rescued by Eccles.
  • The Story of Civilisation traces civilisation from the invention of taxation by early cavemen, through the invention of the wheel, the conquest of Britain by Caesar, the defence of Britain from the Vikings, and the Birth of the first regular Army under Cromwell.
  • Splutmuscle the Boxer recounts the infamous bantamweight bout between Ernie Splutmuscle and the Chelsea Killer—Pensioner Bates.
  • Operations of MI6 tells the inside story of that most secret of services.
  • In African Adventures, Sir Harold Porridge sets out to become a great elephant hunter, but is captured by the Yakkabakka tribe, who, being the friendly natives that they are, insist on having him for dinner.
9:30 PM - 1/7 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones: Jones recounts his misadventures in the Mediterranean, ending, as usual, with Jones in prison.
  • The History of Communications starts with primitive yelling, progresses to the Greek runner Goonicus, the Penny Post, the Parcel Post, the wireless, and finally the telephone.
  • The Adventures of Phillip String is the first of a three-part serial. String steals a van-load of gold from the bank where he’s a clerk, then escapes on board the liner Cravonia.
  • In Sea Stories, Cap’n Splutmuscle tells several nautical jokes.
  • The Building of the Merseygoon Tunnel recounts Osric Pureheart’s building of the tunnel from one side of the Merseygoon, eventually linking up with the London Underground.
9:30 PM - 1/8 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones: Jones recounts his life in Berkshire, ending in his escape from rural destitution.
  • BBC Sketch explores the ramifications of the reduced income to the BBC due to radio listeners not paying their licence fees. The resulting austerity programme forces cast members to perform the music links and sound effects. The impact on the Dick Barton programme is described.
  • The Adventures of Phillip String, Episode 2 details the further adventurers of the fugitive bank robber, Phillip String. In this episode, String loses his entire fortune gambling aboard the liner Cravonia and attempts to escape from the ship to avoid paying his debts.
  • Commentary from the Funfair has BBC commentators Roger Fudgeknuckle and Jack Islott reporting from the Battersea Funfair on the jolly time everyone is having. Islott gets seasick on the Big Dipper, while Fudgeknuckle reports on Abdul O’Brien, fortune-teller, and Splutmuscle’s Flea Circus.
  • The Goonbird recounts Osric Pureheart’s attempt to capture the world speedboat record with his invention, the Goonbird.
10:00 PM - 1/9 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones: Jones recounts his service in France in World War II—ogling in the Folies Bergeres and peeling spuds.
  • Summertime Activities explores the favourite diversions of the Briton during the summer season: relaxing in the garden; visiting the waxworks; bird-watching; picnics in the country. But for postmen, work must go on . . .
  • The Adventures of Phillip String, Episode 3: Our intrepid hero, in an attempt to avoid paying his bar bill, jumps ship and finds himself ashore in India. Unable to obtain a loan from the Bombay Bank, he joins the Indian Army. Spurned by the Colonel’s daughter, he seeks solace in a native night-club.
  • In Splutmuscle the Private Investigator, Ernie Splutmuscle investigates a murder, only to find out that the culprit is his hero, Dick Barton.
  • Journey into Space is the tale of Osric Pureheart’s construction of the first British rocket ship.
10:00 PM - 1/10 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones: Jones recounts his adventures in the Secret Service in Istanbul.
  • The Building of the Sydney Harbour Goon Bridge has Osric Pureheart explaining how he had to make do with building the bridge using a shovel after the failure of the Bentine Super-activated Lurgi-nut Excavator.
  • Air Pageant and Country Fair finds our intrepid BBC commentators, Roger Fudgeknuckle and Jack Islott, reporting on the air display at Hengoon Aerodrome, and on the rural fair at Widdington.
  • The Story of Colonel Slocombe recounts the Colonel’s singularly unsuccessful attempt to defend the southern town of Goonville, and the mansion of that steamed Southern Gentleman, Mr. Julep, against Confederate troops during the American Civil War.
10:30 PM - 1/11 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones: Jones recounts his exploits in command of the First Poona Horse in India.
  • Stories of Scotland Yard describes the effort to defeat an attempt by a French femme fatale to corrupt the Ministers of the Crown.
  • In The Great Naval Manoeuvre Roger Fudgeknuckle, Jack Islott, and Jasper Crake report on the great mock sea-battle involving the Allied fleets.
  • Adventure Unlimited recounts The Quest for the White Queen in which Major Bloodnok and his comrade, Sergeant Major Rick O’Shea, set out to find the White Queen of the Toofa-grass tribe in Central Africa, despite the threat of man-eating tigers (quick—someone give Spike Milligan a zoology text!).
10:30 PM - 1/12 [Untitled]
  • Herschel and Jones: The Escape Tunnel—Jones is captured in the Boer War and builds an escape tunnel.
  • The Bentine Lurgi-driven Tank recounts Osric Pureheart’s blundering attempts to build a tank capable of matching the power of the German Panzerwacht.
  • The Quest for Cloot Wlimington is the story of Sir Harold Porridge’s expedition to rescue Cloot Wilmington, who has been captured in India by the Mad Mullah.
11:00 PM - 1/13 [Untitled]
  • Dr. Jones, Eminent Brain Specialist is recruited by the government of Nosdrovia to perform an emergency operation on their president.
  • A Survey of Britain examines several aspects of contemporary British society: the housing problem; family habits; holiday facilities; and life expectancy.
  • Seaside Resort has our BBC commentators, Roger Fudgeknuckle and Jack Islott, visiting the popular holiday resort of Clushboot-on-Sea. Included are an interview with a holidaymaker who can’t decide how long he’s been on holiday; children playing around the South Pier; the caretaker of Devil’s Point; and the amusements on the South Pier.
  • Colonel Slocombe: Wild West recounts the Colonel’s attempts to defend Skunk Hollow from attacks by hostile Indians.
11:00 PM - 1/14 [Untitled]
  • Jones Searches for Harry Lime has Jones, Chief of British Secret Police, in Vienna searching for the mysterious and elusive Harry Lime.
  • Dick Barton and the Listeners’ Panel has that intrepid agent dealing with accommodating into his programme the suggestions of an outside panel of listeners while still trying to capture the fiendish oriental, Fu Manchu.
  • The Boxer Rebellion is the story of how Major Bloodnok leaves a comfortable life sponging off the wealthy widow, Mrs. Wilmington, to lead his regiment in an unsuccessful foray against the rebellious Chinese.
11:30 PM - 1/15 [Untitled]
  • More Coal, Larry: Sellers and Secombe explore the anatomy of a catch-phrase.
  • Secombe—Horse Faker: Secombe is embroiled in a horse-faking scheme in France, only to have it undone by his assistant, Eccles.
  • The Building of the Goonitania tells how Osric Pureheart built the greatest ocean liner ever, only to have it sink because the Goonard Line had the audacity to launch it!
  • The Quest for the Ring-tailed Yakkabakaka has Major Bloodnok trekking to the Amazon jungle to acquire a specimen of the ring-tailed yakkabakaka for the British Zoological Society, with the predictable fatal results for all of the expedition’s participants.
11:30 PM - 1/16 [Untitled]
  • The Loves of Harry Secombe recounts the efforts of Harry Secombe to avoid marrying the elderly Hydia Harbinger (one of the Harbingers of Doom).
  • The Salvaging of the Goonitania takes up where the previous show’s episode left off. Osric Pureheart and his salvage ship, the SS Bentine, attempt to salvage the sunken ocean liner, but an octopus thwarts their efforts.
  • Sound Effects Men in Court is a rewrite of the fourth sketch from show 1/3. It recounts the trial of two BBC sound effects engineers charged with causing each other grievous bodily harm. Most of the nouns in their testimony are sound effects rather than words.
  • Bloodnok of Borgoona is the tale of the attempts of Major Bloodnok and his regiment, the Third Pricky Heats, to defend Borgoona (a Southeast Asian country remarkably similar to Burma) from invasion from an enemy remarkably similar to the Japanese. Long live the BBC censors! Eccles can’t see any Japs (er—Borgoonians) for lack of sliced garlic, and so the story ends with Bloodnok’s surrender to enemy forces.
12:00 AM - 1/17 [Untitled]
  • Harry Secombe’s Musical Training recounts Our Hero’s early musical training in piano and voice.
  • The Brabagoon is a fresh performance (with minor rewriting) of the third sketch in show 1/5, in which Osric Pureheart builds the Brabagoon, the world’s largest airliner, which has difficulty taking off—and then more difficulty landing.
  • Summer Holidays is an abbreviated rewrite of the fourth sketch of show 1/5.
  • Bloodnok the Peacemaker is the tale of Major Bloodnok and his regiment, the Third Prickly Heats, being sent to Africa to defuse the tensions during the Zulu wars. Bloodnok wins a native wife in a dancing contest and then bests the Zulus by running up the Union Jack while they’re not looking.
12:00 AM - 1/Special [Cinderella]
  • A Goons version of the Cinderella panto. Cinderella was played by Lizbeth Webb. Secombe played Buttons, Sellers was Baron Bloodnock and Hycinth, the ugly sister, Bentine played Captain Pureheart, Milligan played Eccles Dandini and Queen Minnie, Ellington was the butler and Graham Stark was Prince Charming.

SERIES 2's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES [1952]

8:00 AM - 2/1 [Untitled] ★
  • Listen Here!
  • Handsome Harry Secombe engages in The Pursuit of Lo Hing Ding the sinister Oriental.
  • The Building of the Suez Canal.
  • Broadcasting in 1999.
  • The Quest for the Abominable Snowman
8:00 AM - 2/2 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry chases Ho Fu Chang
  • Captain Pureheart builds the Trans-Siberian express
  • Education sketch
  • Bloodnok in the Highlands in 1745
8:30 AM - 2/3 [Untitled] ★
  • Listen Here!
  • The Building of the Crystal Palace
  • Handsome Harry Secombe Hunts the Lost Drummer in Venice
  • The Senepati and His Tribe
  • The Quo Vadis Sketch
8:30 AM - 2/4 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry chases Andrew Timothy
  • Captain Pureheart constructs Croydon Airport
  • BBC programmes crammed together
  • Colonel Slocombe fights the Chippewar tribe
9:00 AM - 2/5 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry guards a French vineyard
  • Monte Carlo Rally 1952 – commentary
  • Captain Pureheart photographs the world
9:00 AM - 2/6 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry goes home
  • Bloodnok’s quest for the golden idol
  • Fred Bogg in the army
  • Barton and Pureheart’s interplanetary adventure
9:30 AM - 2/7 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry investigates a murder
  • Pureheart lays the Atlantic cable
  • Swiss winter sports sketch
  • Major Bloodnok protects the Blarney Stone
9:30 AM - 2/8 [Her]
  • The Goons’ version of Rider Haggard’s She. This is the first show to have a single plot throughout the programme.
10:00 AM - 2/9 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry the troubador
  • Pureheart builds a jet fighter X9
  • A survey of Britain
  • Major Bloodnok (2nd/7th Bombay Biddis at Goonistan) attacks the Mad Mullah
10:00 AM - 2/10 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry and the lost million
  • Pureheart – building the Channel Tunnel
  • The Grand National
  • Major von Bloodnok – German secret agent
10:30 AM - 2/11 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry Secombe is taken prisoner in the Army by the British
  • Pureheart’s excavation at Pompeii
  • Wacklow & Crun censor a show
  • Colonel Slocombe in the Southern Army
10:30 AM - 2/12 [Untitled]
  • Harry Secombe – secret agent
  • Bloodnok fights the Mad Mullah
  • Goon focus on other programmes
  • Pureheart builds a satellite town
11:00 AM - 2/13 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry – military intelligence
  • Filthmuck gets a laundry
  • Presidential elections
  • Slocombe goes to the firing line
11:00 AM - 2/14 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry and the Ministry of Documentation
  • Captain Pureheart builds a time machine
  • Regent’s Park Zoo
  • El Gato – Harolde Slocombe and the President’s Daughter
11:30 AM - 2/15 [Untitled]
  • Speech impediment
  • Harry Secombe educates the BBC
  • Osric Pureheart and the story of the Mulberry Harbour
  • The Goons interview British Olympic hopefuls
  • The Scarlet Pimpernel (Lord Nugent Gascoine)
11:30 AM - 2/16 [Untitled]
  • Trailer for the Goon Show / Handsome Harry’s dream – on trial for singing
  • High Goon
  • Pureheart – the gorilla hunter
  • Home, Light and Third Programme gimmick
12:00 PM - 2/17 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry educates the listeners/Japanese Goon Show
  • Sinking of the Goonmark
  • Home, Light and Third Programme gimmick
  • Welsh spot
12:00 PM - 2/18 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry hunted by a gang
  • Captain Pureheart photographs ghosts
  • Manoeuvres
  • Napoleon’s hours before Waterloo
12:30 PM - 2/19 [Untitled]
  • Introductory banter
  • Pureheart traces the mail van robbers
  • Handsome Harry helps an opera singer find a missing note
  • The diary of Henry Crun – finding the source of the Amazon
12:30 PM - 2/20 [Untitled]
  • Opening banter
  • Whitsun Bank Holiday special – BBC Commentaries
  • Harry Secombe – female Peruvian singing star
  • Dr. Crun’s Amazon expedition continued
1:00 PM - 2/21 [Untitled]
  • Opening banter / Secombe gets sponsorship
  • The legend of Shangri-La
1:00 PM - 2/22 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry’s daredevil circus audition
  • Pureheart’s Arabian oil discoveries
  • Commentaries on sporting events
  • Survey of the British holiday season
1:30 PM - 2/23 [Untitled]
  • Cast have to read in the sound effects
  • The History of Britain
  • The legend of Dhobi Mick
  • Olympic Trials
1:30 PM - 2/24 [Untitled]
  • Secombe auditions for Shakespeare
  • Pureheart cures the Lurgi
  • The legend of Ivanhoe
2:00 PM - 2/25 [Untitled]
  • Handsome Harry looks back at the series
  • The Green Eyed of the Little Yellow God
  • Holiday season commentaries
  • Pureheart searches for the rare African White Carnation

SERIES 3's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['52-'53]

8:00 AM - 3/1 [Fred of the Islands]
8:00 AM - 3/2 [The Egg of the Great Auk]
8:30 AM - 3/3 [I Was a Male Fan Dancer]
8:30 AM - 3/4 [The Saga of HMS Aldgate]
9:00 AM - 3/5 [The Expedition for Toothpaste]
9:00 AM - 3/6 [The Archers]
9:30 AM - 3/7 [Robin Hood]
9:30 AM - 3/8 [Where Does Santa Claus Go in the Summer?]
10:00 AM - 3/9 [The Navy, Army, and Air Force]
10:00 AM - 3/10 [The British Way of Life]
10:30 AM - 3/11 [A Survey of Britain]
10:30 AM - 3/12 [Flint of the Flying Squad]
11:00 AM - 3/13 [Seaside Resorts in Winter]
11:00 AM - 3/14 [The Tragedy of Oxley Towers]
11:30 AM - 3/15 [The Story of Civilization]
11:30 AM - 3/16 [The Search for the Bearded Vulture]
12:00 PM - 3/17 [The Mystery of the Monkey's Paw]
12:00 PM - 3/18 [The Mystery of the Cow on the Hill]
12:30 PM - 3/19 [Where Do Socks Come From?]
12:30 PM - 3/20 [The Man Who Never Was]
1:00 PM - 3/21 [The Building of the Suez Canal]
1:00 PM - 3/22 [The De Goonlies]
1:30 PM - 3/23 [The Conquest of Space]
1:30 PM - 3/24 [The Ascent of Mount Everest] ★
2:00 PM - 3/25 [The Story of the Plymouth Hoe Armada]
2:00 PM - 3/Special [Coronation Edition]

SERIES 4's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['53-'54]

8:00 AM - 4/1 [The Dreaded Piano Clubber]
8:00 AM - 4/2 [The Man Who Tried to Destroy London's Monuments] ★
  • Listen Here!
  • Handsome Harry Secombe, on Moriarty’s direction, joins the Brighton Lifesaver’s Association in order to rescue the rich Miss Gingold from drowning and thus reap a big reward. Sanders, the Chief Lifesaver, lets him into the Lifesaver’s Association, but the whole scheme comes to nought because Secombe can’t swim.
  • The Man Who Tried To Destroy London’s Monuments begins with a telegram to Prime Minister Gladstone threatening to blow up various ancient monuments – Nelson’s Column, the Albert Memorial, and Anna Neagle – followed by blowing up Greater London. The threat is proves to be no idle one when Nelson’s Column lands in the garden at Number Ten. Neddie Seagoon and Major Bloodnok are put in charge and spend considerable time trying to explain to Bluebottle what the little green pins in the map are for. They recruit a bomb diviner, Henry Crun, to help thwart the maniac, but only after a harrowing experience getting Minnie and Henry to open the door. Henry’s bomb-divining stick is in the Imperial War Museum. Our heroes have considerable difficulty getting past the guard, Eccles, to retrieve it. The bomb turns out to be inside the House of Commons, and there’s an all-night sitting on (Eccles: “Oh, here’s a chance of getting’ rid of all of ’em!”). Crun is unable to dismantle the bomb before it explodes. Neddie is visited in hospital by Bluebottle, who wants to know what all them little green pins are for.
8:30 AM - 4/3 [The Ghastly Experiments of Dr. Hans Eidelburger] ★
  • Listen Here!
  • The first segment is The Ghastly Experiments of Dr. Hans Eidelburger, announced as “The Adventures of Fearless Harry Secombe”. Fearless Harry is recruited by Gravely Headstone to be a guinea pig for the medical experiments of Dr. Eidelburger and his assistant, Yakamoto, who are trying to find a man who can take the weight of a steamroller on his face.
  • The remainder of the show is The Mount Everest Project. Great Britain may have the largest navy, largest army, and finest plum, but it does not have the world’s largest mountain. Lord Harry Seagoon convinces Parliament that Mount Everest must be brought to England to make it the tallest country in the world. Bloodnok, Eccles, Crun, Ellington, and Seagoon duly blow up Everest, wrap it in brown paper parcels, and ship it to England aboard the HMS Regurgitant. Unfortunately, they are forced to throw the mountain overboard to lighten the load during a storm. Which leaves the question – what did Hillary and Tenzing climb?
8:30 AM - 4/4 [The Building of Britain's First Atomic Cannon]
9:00 AM - 4/5 [The Gibraltar Story]
  • In the first sketch, Fearless Harry Secombe is persuaded by Moriarty to volunteer, and be paid 100 pounds, to be a human guinea pig for experiments in curing the common cold. Unfortunately for Secombe, he fails to catch a cold during the entire eight years that Eidelburger and Yakamoto confine him to a cell. He’s released without any compensation for his troubles (“no cold, no money!”), but catches cold as soon as he’s released.
  • The Gibraltar Story occupies the remaining two-thirds of the show. It is June 1944, and the RAF is bombing Berlin. Remembering the British legend, “If ever the monkeys leave Gibraltar, the British Empire will fall,” the German High Command order the U-boat commanders in the Mediterranean to kidnap all of the monkeys on Gibraltar. Captain Seagoon and Bluebottle, in British Intelligence, intercept the order and relay it to the commander at Gibraltar, Major Bloodnok. Alas, too late – the Germans have captured the monkeys, and they must be replaced before dawn. The Americans offer to airlift replacement monkeys, and the British plan to send some as well. Seagoon gets a fresh supply of monkeys (and their head keeper, Eccles) from London Zoo and its curators, Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister. He flies to Gibraltar, only to find Bloodnok floating offshore in a dinghy. It seems that the British have been driven off of Gibraltar – by the 50,000 monkeys that the Americans dropped
9:00 AM - 4/6 [Through the Sound Barrier in an Airing Cupboard]
9:30 AM - 4/7 [The First Albert Memorial to the Moon]
9:30 AM - 4/8 [The Missing Bureaucrat]
  • The first part of the show is “The Adventures of Fearless Harry Secombe – A Race to the Death”. The title given is for parts 2 and 3 of the show.
10:00 AM - 4/9 [Operation Bagpipes]
  • This was a single plot World War II story involving the Highland Division and the Germans repatriating a Scottish prisoner as he wouldn’t stop playing the bagpipes.
10:00 AM - 4/10 [The Flying Saucer Mystery]
  • The first part of the show is “The Adventures of Fearless Harry Secombe”. The main part of the show is about flying saucers.
10:30 AM - 4/11 [The Spanish Armada]
  • The first part of the show is “Harry proves he is not a dog”. The remainder is announced as “The Story of Plymouth Hoe and the Armada”.
10:30 AM - 4/12 [The British Way]
11:00 AM - 4/SP1 [Christmas Crackers]
  • The casts of several current comedy series performed short sketches on the subject of Christmas in general and Christmas Crackers in particular for a Christmas Day special.
11:00 AM - 4/13 [The Giant Bombardon]
11:30 AM - 4/14 [Ten Thousand Fathoms Down in a Wardrobe]
11:30 AM - 4/15 [The Missing Prime Minister] ★
  • Listen Here!
  • At midnight on Christmas Eve, 1953, Constable Willium is on guard outside Ten Downing Street. A report is phoned in to the Bow Street Station that Number Ten is missing. Inspector Gladys Seagoon rushes to Downing Street to discover a gap between numbers Nine and Eleven, and Willium tied up and gagged with a hand towel from Number Ten. Willium says that a monster lorry pulled up outside, ten men jumped out, and walloped him on the head. When he came to, the house was gone. The Prime Minister must be returned! Seagoon orders police and military roadblocks to be set up. Major Bloodnok, in charge of one of the roadblocks, sends Fred Bogg out to investigate someone creeping about outside. It turns out to be Ellington, who had just dropped off a lorry with a large building strapped to the back. Private Bogg knocks on the door of a nearby house to ask if he can use their telephone. Henry Crun, a resident of the house, wakes up when the alarm clock goes off early, but he can’t find his spectacles in the dark and so can’t shut it off. It wakes up Minnie, a three-way argument between Henry, Minnie, and Bogg starts, and the result is total pandemonium. Meantime, Seagoon discovers that Ten Downing Street and the PM have been sighted in France. He sets off, with Eccles and Bloodnok in pursuit. They find Number Ten, and discover that the French kidnapped the PM to perform a very short job for them – Prime Minister of France.
12:00 PM - 4/16 [Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Crun]
12:00 PM - 4/17 [The Mummified Priest]
12:30 PM - 4/18 [The History of Communications] ★
  • Listen Here!
  • The first segment is The History of Communications, a sketch that first appeared in show 1/7. It documents progress in communications, starting with yelling over short distances (“Hey, Fred!” “’Ullo!”), then the Greek runner, Goonicus, who ran to Athens bearing news of a great victory. After nearly two thousand years, the Penny Post is invented, finally dispensing with the runner (“About time, too!”). Then the Parcel Post is invented, allowing packages (such as bombs) to be sent to loved ones. Then the wireless is invented, and proves an invaluable aid in crime-fighting, provided the police dispatcher doesn’t crash the cars into each other. In wartime, secret methods of communication are used. In modern times, if you wish to be heard hundreds or thousands of miles away, you need only lift up your phone and yell.
  • The Siege of Khartoum occupies the remaining two segments of the programme. Major Bloodnok and his troops are besieged in Khartoum by the Mahdi. When the news reaches Parliament, Gladstone calls an emergency meeting to discuss the problem of rabbit overpopulation in Australia. Meanwhile, in Khartoum, Captain Berksnail of the Third Athlete’s Foot arrives with an envelope containing a message inside. But it’s useless, because Bloodnok doesn’t speak a word of Side. A wireless message comes in from England, but instead of news of the relief column, it’s football scores. An outraged Bloodnok reports this to Queen Victoria (“This news has just been received from Major Bloodnok.” “Pray read it.” “Arsenal 9, Sunderland 14.”). Henry Crun is put in charge of a relief force and sets out for Africa. Meanwhile, at Khartoum, Bloodnok, Eccles, Carstairs, Ellington, and Abdul are being shelled by the Mahdi’s troops. Crun’s relief column arrives just as the Mahdi breaks into the fort, and the situation is saved. Henry bears a special message from Her Majesty the Queen—Arsenal 1, Sunderland 4.
12:30 PM - 4/19 [The Kippered Herring Gang]
  • Inspectors Hercules Seagoon and Dennis Bloodnok are on the trail of the fiendish Kippered Herring Gang, who always leave a single kippered herring at the crime scene. Forensic analyst Eccles verifies scientifically that not only are the kippered herrings single, they are also dead. After police dogs are put on the scent and fail, they try police cats, but to no avail. Moriarty attempts to shoot Seagoon over the phone. Seagoon decides to thwart the gang by putting all of Britain’s kippers under guard at Scotland Yard. Still the robberies continue, and still a kippered herring is left at each crime scene. The gang must have a secret source of supply. The trail leads to a nosh bar in Brighton run by Angus MacDonald, who get the herrings from a fisherman at the end of the pier. He turns out to be Mad Houdini Bluebottle, a member of the Kippered Herring gang. Bluebottle leads them to the gang headquarters, where Minnie Bannister refuses to let them in. Willium shows up to collect a wardrobe from the house. Seagoon and company help him out with it and thus are able to gain entry. They find the place deserted – the gang were all in the wardrobe – except for a kippered herring.
1:00 PM - 4/20 [The Toothpaste Expedition]
  • Rottingdean – England’s Oldest School is a documentary about England’s oldest public school, founded by the Dean of Murdle, who is buried on the school grounds, hence its name. The sketch touches on the courage of the faculty during the great school fire, horseback riding, the school wood shop, and schoolboy romances.
  • The Toothpaste Expedition chronicles the exploits of two expeditions to find new lodes of toothpaste ore. The first, under Commander Burke, has gone to investigate rumours of a rich lode under the sands of the Sahara. Instead, they end up in the frozen Arctic, having been led astray by a compass from a Christmas cracker. They are rescued by the Woolwich Ferry, whose captain also bought a box of the same Christmas crackers. Meanwhile, the second expedition, consisting of the intrepid Dick Barton and his sidekicks Jock and Snowey, set off for another reported lode of toothpaste near the North Pole. They find themselves in Egypt thanks to a compass from a Christmas cracker. A native servant of the great chieftain Rags Tariches leads them to safety. Thus, both expeditions return home safely, but without finding any new source of toothpaste. The consequences are disasterous for the teeth of BBC announcers.
  • Henry Crun Goes Moose Hunting tells the story of Mr. Crun’s journey to Canada in search of moose antlers with which to make a hat stand. Crun and Eccles arrive at Sam Secombe’s general store, where a Red Indian tries to sell them a rack of antlers at twice the price Crun is willing to pay. Secombe agrees to guide them to moose country. Crun blows his moose call horn and shoots the creature that answers – another hunter with a moose call horn. They finally bring down a creature with antlers lurking behind a tree – a Red Indian who is now more than willing to agree to Crun’s price for the antlers.
1:00 PM - 4/21 [The Case of the Vanishing Room] ★
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  • Inspector Seagoon shows up in the quiet village of Brodley-on-Cleat to investigate the murder of Lord Cretinby in his library. He seals the room, only to discover that Eccles, the police photographer, was inside. When he breaks down the door he finds the library, Lord Cretinby, and Eccles all vanished. Meanwhile, in Paris, Bloodnok checks into his hotel room only to find that the bathroom door has been recently sealed and unsealed. On the other side is the missing library, complete with Eccles and Lord Cretinby’s corpse. The hotel manager discovers that a British room is staying at his hotel and that Bloodnok has been concealing two unpaid guests – one living and one dead. Eccles phones Seagoon, who travels to Paris. Seagoon’s attempt to have Eccles and Bluebottle re-enact the murder results in Eccles shooting Bluebottle and the rest of the cast . . .
1:30 PM - 4/22 [The Great Ink Drought of 1902]
1:30 PM - 4/23 [The Greatest Mountain in the World] ★
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  • The Right and Left Honourable Sir Harry Seagoon announces to a meeting of the Royal Geographical and Archaeological Society his intention to go one better than Hillary and Tenzing by climbing Everest, the highest mountain in the world. He is crestfallen to learn that they have already climbed it, so he proposes to build a higher mountain in Hyde Park. Henry Crun’s idea is to start with a little lump on the ground – a molehill, and he will make a mountain out of it. Ellington arrives with a parcel addressed “With love to our dear British friends, from your pals the Egyptians.” But it contains a lion rather than the mole for Henry’s molehill. After a narrow escape from the lion, work proceeds on the mountain, but it violates the height rule for objects close to Nelson’s Column, and the Ministry of Works blows it up. A meeting of the Royal Alpine Club is convened, and it’s decided to climb the one mountain higher than Everest, Mount Fred. Unfortunately, it’s 300 fathoms beneath the sea. Seagoon, Bloodnok, Eccles, Bluebottle, and Ellington duly set sail, and, when over Mount Fred, hop in the car and drive down to its base. Midway up the mountain, they get lost. Seagoon asks the inhabitant of a nearby oyster (Minnie Bannister) for directions, but is told to clear off. They send Bluebottle floating up to the surface by clutching a mine. He is, of course, deaded when the mine blows up. The explosion has blown Mount Fred to bits. Eccles tries to console the distraught Seagoon by giving him one of those red TNT brand cigars that the Ministry of Works fellow had left at the base of the mountain in Hyde Park. The resulting explosion blows up the rest of the cast.
2:00 PM - 4/24 [The Collapse of the British Railway Sandwich System] ★
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  • The great mustard and cress shortage is on, and it causes havoc to British Railways, as it means the disappearance of mustard-and-cress sandwiches from the railway buffets. Undercover work by Gladys Seagoon and Ellington reveals that the fiend Bluebottle has destroyed every slice of mustard and cress in the world. In desperation, British Railways sends out Henry Crun to farm 6000 acres of mustard and cress in the Amazon. On arrival in South America, Seagoon, Crun, and Ellington are greeted by the British Ambassador, Major Bloodnok. They trek to the spot where the plantation is to go up. They are attacked by natives, but the natives run when they hear what sounds like the river steamer. But it turns out to be just Minnie Bannister playing the saxophone. And what happened to the great mustard and cress shortage? Nothing—it still exists.
2:00 PM - 4/25 [The Silent Bugler] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon, MI5 Agent X2, is summoned to London. On the train he has an encounter with the conductor, Willium. On arrival at HQ, he is informed that the Russians have developed a time machine, with which they will travel to the future and build planes that travel faster than the speed of light. X2 is sent to Henry Crun for briefing. He warns him about the Russian master spy, Igor Blimey, also known as the Silent Bugler. Seagoon spends the next two days in training under Major Bloodnok, who steals all his valuables during a blindfold sensitivity test. Sergeant Eccles tests Seagoon’s ability to identify objects held up in rapid succession. Seagoon guesses them all except the last (an elephant). Bluebottle demonstrates his back-shot pistol to Seagoon, and ends up being deaded. Bloodnok, Eccles, and Seagoon, disguised, board the special mystery flight X to Berlin. On arrival, they open their secret orders. They are to apprehend the Silent Bugler, who knows where the time machine is. He is in the Dresden Opera House. Our heroes go to the concert that night, and the gaps in the orchestra’s playing indicate that the Silent Bugler is indeed there. But he has fooled them – the entire orchestra is miming to a gramophone record. Eccles and Bloodnok find the time machine in a room under the Opera House and blow it up. But it turns out to be a fake put there by Seagoon to fool the Russians. Just as they’re about to deal with the real machine, Justin Eidelburger discovers them. They flee by car, horse, race car, and hearse, only to find themselves back where they started. There is only one way to escape Eidelburger – go into the future in the time machine. Those who would like to hear how the story ends must tune in on 15 March 1984.
2:00 PM - 4/26 [Western Story]
  • In this parody of the Western film Shane, Harry Secombe is sheriff of the Arizona town of Bedsprings Creek. The town is being terrorised by Dangerous Earnest McGrew and his gang, who want to set up a television transmitter there. The sheriff decides to enlist the aid of gunslinger Henry Crun, also known as Drain. But Crun and his companions Eccles and the British railway porter Jasper Bass have renounced the life of a gunman. They suffer from the dreaded parlorgameitis and are seeking a place free of the scourge of television. When they turn up in the Last Chance Saloon, they are arrested by Senator McEllington’s Committee on Un-American Activities (they were drinking tea – how un-American can you get?). The sheriff and Crun organise a posse to search for the McGrew Gang, and after a futile attempt to extract information from a couple of old-timers, they find that the McGrew Gang is holed up in the Last Chance Saloon. Eccles shoots Bluebottle McGrew in the foot, thus ridding the town of the menace of television. Furthermore, for correctly being the first person to answer the phone that he is Julius Caesar, he wins the Videophonic Company’s contest prize – a television set.
2:00 PM - 4/27 [The Saga of the Internal Mountain] ★
2:00 PM - 4/SP2 [The Hundredth Boat Race]
  • The Goons were invited to the preparations for the 1954 Boat Race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The show was a 45 minute revue. It was followed at 20:30 by Take it From Here – starring Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley for another 30 minutes.
2:00 PM - 4/28 [The Invisible Acrobat]
2:00 PM - 4/29 [The Great Bank of England Robbery] ★
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  • That Napoleon of Crime, Moriarty, recruits Harry Secombe to burgle the Bank of England. He sends his associate, Grytpype-Thynne, with the elaborate plans for the robbery. When midnight strikes and the robbery is to commence, Bloodnok finds that Secombe is hiding in a brown paper parcel in a pillar-box. He can’t get out because the postman won’t collect the parcel because it’s insufficiently stamped. Eccles has a key to the box, but only succeeds in locking himself in. In his attempt to pull them out through the mouth of the letterbox, Bloodnok is pulled into the box. When the parcels of water run out, they’re forced to dig for it. They drill down through the base of the pillar box and find one of London’s underground rivers, which takes them directly beneath the Bank of England. They travel down a tunnel and find Moriarty’s gramophone record with the rest of the plan. They must dynamite their way through the ceiling into the gold vault. Bluebottle, of course, sets the charge and ends up being deaded. But a hole has been blown in the ceiling, and they climb through, only to find they’re back in pillar-box again.
2:00 PM - 4/30 [The Siege of Fort Knight]
2:00 PM - 4/SP3 [Archie in Goonland]
  • This programme combined the two radio shows The Goon Show and Educating Archie. At the time, Harry Secombe was appearing in both shows. Eric Sykes was the writer for Educating Archie and this was his first collaboration with Spike Milligan.
2:00 PM - 4/SP4 [The Starlings] ★
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  • With the world overshadowed by doubts, fears, international conflict, and the prospect of nuclear Armageddon, Parliament is debating serious matters – starlings are ruining London’s great public buildings. The inventive genius of the country is called upon, and for three years the starlings are attacked with a series of frightening devices: stuffed owls, wriggling rubber snakes, high-frequency sound beams, rice puddings fired from catapults, recordings of a female starling in trouble, and recordings of a female starling not in trouble. All to no avail. Mr. Ned Bladdock (Seagoon), Minister of Grit, Filth, and Exportable Heads, comes up with a new plan – three brigades of Guards in Trafalgar Square with noise-making equipment. Operation Cacophony is put into action, but succeeds only in deafening the guards. Augmenting the noisemakers by the bagpipes of the Highland Brigade causes the population of London to drop by 10000 overnight, but the starlings rest peacefully. The plan is an abject failure. Then Bladdock gets a visit from Jim ‘Tigernuts’ Bluebottle, who has a new plan. He has invented a special explodable bird-lime, indistinguishable from the real thing. The bird lime can be put down wherever there are starlings and then detonated by pressing a remote-controlled button. Woolwich Arsenal is set to work producing 40000 tons of the artificial explodable bird-lime. Of course, an inauguration ceremony must be held, since exploding the bird-lime requires the pressing of a button, and it is common law that all cutting of tapes and pressing of buttons must be carried out with due ceremony. The BBC cover the occasion with Brian Ginstone on the roof of St. Martins and Richard Dingleby covering the buttonpressing ceremony in Trafalgar Square. Accompanied by a procession of cavalry and heralds, the Duchess Boil de Spudswell (Peter Sellers, sounding suspiciously like the Queen) arrives to press the button. After some problems with the Great Microphone of State, she presses the button, the bird-lime starts exploding, and the starlings are driven off. But the bird-lime was a mite too powerful – St. Martins was destroyed. Bladdock tells Parliament to fear not – St. Martins will be rebuilt. Should the starlings come back to roost there, it will be blown up again. It’s finally decided to try a new invention to deal with the pests – rice puddings fired from catapults.

SERIES 5's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['54-'55]

8:00 AM - 5/1 [The Whistling Spy Enigma] ★
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  • Captain Harry Seagoon is summoned to MI5, where he is briefed by Lance-Brigadier Grytpype-Thynne. The reason for the recent fall in British prestige throughout the civilised world (and America) is the defeat by the Hungarian football team. To ensure that this doesn’t happen when they play again, MI5 will conduct Operation Explodable Boot. Seagoon is to go to Budapest to contact the British agent, X, by whistling a highly-mysterious tune (the Hungarian Rhapsody, but whistled in English). When Seagoon points out that there are thousands of Hungarians who can whistle in English. Grytpype summons Eccles, the highly-skilled mysterious whistling espionage agent, and they go off to see Henry Crun, MI5’s highly-skilled mysterious pianist/composer. Eccles gives the secret knock and Henry answers, but there is a big delay because the door and window appear to be locked. Once that’s sorted out, Henry whistles the new highly-skilled mysterious tune. There isn’t time to teach Eccles the tune, so Henry accompanies Seagoon and Eccles to Budapest. On arrival, they contact the British Ambassador, Major Bloodnok. They are discovered by Moriarty, of the anti-whistling Hungarian counter-espionage agency. A fight ensues. Seagoon wonders out loud where the mysterious, deaf British agent can be, and Bluebottle, agent X, answers. They go to the football stadium to insert the dreaded dynamite in the Hungarian team’s football boots. Having inserted the dynamite in the football boots, they all return to the embassy and switch on the radio to listen to the match. It turns out that the game was nearly cancelled because the British team forgot their football boots, but the Hungarians sportingly gave them theirs . . . .
8:00 AM - 5/2 [The Lost Gold Mine (of Charlotte)] ★
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  • The lost gold mine was alleged to have been found by the French miner, André Charlotte, who died without telling anyone where it was. But he left behind a map, which was discovered in a tin of meatloaf salad by Neddie Seagoon. Seagoon sets off for America. On board ship, he plays cards with Captain Grytpype and Moriarty, and loses. He doesn’t have the threepence he owes, so he writes them an IOU on the back of the treasure map. Grytpype and Moriarty divide the map in half so that neither can cheat the other. On arrival in New Orleans, Neddie discovers the loss of the map and sets out across the desert in pursuit of Grytpype and Moriarty. He stays the night in an inn operated by Minnie and Henry. While there, he meets Bloodnok who reveals that Grytpype and Moriarty passed through town only hours earlier, and they set off in pursuit. They find Moriarty chained and buried in the sand up to his neck. Moriarty still has half the treasure map, and the half that matters – the half with the last mile that leads to the gold mine. Seagoon and Bloodnok divide that part of the map in two, and, in return for Moriarty telling them which way Grytpype went, each give Moriarty half of their portion of the map. Meanwhile, ten miles ahead in the desert, Grytpype discovers that this is as far as his part of the map leads him. He meets Eccles, who reveals that he lives in the gold mine, but never left with the treasure because he only knows his way from the gold mine to where Grytpype is. In return for half of Grytpype’s map, he agrees to show Grytpype where the mine is. Seagoon and Moriarty now have reached the spot where Grytpype met Eccles. Here they find desert ranger Bluebottle, who agrees to guide them to the mine. Bluebottle and Seagoon have now caught up with Eccles. The lost gold mine is behind a pile of rocks. Bluebottle sets three sticks of dynamite to blast away the rocks, but Eccles presses the plunger too soon and Bluebottle is deaded in the explosion. Inside the mine, Seagoon discovers that there is no gold. Eccles, tells him, well, that’s yer lot.
8:30 AM - 5/3 [The Dreaded Batter-Pudding Hurler (of Bexhill-on-Sea)] ★
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  • It is 1941. Despite the threat of invasion across the Channel, and the blackout rules, Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister, elderly gentlefolk of Bexhill-on-Sea, still take their evening constitutional walks along the cliffs. At this point, there is a sound like a gas door oven slamming, and shortly thereafter Minnie is struck from behind. Constable Neddie Seagoon is summoned, but they must wait until morning’s light to find out what struck Miss Bannister, because even lighting a match draws enemy artillery fire. Light of day reveals that Minnie was struck down by a batter-pudding. 38 batter-puddings are hurled at Miss Bannister in the months to come. Scotland Yard, in the person of Inspector Grytpype-Thynne, is called in. he only clue is an army boot in one of the puddings, and so Major Bloodnok’s 56th Heavy Underwater Artillery are inspected. In the meantime, another batter-pudding, this one cold, is hurled at Minnie, indicating that the dreaded hurler’s gas supply has been cut off. Seagoon visits the Bexhill Gas and Coke Works and examines the list of people who haven’t paid their gas bills, but to no avail. The next piece of batter-pudding for Miss Bannister arrives by letter, postmarked Africa. Now they have him cornered! Seagoon, his assistant Bluebottle, and Major Bloodnok’s regiment set sail for Algiers. En route, the troop ship is blown up by a mine, but Seagoon and Bloodnok find a passing lifeboat and drag themselves on board. In the corner is a gas stove, from which issues the smell of batter-pudding. They arrest the occupant, Chef Moriarty, as the dreaded batter-pudding hurler. But now comes a dilemma – they will starve if they don’t eat the batter-pudding, but if they do eat it, they destroy their only evidence. The show ends with a happy ending for those cretins who would like one.
8:30 AM - 5/4 [The Phantom Head Shaver (of Brighton)] ★
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  • Newlyweds Nugent and Prunella Dirt are sleeping peacefully in their room in the Hotel Fred, Brighton. Prunella suddenly screams, as she discovers that her new husband is bald, something that Nugent denies, but is confirmed by the hotel manager. The Phantom Head Shaver had struck. The next day, Wallace Greenslade opens a small tobacco kiosk. Prunella sues Nugent for hiding from her the fact that he was bald. Hairy Seagoon, QC, is Nugent’s defence counsel. He receives a mysterious package containing human hair, with a note saying, “Nugent Dirt is innocent. This hair is his. It was I who balded him while he slept.” The note is signed “The Phantom Head Shaver”. Nugent has been found guilty, but just as Judge Schnorrer is about to sentence him to sixty years in the nick (because he refuses to pay the three bob fine), Seagoon introduces the package as evidence and court is adjourned pending laboratory analysis of the hair. Seagoon spends much time smoking pipes of tobacco from Greenslade’s kiosk. Another package of hair arrives from the Phantom. This time it’s Seagoon’s! In the months that follow, fifty men are balded as they slept. Brighton becomes a city of terror. At a meeting convened to discuss action, Henry Crun suggests that all men wear bald wigs as they sleep. Minnie Bannister counters that that will just cause the Phantom to attack the women, and besides, she’s already bald. Henry suggests that in that case she wears a hairy bald wig, and a big argument ensues. Grytpype calls from the Forensic Laboratory to inform Seagoon that the hair from the package was actually tobacco. Soon over 300 men had been balded by the Phantom. Greenslade’s tobacco stocks were quite high. The town is ringed with troops. Seagoon and Bluebottle ride out at night to capture the Phantom. There they find Eccles and Bloodnok on guard. Bloodnok claims to have been on watch and not slept, but he’s been half-balded. They hear a man stropping a razor in a nearby hut. Had Seagoon interrupted the Phantom in the act? Bluebottle, Eccles, and Seagoon go to investigate. Bluebottle searches the hut, doesn’t find the Phantom, but comes out balded. Eccles throws a stick of dynamite into the hut, but the fuse sputters out. The three of them charge into the hut just as the dynamite explodes. Bloodnok meets Greenslade outside the hut, and Greenslade gives him some tobacco. Bloodnok soon realises that the tobacco is his hair, and runs off in pursuit of Greenslade.
9:00 AM - 5/5 [The Affair of the Lone Banana] ★
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  • Young Fred Nurke, son of Lord Marks, has disappeared from Matzos Lodge. Inspector Neddie Seagoon, investigating the disappearance, interrogates Gravely Headstone, the butler, and Lady Marks. Her Ladyship reveals that the late Lord Marks owned a banana plantation in South America. Seagoon books passage to South America with shipping agent Henry Crun, after much difficulty in getting the form filled out. He finds out from Crun that Fred Nurke did depart for South America, in such a rush that he left behind a lone banana. On arrival in Guatemala, Seagoon is arrested by the revolutionary leader, Gonzalez Mess, nee Moriarty. He’s imprisoned with Eccles, and together the two try to escape by piling up chairs until they can reach the high window. Major Bloodnok, the British Charge d’Affaires, arrives and secures the release of Seagoon and Eccles. The three return to the British Embassy. Fred Nurke has gone off by himself to dynamite the rebel HQ. The British Embassy is under siege as the rebels seek to destroy the last banana tree belonging to the British, which is on the Embassy grounds. Moriarty phones the Embassy and tells Bloodnok that unless they chop down the banana tree, they will die tonight. Bluebottle leads Seagoon to the rebel HQ, while Bloodnok and Eccles stay behind to guard the banana tree. Grytpype-Thynne, the rebel leader, captures and interrogates Seagoon. When he learns that Bloodnok has been left to guard the banana tree, he and Moriarty grab some money and go off to the Embassy to bribe Bloodnok. Fred Nurke calls the rebel HQ to tell the rebels that he’s about to blow them up, but of course instead he gets Seagoon. Was the sacrifice worthwhile? Did Bloodnok save the banana tree?
9:00 AM - 5/6 [The Canal] ★
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  • After forty-nine years at school, young Ned Seagoon returns to his ancestral home, Seagoon’s Folly, but as they approach the mansion, the cab is caught in a thick fog. Neddie decides to walk the rest of the way, but loses his way and falls into the canal. On arrival at the mansion, he is greeted by his father, the sinister Lord Valentine Dyall, who makes him promise never to go into the canal. The mansion has changed – there are terrifying screams from the basement, mother has gone missing, and Lord Dyall’s third child, Flowerdew, is wandering about in a state of mad delirium. Eccles, Neddie’s brother, moves his things (a herd of cattle) out of Neddie’s room. In the night, Lord Dyall and the sinister Dr. Justin Eidelburger creep into Neddie’s room, knock him unconscious with a mallet, and throw him in the canal. Lord Dyall phones Lloyds of London to collect on the life insurance policy that he’s taken out on Neddie, but just then Ned walks in the door. Lord Dyall had Drs. Eidelburger and Yakamoto set concrete blocks on Neddie’s feet to stop him playing in the canal. Seagoon is tossed in the canal, whereupon the lock-keepers, Henry and Minnie, try to rescue him. Meanwhile, Lloyds agent Bluebottle arrives to pay out the £40,000 on the policy – in pennies. While he’s counting it out, Neddie arrives. To get the concrete blocks off Ned’s feet, Lord Dyall has Eccles put sticks of dynamite in the concrete blocks and light the fuse. He then sends Neddie to wait in the garden. The dynamite removes the concrete blocks, but pitches Neddie into the canal. Bluebottle is recalled and again counts out the money. Just as he finishes, Neddie arrives. This time, Lord Dyall refuses to hand the money back and imprisons Neddie and Bluebottle in the dungeon. Neddie convinces Eccles, who had been chaining them to the wall, of their father’s evil intent. They conspire to escape and attempt to throw Lord Dyall in the canal, but end up being pitched in themselves. But as Lord Dyall gloats over them, he is thrown in the canal by Henry Crun, who calls up Lloyds to collect on that life insurance he took out on the four gentlemen . . . .
9:30 AM - 5/7 [Lurgi Strikes Britain!] ★
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  • Doctor Ned Seagoon is contacted by Count Moriarty, who tells him the tale of his bus trip the previous evening, when the bus conductor was struck down by the deadly disease lurgi, which causes an uncontrollable urge in its victims to yell ‘yakabool’. The highly contagious disease spreads to the medical personnel treating the bus conductor. If Seagoon contacts Dr. Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, he can be the man to save Britain from lurgi and can attain a knighthood, position, and most importantly. . . money. Grytpype sends Seagoon to talk to the British Medical Council, to urge them to isolate the lurgi victims at Yakabool Centres in Blackpool. The centres will be paid for by a special charity concert. At the concert, the great tenor, Giovanni Saponni, starts to sing, but on signal from Moriarty, breaks into fits of ‘yakabool’. Seagoon, convinced that the singer has lurgi, runs for his life. Grytpype tells Neddie the cure for lurgi and sneaks him into the Houses of Parliament. Seagoon reveals to Parliament a vital observation – the one thing that all the lurgi victims have in common is that none of them plays in a brass band. Parliament puts Seagoon in charge of the anti-lurgi campaign, and fifty million pounds’ worth of brass band instruments are ordered from the instrument-makers, Goozey and Bawkes. Major Bloodnok and his troops are to airlift the instruments and drop them to the lurgi victims in Blackpool. The news reports the mysterious dropping of the instruments over Blackpool, and that Scotland Yard are searching for a short, fat man in connection with a non-existent disease called lurgi. Seagoon, fleeing from the police, finds Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty counting out a large sum of money and preparing to leave for the south of France. It turns out that their professional names are Messrs. Goozey and Bawkes, makers of brass band instruments . . . .
9:30 AM - 5/8 [The Mystery of the Marie Celeste (Solved)] ★
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  • Ned Seagoon reads a notice offering a £5000 reward for a solution to the mystery of the Marie Celeste from Grytpype-Thynne, the author of sea stories. Seagoon visits Grytpype, who tells him the tale of the ill-fated Marie Celeste, which was discovered off the Azores all shipshape and Bristol fashion, with food freshly laid, but nobody on board. Seagoon starts his investigations at the offices of shipping magnate Admiral Bloodnok, who manages pleasure-boats. Bloodnok refers Seagoon to the shipyard of Crun, Bannister, and Crun, who built the Marie Celeste. Once Seagoon leaves, Bloodnok phones Crun and tells him that what they had planned for has happened, that Seagoon is the name, and that there’s a £4000 reward. Seagoon finds Minnie and Henry arguing over the proper way to sing a sea shanty. Crun agrees to build a second Marie Celeste and to assemble a crew to re-enact the mystery. The word of the reward passes to the crew man by man, the reward money getting smaller each time, until we reach cabin boy Bluebottle, who hears of a reward of seventeen and ninepence. They set sail in Marie Celeste the Second, planning to rendezvous with Grytpype in the HMS Gladys at the scene of the original mystery. Seagoon pays Bluebottle his seventeen and ninepence to explain to him the mystery, but just as Bluebottle is about to speak he sees Admiral Bloodnok and runs off to hide. Bloodnok orders Eccles to fire a salute to the HMS Gladys. Eccles fires the cannon, and of course Bluebottle was hiding inside. Bloodnok tells Seagoon that they are all the original crew of the Marie Celeste, and that they slipped away in rafts because they knew that someday someone would offer a reward for the solution to the mystery. And now it has happened. They hail the HMS Gladys, but they find that there’s nobody on board. Seagoon offers £5000 reward for a solution to the mystery of HMS Gladys.
10:00 AM - 5/9 [The Last Tram (from Clapham)] ★
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  • The show starts with a brief radio documentary of the ceremony that marked the moment when London’s last tram rolled into the depot. At the London Pleasure Transport Board, Redundant Tram Department, Ned Seagoon receives a phone call saying that there’s still a tram at large on the Highgate-Kingsway route. Seagoon drives down to the Kingsway subway, where he finds a number 33 tram, its driver, Henry Crun, conductress Minnie Bannister and Eccles, who has a ticket for Kingsway. Henry refuses to drive the tram to the shed quietly – he wants the full Last Tram Ceremony. Meantime, the Country and Town Planning Society is meeting to discuss the construction of a block of flats on the site of the old Kingsway tram subway. Grytpype, the chairman, has awarded the construction contract to his wife’s brother. Seagoon interrupts the meeting to tell them about the 33 tram that is still down there. Grytpype agrees to do another Last Tram Ceremony, but secretly and on the cheap. He sends Seagoon to Major Bloodnok and Moriarty. Seagoon returns to the subway, where Crun can’t drive the tram out because there’s no electricity. Seagoon returns to the Planning Society, where Grytpype plans to just build over the tram, as they must start building. Meanwhile, Bloodnok, who has been standing all night waiting for the ceremony to start, bursts into Seagoon’s office. There the new office boy, mistaking him for Seagoon, gives him an envelope containing £20,000 of departmental wages. Seagoon, assisted by Bluebottle, struggles to get electricity to the tram. Bluebottle carries the electric cables down the subway, where he encounters a couple of workmen. The workmen need lighting, so they connect up the electricity, electrocuting Bluebottle. Greenslade shows up to announce the BBC broadcast of the new Last Tram Ceremony. As the tram drives out, he informs Seagoon that there is no last tram reception committee at the entrance of the subway, but there is a Black Maria there waiting for Seagoon, who is to be arrested for absconding with the departmental wages.
10:00 AM - 5/10 [The Booted Gorilla (found?)] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon and Major Bloodnok are on safari in the Congo. Ellinga discovers the footprints of a gorilla stopping behind a bush and then starting again as boot prints. This is the trail of the legendary booted gorilla. Bloodnok sends Seagoon to Bwana Grytpype at the Gorilla Collectors’ Society. Grytpype advises that they acquire a collapsible boot repair shop, as eventually he will look for a boot repairer. He sends the barefoot Eccles along. Seagoon visits cobbler Crun and offers £500 to buy his boot shop, but Minnie Bannister succeeds in knocking him down to £50. Seagoon returns to the Congo with Eccles, Henry, Minnie, and the collapsible boot shop. It turns out that Minnie and Bloodnok had a romantic affair in India long ago. Eccles and Bluebottle are sent as scouts to track down the gorilla. Henry and Minnie are stationed in their shop and told to wait for a customer wearing a hairy coat. They converse about their pets (a pussycat named Ruffles owned by Bluebottle, and a bunny rabbit owned by Eccles). Henry calls from the boot shop to inform Neddie that the lights have fused. Neddie sends Eccles to the lamp store for new bulbs. Bluebottle then phones to report that he and Eccles are on guard up a tree. But Eccles has been sent to the lamp store – it’s the gorilla up the tree with Bluebottle! Neddie and Bloodnok rush to the rescue, but only succeed in catching the gorilla as it jumps from the tree. They run off. Henry phones to inform Seagoon that the gentleman in the hairy coat has arrived at the shop. They send Eccles in to subdue the gorilla, and a horrific fight ensues, which ends with Eccles bound head and foot, while the booted gorilla chases Henry Crun across the jungle.
10:30 AM - 5/11 [The Spanish Suitcase] ★
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  • The cast does a short parody of The Archers before proceeding with the plot. Young Lord Neddie Seagoon is on holiday in Madrid in 1902. Moriarty introduces himself as an Inspector of the Spanish Police, searching for clues concerning a recent jewel robbery. The British bullfighter, El Bloodnocko, has been incasseroled for 94 years for committing the robbery, but the jewels have not been recovered. They are in a little Spanish suitcase. At this point, Grytpype arrives on the scene and introduces himself as British ambassador to Siberia, in Madrid on his day off. He is struck by the resemblance of Seagoon to Bloodnok – not only does Seagoon look nothing like him, but Bloodnok doesn’t look a thing like Seagoon, either. Because Bloodnok is in gaol, he cannot fight the great Andalusian bull to uphold British prestige. Telling Seagoon that Bloodnok is only in gaol for 2 days, they persuade him to disguise himself as Bloodnok and take Bloodnok’s place in gaol. Seagoon finds out from the gaoler that he’s in for 94 years. Meanwhile, the scene shifts to the Hotel Fred, where Henry Crun is manager and Greenslade a porter. Moriarty shows up looking for Bloodnok’s Spanish suitcase. After an interlude in which Henry tries to get Minnie to change the sheets in room 23, Henry tells Moriarty that he had the suitcase sent down to the gaol. Moriarty leaves and encounters Bloodnok disguised as Neddie. Moriarty concocts a plot in which Bloodnok, still in disguise, will be smuggled into gaol to retrieve the suitcase. He is locked in the cell with Neddie and Eccles, only to find that when Greenslade the porter delivered the suitcase, Neddie sent it back to the hotel because it wasn’t his. Grytpype and Moriarty ask Greenslade about the suitcase, and he assures them it’s been returned to the Hotel Fred. Crun, the proprietor, has been thrown in gaol for tax evasion. He took with him nothing except an old Spanish suitcase. Moriarty and Grytpype get themselves thrown in the cell along with Crun, Bloodnok, Seagoon, and Eccles. They open the suitcase to find that it only contains Bloodnok’s underwear. Bluebottle enters to fight the bull, and is most upset to find out he’s in gaol with the others for 94 years. The cast can see the harbour, and the beautiful yacht belonging to the newly-rich El Greenslade. The yacht had a curious name – the Spanish Suitcase.
10:30 AM - 5/12 [Dishounoured, or the Fall of Neddie Seagoon] ★
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  • It’s Christmas Eve, and Neddie Seagoon is out of work and starving on the Limehouse waterfront. He is about to be moved along by Constable Willium, when Moriarty intervenes and invites Willium to join the River Police – by throwing him in the water. Moriarty sends Neddie to become a clerk at the bank run by Grytpype-Thynne. Grytpype puts Neddie in charge of the gold vault, knowing that Neddie will steal it. As Seagoon is absconding with the loot, Grytpype joins him. To escape the police, Grytpype, Moriarty, and Seagoon set sail for the Mediterranean on a yacht. Grytpype convinces Seagoon to jump overboard by telling him that Moriarty has absconded with the gold in a rowing boat. In fact, Moriarty is still on board. The two villains divide the loot. Meanwhile, Seagoon flounders in the Indian Ocean, but finds his way to shore, where Henry and Minnie find him unconscious. Seagoon ends up at the notorious Burrapow Sewer Club, where he watches a foreign beauty (Eccles) perform the sensuous Dance of the Seven Army Surplus Blankets. To clear his name and get back his self-respect, Seagoon decides to join the Army. The Red Bladder is raising the tribes in rebellion, and has received new shipments of arms, financed with a shipload of gold smuggled to him by two crooks. Seagoon volunteers for frontier duty to avenge himself against Grytpype and Moriarty. Eccles and Bluebottle accompany him. The Red Bladder and his 50,000 bladders attack – Seagoon is outnumbered. He sends Bluebottle to ride, with dynamite in his saddle bag, to the crest of a crag to signal Major Bloodnok. But to get there, the horse must jump a deep chasm. It fails to make the jump and Bluebottle is hurled into the dreaded canyon. There he meets Moriarty, and convinces him to try one of his nice big long red cigars with a wick on the end. He lights the dynamite and runs off, but Moriarty reports the cigar has gone out. When Bluebottle rushes back to re-light it, the dynamite explodes. Neddie fights the Red Bladder but, alas, is killed. On that spot is now a little white stone, on which Minnie lays flowers once a year. The stone bears a simple inscription in Hindustani. Henry hasn’t the heart to tell her that it says, “Bombay forty-four miles”.
11:00 AM - 5/13 [Forog] ★
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  • Ned Seagoon goes for a walk in the thick London fog and gets lost. He ends up in Minnie Bannister’s kitchen and then encounters Bluebottle, who asks directions to the BBC, but ends up falling in the water due to the fog. Lost again, Seagoon ends up at Number Ten instead of Brixton. A special sitting of Parliament is called to determine what to do about the fog. Seagoon is appointed Fog And Thick Smog Officer (FATSO) and, with his assistant, Eccles, starts research to eliminate fog. He is visited in his laboratory by the statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson from the Column in Trafalgar square, who explains that the statues of London need fog, as it is their only opportunity to move around and see the sights. Seagoon refuses to stop his experiments. The word passes from Nelson to the other London statues: Achilles, Eros, and Gladstone, who informs his girlfriend, Boadicea. The fog clears and Gladstone ends up holding the reins in Boadicea’s chariot for the next three days. Seagoon requests that Major Bloodnok put a military guard on the statue of Nelson, and Bloodnok, seeing a way to work his ticket, agrees. Nelson sneaks through on his hands and knees and visits Seagoon, who apprehends Nelson, and chains him to the column. Eccles can’t see who Seagoon is talking to. Greenslade reports the next day that a government-sponsored scientist was helped down from Nelson’s Column, where he had chained himself to the statue of Nelson. The fog disappears and Seagoon basks in the accolades of a cheering crowd, although Eccles can’t see or hear anyone. The fog returns, but Seagoon discovers it is actually Forog – foreign fog – manufactured in foreign parts and brought to London by the statues. He tells Parliament this, and they have him committed to the care of Doctors Eidelburger and Moriarty. Moriarty informs Seagoon that the Forog is ordinary fog, the War Office has no record of anyone named Major Bloodnok, his alleged laboratory is an old bomb site, and there is no such person as Ned Seagoon.
11:00 AM - 5/14 [Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest] ★
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  • A Christmas pantomime in which the various Goon Show characters play the roles. It is December in late twelfth century Doncaster. The Sheriff of Nottingham (Grytpype) has Will Eccles load his bags on the coach to Nottingham. Minnie Bannister and Wallace the Greenslade are also passengers. As the coach passes through Sherwood Forest, it is held up by Friar Balsam (Bloodnok), one of Robin Hood’s band. Greenslade joins the band as a saxophonist, and Balsam lets the coach go. Robin Hood (Seagoon) arrives and has Greenslade fitted out with a suit of Lincoln green. Will Eccles, who had been thrown out of the coach by the Sheriff, arrives to inform Robin that the Sheriff has imprisoned Maid Marian. Robin and his band set off to rescue her. The scene shifts to the dungeon where Marian is being kept. She discovers Robin chained to the wall behind her. They discover Eccles is also a prisoner. When the Sheriff arrives to take Marian away, Eccles blows out the candle, and just then Friar Balsam arrives on the scene. The Sheriff escapes in the ensuing fight, trapping all of them in the dungeon. Ernie Cash arranges for Bluebottle to deliver the ransom money. Meanwhile, Greenslade leads his ‘Greensladers’ fan clubs in a “two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate?” cheer. Marian and the Sheriff are dining at a banquet when Bluebottle arrives. He is interrogated by Moriarty, the Sheriff’s henchman, who forces Bluebottle to drink an explosive alcoholic drink. Robin and Balsam arrive and best Moriarty and the Sheriff in comic-strip-type fisticuffs. The Sheriff gives up Maid Marian to Robin Hood. Friar Crun is summoned to perform the wedding, and pronounces Marian and Greenslade man and wife.
11:30 AM - 5/15 [Nineteen Eighty-Five] ★
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  • It is the year 1985. 846 Winston Seagoon is a worker in the news-collecting centre of the Big Brother Corporation, what we used to know as the BBC. In every room a television screen gives out a stream of orders and announcements. Eccles remarks, it’s good to be alive in 1985. Seagoon is caught calling Greenslade a big, fat slob by Vision Master Waldman. Moriarty leads the citizens in the “Hate Half Hour”, directed against Maurice Winnick, the leader of the ITA, the Independent Television Army. Seagoon begins to hate Big Brother Corporation. He meets his love, 612 Miss Fnutt, and they plan a rendezvous in the forbidden Goon Sector. Seagoon makes his way there, and stops off at a pub, where he encounters Bluebottle with a lurid book, Mrs. Dale’s Real Diary. Seagoon enters an antique shop run by Henry Crun, where he finds a cricket bat and listens to Crun reminisce about 1954. Miss Fnutt shows up and, they kiss, once they succeed in throwing Eccles out of the room. Eccles and Bluebottle discuss whether they’ve ever kissed a girl. Bluebottle tells Seagoon the location of ITA secret headquarters. Seagoon finds Vision Master Waldman there, and they toast the downfall of the BBC. But Seagoon is arrested for conspiring with the ITA and is taken to Room 101, the dreaded BBC listening room. He discovers that Waldman has betrayed him and was with BBC all along. To save himself, he must sign a BBC contract. He refuses and is forced to listen to speeded-up themes of Mrs. Dale’s Diary, Life with the Lyons, and Have a Go. The torture continues with Seagoon being subjected to Harry Secombe singing “On with the Motley”. Waldman and Moriarty hand the torture over to Bluebottle, who leaves Seagoon with a pile of dynamite and flees to the American desert. Unfortunately, he picks the US nuclear testing range and is blown up. Bloodnok and Eccles arrive to save Seagoon, but the dynamite explodes before they finish the job. But Seagoon’s legs are now free. Just then, Maurice Winnick appears on the TV screens and announces that he has gained control of the BBC. The first of the new-style ITA programmes is Ray’s a Laugh.
11:30 AM - 5/16 [The Case of the Missing Heir] ★
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  • The show starts with Wallace Greenslade doing his impression of a locomotive, exhorting his fans to keep sending in gifts, and leading the Greensladers in a cheer. Ned Seagoon, on a walking tour of Austria, attends a Grand Ball in honour of the Emperor’s son, Kron Printz Arnold, being given in the Schloss Brandenburg in the rural hamlet of Baik-on-Bonce. Count Moriarty and Colonel Grytpype-Thynne plot the Kron Printz’s assassination – he is of the House of Eidelburger and the reactionaries don’t want another Eidelburger on the throne. They plan to plant a bomb in his bed. Just then Neddie interrupts – it is, after all, an excuse-me dance. After the dance, Moriarty returns to report that since the man who was going to plant the bomb has got cold feet, they must find some other charlie to plant the bomb. Realising that Neddie is just the man for the job, the two villains convince him that he, Kron Printz Charlie, is the rightful heir to the throne, and that he must assassinate Kron Printz Arnold in order to take office. They hide him in Henry Crun’s Gasthaus, where he orders breakfast. Eccles arrives with the message that Seagoon is to go to the Castle of the Imperial Hussars to receive a secret parcel. Seagoon leaves, and then Minnie and Henry arrive with the breakfast. After an exhaustive search for Seagoon proves futile, Min loses their temper and a big argument ensues. Meanwhile Neddie arrives at the Castle, which is under Major Bloodnok’s command. The parcel contains the bomb to be placed under the bed of Kron Printz Arnold. Neddie disguises himself as a chambermaid and hides the bomb. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive and send Neddie off on horseback to rouse the villagers. Neddie gallops from house to house, encountering Throat, Willium, and Minnie and Henry (who are still trying to serve him his breakfast). Meanwhile, from the bedroom of Kron Printz Arnold, we hear the ticking of the bomb and someone yawning, stretching, and eventually snoring. The bomb goes off, but the Kron Printz had left for Switzerland that morning. It was Bluebottle asleep in the room.
12:00 PM - 5/17 [China Story] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon, British Ambassador to China, is on the Shanghai waterfront on Christmas night when he is engaged in conversation by Colonel Grytpype-Thynne and Count Moriarty. Adolphus Spriggs, a wandering singer, tries to interrupt their conversation with his singing, but Moriarty shoots him. Grytpype and Moriarty inform Seagoon that the fiendish Chinese leader, General Kash-Mai-Chek, is willing to pay 50,000,000 yen to anyone who can smuggle him a rosewood English upright piano with brass candle-holders. Seagoon, being in need of money, agrees to do the job. To locate the piano he must go to the Tea-house of the August Goon, knock 6000 times, and ask for Ah Pong. He goes to the tea-house and knocks on the door (one of the most brilliant Goon Show sound effects), only to discover that he’s got the wrong address—the tea-house is next door (“Curse! It’s always next door in China”). He knocks again (repeat of sound effect) and is led to Major Bloodnok. Bloodnok takes him by river steamer to the Kowloon Missionary, where resides the fiendish piano. At the Mission, Henry Crun is auctioning the piano to 300 fiendish Chinese bidders. Seagoon bids ten pounds, besting the previous high bid of ying tong iddle-i po, and thus gains possession of the piano. Moriarty and Grytpype show up and we (but not Neddie) learn that they have planted a bomb in the piano so that it will explode when middle ‘A’ is played. En route to the bandit province of Yangtze, they find Bluebottle, who leads them to Kash-Mai-Chek’s secret Chinese NAAFI. Their arrival is greeted with much cheering. They set up the piano, but the Chinese pianist proves unable to play more than the first 11 notes of “The Little Fiddle”, always leaving off the 12th note, an ‘A’ that would explode the piano. Grytpype and Moriarty are seething in frustration, but Spriggs shows up and volunteers to sing another melody, since their fiendish pianist can’t play the piano. He asks for an ‘A’, and the piano explodes. Grytpype remarks, “damn clever, these Chinese.” The show ends with Bluebottle rejoicing because he wasn’t deaded this week
12:00 PM - 5/18 [Under Two Floorboards-A Story of the Legion] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon and his brothers, Eccles and Bluebottle, return to their ancestral home, High Towers, after completing university. Their uncle Grytpype gives them a copy of Beau Geste to read, and gives each of them a ticket to Marseilles for a bookmark. Neddie reads to his brothers the story of the three brothers who, having come down from Balliol School, attend a ball where their mother’s diamond is stolen and, rather than speak on each other, join the Foreign Legion. At the ball that evening, Lady Seagoon’s diamond necklace, the Blue Shower, is stolen. Neddie uses his bookmark and travels to Marseilles, where Major Bloodnok recruits him into the Foreign Legion. On arrival in Africa, he fails to keep up with the pace of his troop’s march and is lost in the desert. There he encounters Minnie and Henry, who are looking for the seashore. It turns out that they are detectives in search of Ned Seagoon, but since he isn’t wearing the Blue Shower they don’t recognise him. Some weeks later, Ned arrives at the fort, and soon after, so does Eccles, who, when he tried to join the Legion, had been dressed in Arab clothes, pushed out of the fort, and told, “good luck”. Lady Seagoon and Grytpype are with Eccles. It seems that after he stole the necklace, Grytpype hung up his jacket to do the mambo and then discovered that the pocket containing the Blue Shower was gone. At that moment the Arabs attack the fort with rock cakes and the Legionnaires are forced to retreat across Africa, through British Customs, down the Southend road, and up the Guildford bypass to High Towers. There, Bluebottle has been gloating over his prize, the Blue Shower, and over the fact that he is the heir to the estate now that everyone else is in the Foreign Legion. Seagoon stops the battle and Bluebottle is forced to give up the Blue Shower. In compensation, Eccles gives Bluebottle a rock cake, a strange one—it has a pin in it. The grenade explosion launches Bluebottle into the air, and he lands on Greenslade as he’s making the final announcement.
12:30 PM - 5/19 [The Missing Scroll] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon works as a translator at the Norwich Museum, under the supervision of the aged Roger Fudgeknuckle. Moriarty calls on the phone on behalf of the London antique dealer, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne. He offers Seagoon X pounds to become Grytpype’s assistant. Seagoon resigns from the museum. The BBC Home Service are offering fifty pounds or a life subscription to the Radio Times for the recovery of the manuscript in which Purdom wrote the lost music of Babylon 4000 years ago. Seagoon sets off to Mesopotamia in search of the lost papyrus. He meets Willium, who, under orders from Yakamoto and Eidelburger, abandons him in the desert. He is rescued by Eccles, who lives in a nearby pyramid. After a conversation between two rustics on a bus from Oldham to Cleethorpes (inserted to show listeners what a couple of real idiots sound like), Seagoon visits a little antique shop in Aleppo, run by Minnie and Henry, with Ellinga as an assistant. An attempt to answer the phone and the door at the same time ends in total chaos. Henry had the scroll, but threw it out. He directs Seagoon to the Arab dust-heap at Sidi Rosaic. While Neddie and Eccles search for the manuscript, the scene shifts to a BBC interview with Norris Lurker, the warden of Churdstone Prison, a new social reform prison where the prisoners are kept on their honour, with no bars. But when the interviewer asks to speak with one of the honour prisoners, it turns out that they have all escaped. Meanwhile, back at the dust-heap, Neddie and Eccles empty a dustbin and find Bluebottle, who was sleeping inside it. Eccles finds the ancient manuscript and sings the lost music of Purdom: “Per-dum, per-dum, perdum perdum perdum . . . .”
12:30 PM - 5/20 [Nineteen Eighty-Five]
  • This show was a re-recording of 5/15 Nineteen Eighty-Five incorporating all but one of the timing cuts made for that show.
1:00 PM - 5/21 [The Sinking of Westminster Pier] ★
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  • Billed in the Radio Times as “The Six Ingots of Leadenhall Street”, the script was changed at short notice to a story inspired by the appearance of a photograph of the floating pier at Westminster under several feet of water. Unfortunately, the Radio Times had already gone to press and the show starts with an argument between Secombe and Greenslade over the show that is to be performed. Wal insists that it must be “The Six Ingots of Leadenhall Street” because the Radio Times is never wrong. The plot proper starts with an inquiry by the Westminster Council into the sinking of the floating pier. Neddie Seagoon is put in charge of raising the pier. Ultimately, Neddie hires Moriarty and Grytpype to rescue the floating pier by lowering the level of the Thames. After a £3,000,000 expenditure, the Thames is not any lower. Seagoon discovers that Grytpype is merely pumping the water out at Westminster and back in again at Mortlake. He gets drunk on a visit to Mortlake Brewery and falls into the river. He is rescued by his old commanding officer, Major Bloodnok, who steals his money belt and gold Hunter watch. Seagoon enlists Bluebottle, Eccles, and Ellinga in a plan to quash Grytpype’s scheme by blowing up the pipe. Moriarty and Grytpype present Seagoon with a new floating pier that has holes bored in the bottom. Bluebottle has lit the dynamite under the pump, but is sent back by Moriarty to put the dynamite out. He isn’t in time and is blown up, as is Eccles. Meanwhile, Moriarty and Grytpype sell the new floating pier to Neddie, throw him into the river, and escape with the money. The show ends with Bloodnok about to rescue Neddie from drowning.
1:00 PM - 5/22 [The Fireball of Milton Street] ★
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  • Panic strikes the villagers of the little Kentish village of Milton Street when Henry Crun photographs the sun and discovers that it is on fire. The squire, Bloodnok, sends Neddie off to London to tell the Queen. He takes up a silver collection to defray the expenses, but sends Seagoon off without the money, of course. Neddie arrives at the Ministry of Works, where he tells Grytpype-Thynne, the Minister of the Crown, about the sun being on fire. Grytpype proposes the following plan: Using a lot of junk . . . er, special materials . . . that the Ministry of Works has on hand, the villagers of Milton Street will build a rocket to take them to the sun where they will put out the fire. The villagers will pay in advance for the materials, but when they return, the Ministry will buy the rocket back at twice the price. Meanwhile in Milton Street, Bluebottle challenges the idea that the sun is on fire. To prove it isn’t, he climbs a tall ladder with a piece of bread to see if it gets toasted. He forgets his toasting fork, but Eccles climbs up with it and hands it to him. Unfortunately, Eccles was holding the ladder so they both fall. Seagoon gives the money that Bloodnok had collected the previous day to Moriarty. The rocket is built. The villagers, each carrying a bucket of water, board the rocket and it takes off. Moriarty and Grytpype chortle as they count the money, but then it starts to get dark. No, they couldn’t have . . . .
1:30 PM - 5/23 [The Six Ingots of Leadenhall Street] ★
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  • Grytpype reads in the Times that there has been a theft of six gold bars from the Bank of England, but Moriarty told him that he only managed to get five. Their argument is interrupted by Police Inspector Ned Seagoon, who is collecting for the Police Ball. Moriarty, disguised as a fortune-teller, tells Neddie that if he’s ever offered the job of a bandleader to take it. Grytpype asks Neddie if he knows a bandleader who could take a two-piece band abroad. Neddie volunteers, as soon as he’s cleared up the bank robbery. Grytpype and Moriarty send the gold bars to a smelting shop where Minnie and Henry are casting them as band instruments. Grytpype calls the shop and Henry tells him that, yes, Moriarty did deliver the five bars of gold. This starts an argument with Minnie over whether there’s four or five bars. Meanwhile at Scotland Yard, Bloodnok, summons Ned Seagoon to help him solve the robbery. He dresses Neddie in a prisoner’s uniform, has him hold six fake gold bars, then calls in a sergeant to arrest him. But Seagoon flees to Grytpype. Eccles arrives with the instruments made from the gold – a single triangle. Eccles tricks the others into going into another room to listen to the triangle and escapes with it to Paris. The police discover Grytpype’s and Seagoon’s hideout in Sidney Street and begin a siege. Bluebottle delivers an ultimatum: they must leave before he counts to ten, or he’ll lob a bomb through the window. He counts very quickly to ensure that they will find out what it’s like to be deaded. He throws the bomb, misses, but doesn’t kill himself – just all the rest of the cast except Greenslade.
1:30 PM - 5/24 [Yehti] ★
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  • Yehti tracks have been found in the snow on the Yorkshire Moors. If captured, a Yehti would be worth a fortune. Grytpype and Moriarty, of the East Acton Geographical Society, offer to pay Neddie fifty pounds for one Yehti. A few days later, Neddie is slogging through a blizzard and seeks refuge in Long Willie’s Croft. Minnie, fearful that it’s the Yehti knocking on the door, won’t let Neddie in unless he has a photograph to prove he’s human, but since it’s dark and he can’t take a photo, she lets him in until the morning. They go into the cellar in search of Mr. Crun. Neddie finds Henry, who must open doors in the house occasionally to let trains through. Neddie remembers Grytpype’s warning that the Yehti can take possession of your mind. Crun bundles Seagoon onto a train, where he encounters Bloodnok and pays him the fifty pounds for information about the Yehti. Bloodnok throws him off the train. He meets Eccles, who agrees to join the Yehti hunt, provided he can bring a friend along. What could befriend Eccles except a Yehti? But instead the friend proves to be Bluebottle. They find Yehti tracks and follow them to a disused farmhouse. They enter, but the door closes behind them. They open doors to find another way out. One has sheep behind it, but only Neddie can hear them. He opens the door again. This time the sheep are gone, but Eccles and Bluebottle can hear them. Another door has a bar-room brawl behind it, but Neddie says it’s empty. In another room is Greenslade in the bath. Fred the Oyster is in yet another room. They find a door marked ‘Eccles’. Eccles goes in and finds a group of girls who cater to his every whim. The next door is marked ‘Bluebottle’. Bluebottle enters and is blown up. Greenslade tries to end the show at this point, but Neddie stops him. He finds no door marked ‘Neddie’ but does find one marked “The Yehti”. He locks the door and takes the house to London. The Geographical Society members enter the house and Neddie removes the padlocks from the room. They all stand ready to grab the Yehti. Neddie opens the door and a train rushes out.
2:00 PM - 5/25 [The White Box of Great Bardfield] ★
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  • Ned Seagoon, Son of Houdini, accepts a bet of ten shillings that he can’t escape from a set of chains. Scotsman Ray ‘Ginger’ Ellington duly wraps him in chains, but gives up trying to collect the bet when Seagoon is still trying contortionist manoeuvres to free himself thirteen hours later. Moriarty takes Neddie to Grytpype, in Scotland. Grytpype sells Neddie all of the snow in England, explaining that Neddie can ship it to the Sudan, where they’ve never seen snow, and make a fortune exhibiting it. Neddie buys the show and pays a visit to Henry Crun, England’s only snow packer. Minnie enters with a sick tiger – it has the flu. They argue over whether Henry’s old and square, then the tiger eats Minnie, who decides to go to sleep inside it. After instructing Henry to pack the snow and send it to the quay, Neddie goes to the docks in search of a ship. He meets Eccles, who has with him a tiger, and Bluebottle, who has a rocket ship. Seagoon eventually makes it to the Sudan where he’s met by Bloodnok, who manages to steal the gold scissors used to cut the tape to open the snow exhibit, as well as the safe the scissors are kept in. But when the box of snow is opened, it’s full of water. All is not lost – the Pong people of the desert will pay handsomely for water. Bloodnok sells camels and provisions to Neddie for twenty pounds. At the city of El Pong, Sheikh Ellinga buys the water. Neddie gives the money to Bloodnok to put in the safe. While everyone has their eyes shut so that they won’t see the combination, Bloodnok runs off with the money. On opening the box, they find that it contains only steam – the heat of the desert evaporated the water. Neddie is saved from the wrath of the Sheikh by Grytpype and Moriarty, who show up and come to an amicable agreement with the Sheikh by shooting him. Grytpype tells Neddie that he knows of a place that will pay a lot for empty cardboard boxes – England. They need them to fill with snow to ship to the Sudan, where the natives have never seen it . . . .
2:00 PM - 5/26 [The End] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon is addicted to senna-pod tea. In the basement of a club in East Acton, he obtains a fresh supply of the dreaded pods from Moriarty. He barely escapes a police raid by throwing away his supply of senna-pods. He visits Dr. Grytpype-Thynne to get a fresh supply on the National Health. Grytpype sends him to away to the Seaview Rest Home, Greenacres, in Paddington. While in a phone box brewing a pot of senna-pod tea, Neddie is interrupted first by a phone call from Sabrina and then by Willium, who is looking for a murderer. He arrives at the rest home, run by Henry and Minnie. His private patient’s silence cure consists of sitting for an hour in dead silence in a tin box. While in the box, he encounters Eccles. They seem to be in a cinema. The big picture is set in Africa, where tribesmen pull a little fellow out of a tin box. Just then, Neddie is pulled out of the box by Ellinga, and Eccles is forced to get out, too. Ellinga takes them to the chief, Bluebottle. Ellinga demands that Neddie be killed for bringing “stick that go bang”. Neddie says nonsense, it’s an umbrella, and points it at his head to prove it. It goes off and Ned screams for a doctor. Bloodnok arrives, accompanied by vultures riding horses. It is then that Seagoon realises he is in a senna-pod delirium. Bluebottle, being a figment of the imagination, goes into a long thinks routine involving Marilyn Monroe in a shower bath, but Eccles is in there with her. Since Neddie is imagining all this, Bloodnok steals his imaginary wallet. Willium shows up and asks Ned if he’s found a murderer yet. He says yes, he has, and shoots Willium. Just then, Minnie and Henry open the lid of the tin box. Neddie is back in the rest home – it was all a dream. He finds he is cured – he can’t stand the taste of senna-pod tea anymore. The cast sing “On the Crest of a Wave” to bring Series 5 to a triumphant conclusion. And, of course, to fill in time in a program that was under-running.

SERIES 6's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['55-'56]

8:00 AM - 6/1 [The Man Who Won the War] ★
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  • The story of Seagoon, MCC (he was a batman). In 1939, Ned Seagoon tries to avoid joining the Army by claiming he’s an American, lying about his age, bribing the recruiting captain, and feigning madness, but he’s inducted anyway. He immediately sets about working his ticket. He figures that if he thought of a mad, harebrained scheme, it would prove he’s unfit for military service. He comes up with the idea of filling bags of skin with gas and letting them up on pieces of string above London, to frighten enemy aircraft. For inventing barrage balloons, he’s promoted to Lance-Corporal. For his next mad idea, he visits a real idiot – Major Bloodnok – who is bravely defending London from an underground bunker. Seagoon’s plan is to build cardboard tanks on Salisbury Plain, and the Germans will waste thousands of bombs on them. The Germans take the bait and bomb the cardboard tanks with cardboard bombs. The Army uses the cardboard from the bombs to build more cardboard tanks. Colonel Grytpype promotes Seagoon to Sergeant. Neddie’s next idea is to build a full-scale cardboard replica of England, anchor it off the coast of Germany, and then, when the Germans have invaded it, tow it out to sea and pull the plug out. General Moriarty, commander of the Fried French Forces, endorses the plan. They will let Neddie out of the army as soon as the war is over. Neddie visits Henry Crun, the well-known cardboard contractor, where he finds Henry, Minnie, and Old Uncle Oscar (who is looking for his teeth). From Henry, he learns that the last full-size replica of England was sold to Bloodnok that morning. Bloodnok tells him that the replica is being assembled off Liverpool, ready for convoy. Ned hires two stalwart men, Eccles and Bluebottle, whom he is to meet just outside Liverpool. They are proclaiming their bravery when suddenly they are frightened by a spider and take refuge in a dustbin. Ned enters the dustbin to get them out, and thus they are all captured by Grytpype. Moriarty sets them adrift on the cardboard replica of England, along with Bloodnok and Minnie. Grytpype is trying to make sure that they are all killed by German bombers so that he can claim the idea as his. Will he get away with it? Yes.
8:00 AM - 6/2 [The Secret Escritoire]
  • Hercules Grytpype-Thynne has filled the house that he shares with Moriarty with pattern books. Each pattern would make a complete suit for a man three inches tall. All they have to do is to find hundreds of such men and they’ll make a fortune. In a matchbox, Grytpype has a man who used to be six foot three but was shrunk to three inches by a serum concocted by the fiendish Malayan, Dr. Fred Fu-Manchu. Moriarty sets out in search of a charlie to shrink. Disguised as a news-lad, he gives Neddie a newspaper with a story about a man found dead in a matchbox. Grytpype says he knows where the man is and leads Seagoon into his (Neddie’s) escritoire. There he finds the dead man in the matchbox. He goes to the police to report the murder, but they don’t believe him. When he returns to Piccadilly Circus, his escritoire is gone. Moriarty lures Neddie to the docks, where Willium tells him that Grytpype put the escritoire aboard the SS Clarence. He pays Bloodnok fifty pounds for a cabin, but Bloodnok throws him overboard. He comes ashore in Malaya, where he starts to pursue Grytpype. Meanwhile, Bloodnok is passing through Malayan customs. The customs officer discovers Eccles in his luggage – he had told Eccles it was a first-class cabin. After shooting the customs officer they are able to enter the country, where they encounter Seagoon. When Bloodnok finds out a murder is involved, he gives Seagoon the address to which the escritoire was delivered. Minnie, Henry, Old Uncle Oscar, and Ellinga live there. After the usual chaos involving missing teeth and opening the door, Neddie is told that Grytpype took the escritoire away. Neddie, Gladys, Bloodnok, and Eccles set off through the jungle in pursuit. Bloodnok sells Neddie an anti-shrink pill for £1000. They are accosted by Jungle Jim Bluebottle, who leads them into the interior and to the escritoire. Grytpype injects Neddie with the serum and Neddie takes the anti-shrink pill. He emerges a moment later, three inches tall and wearing a new suit.
8:30 AM - 6/3 [The Lost Emperor] ★
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  • Genghis Khan, the Tartar Emperor, on his deathbed ordered that he be buried in a high, forgotten mountain along with the treasures of his kingdom. Neddie Seagoon is a researcher at the Victoria and Albert Museum, searching for the lost tomb of Genghis Khan. As he is unwrapping some ancient Mongolian inscribed tablets that he had reason to believe would give him the exact location of the tomb, Grytpype and Moriarty enter and steal the tablets. Seagoon calls the police. Inspector Bloodnok and Sergeant Eccles arrive. Willium tips off Neddie that the two villains are in Singapore – he knows this because they left an address for delivery of a parcel of laundry. Seagoon and Eccles hide in the parcel. Meanwhile, in Singapore, Grytpype reveals the plot to Moriarty – the clay tablet indeed gives the exact location of the Emperor’s tomb. As a precaution, Grytpype has had the entire inscription tattooed on the back of his false teeth by Dr. Fred Fu-Manchu, the Chinese tattooing artist. The parcel arrives, they open it, and Neddie has Eccles hold them at gunpoint while he searches for the tablet. Grytpype tricks Eccles into closing his eyes, knocks him unconscious, and does the same to Neddie when he returns with the tablet. Knowing that the villains would flee to the Singapore-China frontier, Neddie puts Eccles and Bluebottle on guard there. Seagoon disguises himself as a Mongolian porter and accompanies Grytpype and Moriarty on their mountain trek, but he is found out. The next day, Grytpype toothlessly informs Neddie that while he was asleep, Moriarty stole his false teeth, which were inscribed on the back with the map of the tomb. Eccles arrives and leads them to the tomb. Moriarty is there, but can’t enter because it would take four men to move the rock blocking the entrance to the cave. Grytpype now reveals that he has tricked Eccles and Seagoon there to provide the four men, and forces them to help open the door. They do so, and find the tomb empty – except for a card that says, “Dr. Fred Fu-Manchu, Oriental Tattooist”.
8:30 AM - 6/4 [Napoleon's Piano] ★
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  • With the aid of a telescope, Neddie watches breakfast being served at Beaulieu manor and reads an advertisement in the paper on the breakfast table. Hercules Grytpype-Thynne and Count Moriarty are offering five pounds to move a piano from one room to the other. Neddie accepts the offer and signs a contract. Then he finds out that the piano is in the Louvre Museum in Paris. He’s been trapped into bringing a piano back from Paris for only five pounds! After Neddie leaves, the two villains gloat—the piano is the very one Napoleon played at Waterloo. The piano is worth at least £10,000. Meanwhile, Neddie visits Henry and Minnie at the Foreign Office, to arrange passports and visas. They mistake him for the Prime Minister, and assume he’s leaving the country to go to Russia. They try to stop him, but he escapes. Neddie stows away on a Channel steamer to reach France. Eccles is also on the voyage. Neddie’s gorillas being too strong, they smoke Eccles’s monkeys, which are milder. Seagoon checks into a French hotel, where Bloodnok tries to spear his kipper using a fork on a pole. Neddie’s attempt to have Bloodnok thrown out results in his being thrown out instead. Neddie enlists the aid of Justin Eidelburger, a specialist in piano robberies from the Louvre. They rendezvous at midnight in the museum, where they find Eccles trying to lift the piano on his own – it seems he has been tricked into carrying it back to England. Bloodnok shows up; he’s also been tricked. Together they hurl the piano into the Channel in order to float it back to England. After two weeks adrift in the Channel without food or water, a helicopter appears and lowers Bluebottle, who claims the piano for England. Bluebottle insists that it is not Napoleon’s piano, but Rockall, which is a British rocket testing range. Indeed, a rocket lands and blows them all up. Greenslade presents an alternative, happy ending, in which John informs Gwendolyn that he’s finally found a job – moving a piano from one room to another.
9:00 AM - 6/5 [The Case of the Missing CD Plates] ★
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  • As Neddie Seagoon washes his overcoat in Trafalgar Square fountain, he disturbs Major Bloodnok, who is taking a bath. Neddie steps into Regent Street, where he’s run over by a steamroller. The driver, Count Moriarty, is Deputy Vice Pommefrite of the Titicacan Legation, has diplomatic immunity, and thus can’t be charged. As Eccles tries to comfort him, Ned is struck by a piano falling from a window. Ned asks Eccles to call the fire brigade, so he sets a fire to summon them. The firemen, Min and Henry, set up a crane to lift the piano off Seagoon, but then the lunch whistle sounds and they depart. Neddie extricates himself from under the piano and confronts the man who threw the piano out the window – Hercules Grytpype-Thynne. Ned plans to sue for £50,000, but Grytpype and Moriarty claim that the piano had CD plates on and therefore diplomatic immunity applies. But Ned has the piano stored in a secret bonded warehouse. Ned hires Bloodnok to prosecute the case, but Bloodnok’s fee is £40,000. Where is Ned to get the money Grytpype offers Ned £40,000 to break into a certain bonded warehouse, and, blindfolded, screw a small metal plate on an object stored there. He also gives Ned a cucumber that has a bomb concealed in it timed to explode after the deed has been done. Ned enlists the help of the guards, Eccles and Bluebottle. In return for the cucumber, Bluebottle agrees to screw the plate onto the piano. He does so and is blown up when the cucumber explodes. The piano thus does have a CD plate when the case comes to court and the judge awards Grytpype £50,000 for wrongful accusation. To get the money, Ned goes to Titicaca and intentionally gets run over by a steamroller so that he can sue for £50,000. But the driver of the steamroller is Bloodnok, British Ambassador to the Court of Titican, and he has diplomatic immunity.
9:00 AM - 6/6 [Rommel's Treasure] ★
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  • It is 1942 at El Alamain. The Afrika Corps is about to retreat. General Rommel entrusts to Count Moriarty the secret of his treasure, a black box which he conceals at the top of a ten-foot high mound. Lieutenant Ned Seagoon, NAAFI manager, arrives in the vanguard of the advancing British troops and captures Count Moriarty. He hands Moriarty over to Major Bloodnok for interrogation and orders Eccles to guard the spot, and not to move until he gets back. Five years later, after the war’s end, Grytpype, proprietor of a curiosity shop in Libya, is trying to get Moriarty to remember where the treasure is, but he cannot. Seagoon arrives in the shop. Grytpype sells him a bogus pyramid. Moriarty recognises Neddie as the soldier who captured him. Seagoon tells them that Major Bloodnok has the original maps that show the spot where Moriarty was captured. Moriarty phones Bloodnok and offers him money in return for the maps. Meanwhile, Seagoon is driven to the bogus pyramid, a ten-foot mound of earth, and left there. He finds Eccles, who is still on guard. Air ace Bluebottle is flying by, and in their attempt to fire a gun to attract his attention they shoot him down. Grytpype, Bloodnok, and Moriarty arrive. Moriarty and Bloodnok attempt to steal the treasure, but they drive through a minefield and are blown up. The box lands on Bluebottle. Lifting the lid of the black box reveals that it is a music box.
9:30 AM - 6/7 [Foiled by President Fred] ★
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  • This is one of the more complicated Goon Show plots. At the annual meeting of the South Balham Gas Board, an outstanding debt of four pounds, nine shillings and sixpence is discovered. It is owed by President Fred of Argentina. Gas meter inspector Ned Seagoon is dispatched to South America to collect the debt. How is it that the South Balham Gas Board supplies gas to Argentina? In 1939, Major Bloodnok shipped a cylinder of gas there. Seagoon visits the Major, who arranges for someone to guide him to President Fred’s headquarters, which is under siege. The guide is Eccles. Neddie decides to use the sewers to reach Fred’s headquarters. Down there they encounter Bluebottle who, in return for a quarter of liquorice allsorts, agrees to lead them to President Fred. Bluebottle wraps them in a brown paper parcel labelled ‘Explosives’ and pushes them through President Fred’s letterbox. Grytpype and Moriarty unwrap the parcel. They convince Seagoon to go downstairs to read the meter again. While Seagoon is away, the rebel leader, General Aston Villa, attacks and takes over the headquarters. Seagoon, realising that the new tenants couldn’t have put on more than a therm or two, goes down to read the meter one more time. Moriarty leads a counter-attack that drives the rebels off. Seagoon comes upstairs again, recognises them as the original crew, and demands the three pounds, twelve shillings, and ninepence. They send him to President Fred’s room, where he finds Bloodnok, disguised as President Fred, who gives him a photograph of a four pound note. Seagoon being got rid of, Bloodnok and Moriarty divide the fifty million in a red sack that President Fred paid to smuggle him out of the country. Bloodnok shoots Moriarty and leaves with the red sack. Grytpype enters and Moriarty gets up—it was all a trick. Bloodnok has a red sack full of forged bank notes; Grytpype has the real money in a blue sack. Moriarty leaves to buy two air tickets. Eccles, who had packed the sacks, turns out to be colour-blind – he thinks Grytpype has the red sack. Grytpype leaves to find Bloodnok. Bluebottle enters – Eccles tricked Grytpype into leaving them with the blue sack with the real money. Meanwhile, Bloodnok removes his President Fred makeup just as Neddie enters. The four pound note is a forgery. Neddie leaves. Moriarty enters and shoots Bloodnok. Grytpype enters and shoots Moriarty. Neddie enters and informs Grytpype that the sack with the real money is with Eccles. Grytpype leaves. Eccles enters and tells Neddie that he’s not colour-blind at all—that was just a trick to fool Bluebottle—the blue sack Neddie is holding has the real stuff. But Neddie is holding a red sack—he leaves to find Bluebottle to recover the Gas Board’s four pounds. Bluebottle enters. Now they have both the red and the blue sacks. Bluebottle, having first made sure that Eccles isn’t colour-blind, convinces Eccles to take the nice red sack while he keeps the rotten, stinking old blue one. After he leaves, Eccles says, “Goodbye, Redbottle.” Back in Balham, Neddie begs for his old job back, but it’s taken – by Major Bloodnok disguised as President Fred.
9:30 AM - 6/8 [Shangri-La Again] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon, minister without portfolios in Peking, receives word that the Japanese are closing in. He hands over the Embassy funds to Lord Grytpype-Thynne in return for aeroplane transport out of Peking. Count Moriarty agrees to evacuate them on his aeroplane for ten thousand pounds. Seagoon, Major Bloodnok, Count Moriarty, and Eccles escape on the aeroplane, but they crash in the Himalayas. They are rescued from certain death by Bluebottle, who leads them to the hidden utopia of Shangri-La. They are brought before Henry Crun, the Dalai Lama. In Shangri-La people live in eternal youth and tranquillity. Seagoon agrees to take Crun’s place as the spiritual leader. But all is not well with the other members of the rescued party. Moriarty and Grytpype want to leave with a young Shangri-La girl, despite Seagoon’s warning that she will crumble to her true age if she leaves the enchanted valley. In the end, Seagoon lets them go, but vows to stay himself. Eccles says that he will stay, too. On hearing this, Seagoon changes his mind and rushes off after Moriarty.
10:00 AM - 6/9 [The International Christmas Pudding] ★
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  • William J. MacGoonigal starts things off with a poem about the Great International Christmas Pudding, erected in ancient days, broken into portions when struck by lightning in 562 BC, and carried off to the far corners of the earth. In 1843 a large, fossilised fragment of the Pudding was discovered, prompting a question in the House of Commons. It is suggested that if all the portions of the Pudding could be reassembled, it would be the turning point for the prestige of England. Lord Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty encounter, and try to cook for dinner, young Neddie Seagoon, but they don’t have a penny for the gas meter. When they find out that Neddie has money, they talk him into financing an expedition to Africa to capture the Pudding. On arrival in the Sudan, Seagoon meets Major Bloodnok, International Pudding Agent for the Sudan. After a payment of £3000, Bloodnok reveals that all of the Pudding is in Africa. Three quarters of it is worshipped as a god by the savage Naringi Berbers. The remaining quarter has turned man-eater and roams the forest of Ying Tong Iddle-i Po. They mount an expedition equipped with much strange gear, including long bent things with a sort of lump on the end. Meanwhile, Minnie and Henry are on a different expedition in the forest of Ying Tong Iddle-i Po, gathering moss for the BBC. As they bed down for the night, there is a growling noise outside their tent. It isn’t their tiger – it’s the savage portion of the International Christmas Pudding. They scream quietly so that they don’t wake Eccles, who needs sleep because he’s a brain worker. Neddie answers their cries for help. As they make plans to take the portion of Pudding alive, the Neringi Berbers ride up and capture the Pudding. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive with a guide, Bluebottle, who leads them to the Berber city. But the natives have fled the city because the Pudding has hydrophobia. They capture it on a large plate and send Neddie in with an anti-hydrophobia shot. They hear knocking on the lid. They open it and ask Neddie how the pudding is. He responds, with a loud burp, “Delicious!” Jim Pills is brought in for a few lines of song because the show was under-running.
10:00 AM - 6/10 [The Pevensey Bay Disaster] ★
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  • MacGoonigal sets the scene: A blizzard in December 1882 has buried the railway lines never Pevensey Bay under the snow. Lew, director of the Filthmuck and Scanson’s Railway, sends Neddie to drive a snow plough to clear the line before midnight so that the Hastings Flyer, carrying a mail car full of gold bullion, can go through. Grytpype and Moriarty bribe Neddie to let them travel on the snow plough. They plan to derail the Hastings Flyer, blow it up, open the mail van, and take the gold. Meanwhile, at Pevensey Bay Station, Minnie and Henry are wondering why they haven’t sold any tickets today. Grytpype and Moriarty tie up Seagoon and throw him out of the snow plough. Bloodnok, beating a bass drum, happens by and relieves the helpless Seagoon of his wallet and money belt. Eccles rescues Neddie and they drive off to the station in Eccles’s wall. Neddie warns Henry that the two fiends are coming on the snow plough. When there’s a knock on the door, Henry opens it and fires his blunderbuss, but it was Bluebottle. In return for a quarter of dolly mixtures, Bluebottle tells them that he saw two men heading towards the signal box. Neddie phones the signal man, Willium, but Moriarty knocks him out before he can set the signal to danger to warn the Hastings Flyer. They place dynamite under the bridge and wait in the signal box for the train to come. Neddie, Eccles, and Bluebottle set out for the signal box. Bloodnok goes by, walking up the line beating his drum. Bluebottle finds the dynamite in the bridge. Neddie tells him to stow it away under the signal box for safety. They then enter the box and confront the villains. Just then the Hastings Flyer approaches. It must be stopped or it will crash into the snow plough. Grytpype tells Neddie he can stop it by pressing the plunger. He does so, thereby blowing up the signal box and killing everyone . . . except Bloodnok, who gets the money in the bullion van from the Hastings Flyer.
10:30 AM - 6/11 [The Sale of Manhattan] ★
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  • Grytpype-Thynne offers his services to members of the Athenæum Club to restore lost parts of the British Empire. When he asks for money, they leave in a panic, except for Sir Neddie Seagoon, who he had grabbed. Moriarty and Grytpype convince Neddie that he is a descendant of the Dutchman who bought New York from the Red Indians for a few paltry trinkets. The proof is that Neddie has the very same trinkets in his pocket. To recover New York, Neddie must dress as a Red Indian and row himself there in a zinc bathtub. Neddie does so and arrives at the quay in New York to an ovation. Little did he know that the American company that makes Filthmuck had offered a prize to the first idiot to cross the Atlantic in a zinc bath dressed as a Red Indian. To substantiate his claim to New York, Neddie visits the Indian reservation of Standing Room Only where, in return for a hundred dollars, Major Bloodnok and Chief Troubleless give him an Indian birth certificate. Neddie sues in court, claiming that New York is his. On hearing his plans, his lawyers, Minnie and Henry, plead insanity – for themselves, not for Neddie. Judge Feryerself sentences Neddie to be deported. On being paroled from prison, Neddie plots to blow up New York and enlists Bluebottle and Eccles to set dynamite charges in the New York sewers and detonate them at midnight. Grytpype and Moriarty plan to take him to the police and collect the reward for handing in a felon. Just before midnight Neddie receives a call from the Consul General in Washington – on reviewing the point of law, the US Government have discovered that Neddie is indeed the rightful owner of New York and have decided to give it to him. Just then the dynamite goes off, destroying New York and deading Bluebottle. Red Indian Chief Troubleless offers to buy the blackened ruin from Neddie for a few paltry trinkets.
10:30 AM - 6/12 [The Terrible Revenge of Fred Fu-Manchu] ★
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  • In 1895, at the Great Expedition at the Crystal Palace, the biased judges award the prize in the international heavyweight saxophone contest to the Englishman, Bloodnok, rather than the great Oriental bamboo saxophonist Fred Fu-Manchu. The slighted Fu-Manchu vows a terrible revenge. He and his fiendish assistants concoct a potion that cause the drinker to explode anything he points at. To insure it will be drunk by a stupid white man, he pours it into a whisky bottle and leaves it in Hyde Park. Sure enough, six months later in Hyde Park it is drunk by Bloodnok. Fu-Manchu bribes him into becoming his henchman. Chief Commissioner Neddie Seagoon is concerned about the victory of Birmingham over Arsenal, and also about the reports of a man with an explodable finger and a Chinese accomplice who have blown up 27,000 saxophones. Grytpype and Moriarty, Eiffel Tower specialists, offer their services to Seagoon. Disguised as Charing Cross Station, they surround the Adelphi, where Fred Fu-Manchu, disguised as Jim Fu-Manchu, is performing as a conjurer. He and Bloodnok escape and make for Dewsbury, where lives Minnie Bannister, possessor of the last remaining British metal saxophone. Henry is trying, unsuccessfully, to treat the saxophone with green steam to immunise it against explosions. Meanwhile Seagoon leaves dynamite with Bluebottle and Eccles, instructing them to blow up Fu-Manchu when he arrives. Eccles’s inability to count beyond seven results in both of them being blown up. Meanwhile, Neddie’s attempt to enter the Bannister home eventually results in both he and Minnie being locked out. Bloodnok arrives and is about to explode them both when he recognises Minnie as his old sweetheart. Fu-Manchu arrives and, seeing that he’s been betrayed, uses his explodable finger to blow up Bloodnok and the rest of the cast, including Greenslade.
11:00 AM - 6/SP1 [The Missing Christmas Parcel]
  • Sub-titled ‘Post Early for Christmas’, this was a 15 minute special, broadcast in Children’s Hour.
11:00 AM - 6/13 [The Lost Year] ★
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  • Ned Seagoon, MP discovers that there are no 1956 calendars anywhere in England. After a debate in Parliament, it is concluded that the year 1956 is missing. Ned sets off to Africa aboard the SS Venus to search for it. A reward is set of £10,000 for its recovery. Ned sends Eccles off on a dog-sledge in search of the North Pole. Grytpype and Moriarty are pulled on board the good ship Venus, where Grytpype tells Neddie that the year 1956 is in the shape of a roller (which is why they say the years roll by). Neddie gives Moriarty a photograph of the Bank of England as an advance payment. Moriarty enters the Bank in the photograph. On reaching the interior of Africa they spot the trail of a roller. 100 miles inland Grytpype relieves Neddie of all his loose cash and leaves him with no water. He’s rescued by Bluebottle. Eccles shows up in his sledge, still in search of the North Pole. Together they reach a British outpost where Bloodnok joins the expedition. Behind a bush they find a roller and two pairs of footprints. It appears to be 1956, but disguised as 1897. They wait in the bush with a stick of dynamite for whoever brought the roller there to return. They waited for a year, but of course by then the year had gone.
11:30 AM - 6/14 [The Greenslade Story] ★
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  • Wallace Greenslade, seeking refuge from hard work, applies for a job as a BBC announcer. Eccles is also applying for the job, but despite his Cambridge tie he’s thrown out even before he can say “winds light to variable”. Greenslade uses the same phrase to impress the BBC official with his elocution and is hired. This greatly irritates Neddie Seagoon, who runs a private school for announcers. How will the school succeed if the BBC keeps turning down its ace pupils like Eccles? Neddie hires Grytpype and Moriarty to kidnap the BBC announcing staff. Three months later they still have not kidnapped Greenslade, but they have a different plan – they offer him a contract to appear on stage. The BBC doesn’t give up without a fight – they send John Snagge to persuade Greenslade to stay. The villains top the BBC’s offer and Greenslade leaves for the stage. As Snagge laments the downfall of the great BBC announcing staff, Seagoon offers him Eccles. He accepts. All is well backstage at the opening night at the London Palladium, despite some trouble with Min and Henry, autograph hounds in search of Wal’s signature. Sometime later, Lew bursts in to report that the audience has gone home to listen to Eccles on the radio. Neddie sends Grytpype and Moriarty to kidnap Eccles, but instead they hire him for a stage tour. Ruined, Seagoon and Greenslade are begging for coppers outside the Palladium. Inside, Eccles is set to go onstage. Lew bursts in. It’s happened again—the audience have gone home. They switch on the radio to hear Bluebottle reading the news.
11:30 AM - 6/15 [The Hastings Flyer-Robbed] ★
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  • This was a fresh performance of 6/10 The Pevensey Bay Disaster. There were minor script changes and it does differ considerably in performance, but the plot was the same.
12:00 PM - 6/16 [The Mighty Wurlitzer] ★
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  • Back in the Rhondda valley in Wales bach, Eccles is taking talking lessons and practising his Shakespeare. Ned Seagoon has been playing the organ in the chapel, which explains why half the congregation has changed their religion. The villagers send in Greenslade with money to send Neddie away for a musical lesson. Eccles and Neddie leave the village. They are next seen in the Sahara by Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty, arms agents for the Egyptians, who are searching North Africa for old derelict tanks. They see Neddie driving his Wurlitzer at speed – he doesn’t want people copying his technique, so he keeps moving. Grytpype realises that the organ pipes would make good gun barrels for the tanks awaiting shipment to Egypt. The two fiends convince Neddie that he will never become a great organist, but if he became the first man to break the world’s land speed record in a Wurlitzer he’d make Reg Dixon green with envy. They travel to Daytona for the record attempt and hire the great military organ engineer, Major Bloodnok. Moriarty bribes Bloodnok to loosen all the nuts and bolts so that the organ falls to pieces once it reaches speed. Bloodnok recognises Eccles as his old batman and they reminisce. Just then Minnie and Henry, driving the Festival Organ, prepare for an attack on the land speed record. From one of the spectators, Bluebottle, Neddie discovers that Crun’s organ is faster than his Wurlitzer. He pays Bloodnok to put a bomb in Crun’s organ. He climbs into the cockpit of his Wurlitzer, but it falls to pieces as he drives off. Not to be forestalled, he jumps into Crun’s Wurlitzer and starts it up. It explodes, and that is how Neddie Seagoon set the world altitude record for organs.
12:00 PM - 6/17 [The Raid of the International Christmas Pudding] ★
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  • India, 1862. The destructive raids of the Red Bladder are endangering the Great International Christmas Pudding. Every battle that the British have fought in India, all 400 of them, have been recorded. The record of the only victory of the Red Bladder over the English has been stolen, and the Red Bladder plays it daily on the wireless to incite his tribesmen to renewed savagery. The British are countering by playing all the records of their victories over him, but the Red Bladder has surrounded the radio station at Chattagand – the records are in danger. Major Bloodnok is put in command of the Fourth Battalion Light Schlappers and sent to relieve Chattagand. On arrival, Bloodnok is confronted by the Red Bladder. He pays a bribe each day of one of the records of a British victory. Meanwhile, back at Indian Army HQ, it is discovered that the Red Bladder is playing records of British victories on Wog Wives’ Choice, but playing them backwards so that they sound as if the British were losing. Seagoon, Eccles, and Bluebottle set off to investigate. Operation Needle Nardle Noo is planned – they will drill a hole in the Red Bladder’s gramophone needle and fill it with nitroglycerine. The resulting explosion will blunt the needle. On arriving at the Red Bladder’s fort they try various ruses to obtain entry – they disguise themselves as plumbers and as strolling brain surgeons, but to no avail. Finally, disguised as Christmas carollers, the Red Bladder lets them in on the one condition that they leave immediately. They accept on the one condition that he let them stay. They sneak into the record-playing room and insert the nitroglycerine into the needle. Just then, the Red Bladder arrives and they are forced to disguise themselves as gramophone records. The Bladder sees the three new records and puts Bluebottle on the turntable. He attempts to keep up the disguise by singing but the needle explodes. An heroic British victory, with the loss of only three idiots.
12:30 PM - 6/18 [The Tales of Montmartre] ★
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  • Paris, 1880. Neddie Toulouse-Lautrec buys a 20-foot easel from Monsieur Henri Crun to help make himself taller. He is visited in his studio by Count Fred Moriarty, a firewood collector, who tries to buy the easel from him. Moriarty commissions Paul Gauguin, who has moved in with Neddie, to paint a portrait of the 20-foot easel. He will then take the actual easel for firewood, leave the painting in its place, and Neddie will never know the difference. Gauguin starts work on the mysterious painting. Neddie, meanwhile, marries the beautiful Fifi, his model. When he introduces her to Gauguin they fall in love immediately. Distracted by Fifi, Gauguin stops work on the painting. Moriarty sends Bloodnok to offer a higher price for the easel. Neddie agrees and wraps it up in brown paper for him. Moriarty takes the easel to sell it to M. Crun for firewood, but it turns out that Neddie gave Bloodnok Gauguin’s portrait of the easel instead. Crun gives Moriarty 1000 francs for it. Moriarty now wants the easel more than ever – if the portrait is worth 1000 francs, think what the actual easel must be worth! He hires Bluebottle’s cab to drive him to Neddie’s studio. Meanwhile, Neddie, distraught that Fifi doesn’t love him anymore, sets fire to himself to get her attention. She fries an egg on him, and then she and Gauguin throw the 20-foot easel on the fire to keep it going. Moriarty arrives to find the easel burning and his plans in ruins. He falls in love the moment he sets eyes on Fifi and is shot by Gauguin in a duel. Gauguin and Fifi are about to leave Neddie, but not leave him penniless – Gauguin leaves his paintings, which will be worth a fortune when he’s dead. Neddie shoots him. Neddie Toulouse-Lautrec is now rich, but he doesn’t get Fifi. She leaves him yet again – for Bluebottle.
12:30 PM - 6/19 [The Jet-Propelled Guided NAAFI] ★
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  • The show opens with a Parliamentary investigation into why a semi-circular settee for the new residence of the High Commissioner in Colombo cost £420. Eccles, the Minister of Works, resigns. Ned Seagoon, strolling Prime Minister of no fixed address, vows to teach those concerned a severe lesson and orders the building to be torn down and a new one put up at the proper price. Seagoon returns home from a cabinet meeting with a set of secret plans for a jet-propelled guided NAAFI that can be launched to anywhere in the world and set up in sixteen seconds. To prove the feasibility, he has the first guided NAAFI launched to Malaya. Six seconds later the NAAFI manager phones to tell him that the tea is ready. Grytpype-Thynne, Seagoon’s butler, tricks Neddie into letting him photograph the plans. He gives the photograph to the spy Moriarty and instructs him to leave the country. The NAAFI manager phones Seagoon asking if they should throw the 10,000 cups of tea away. Seagoon arranges to fly 10,000 troops to Malaya to drink the tea. The tea must not be wasted – the watchword is economy! Moriarty and Grytpype stow away on one of the planes bound for Malaya. They plan to make their way to Moscow from there. Moriarty visits the commander of the troops, Major Bloodnok, and bribes him into helping with the scheme to destroy the guided NAAFI. He hands Bloodnok a parcel of exploding sausages to be given to the guided NAAFI manager. This plan having been laid, Grytpype and Moriarty leave for Moscow. Bloodnok hands the parcel of sausages to Eccles, the Minister of Food, before he deserts. Eccles gives them to Bluebottle, the NAAFI manager, who puts them in the refrigerator for safekeeping. Grytpype and Moriarty end up back at the NAAFI after following the compass that Moriarty got from a cheap Christmas cracker. They hide the plans by wrapping them around the sausages in the refrigerator. Bluebottle removes the sausages, starts to fry them, and they explode. The plans destroyed, the villains have no recourse except to launch the guided NAAFI and fly it to Moscow. They do so, but again the cheap Christmas cracker compass foils their plans. To their delight, the lucky natives of Aldershot find a fully-operational £3,000,000 NAAFI in their midst.
1:00 PM - 6/20 [The House of Teeth] ★
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  • In 1889 Lord Seagoon and his servants – Abdul, O’Brien, and Willium – are travelling in the Dolomites. A terrible storm forces them to seek shelter in the creepy castle of Doctor Londongle. The master is out but his servants, Crun and Bannister, put them up for the night. Londongle looks in on his guests when he returns. He’s collecting false teeth from which to make castanets for his beloved, Señorita Gladys la Tigernutta, who has agreed to marry him if he can supply her Flamenco troupe with fifty sets of castanets. When all the guests are asleep, Londongle and Minnie sneak into their room. Londongle bashes Willium on the back of the skull with a mallet and Minnie catches his teeth in a bucket. Willium’s cries of pain and dismay awaken the other sleepers. Seagoon decides to have a word with Dr. Londongle. While searching for the doctor they encounter Bluebottle – and strange noises from under the floor. It turns out to be Grytpype, Moriarty, and forty-six other toothless men who have been kept prisoner in the dungeons after having their false teeth stolen. Dr. Londongle needs only one more set of false teeth. Major Bloodnok arrives, seeking refuge from the police. Londongle succeeds in harvesting his false teeth. He escapes the pursuit of Seagoon and the toothless men. They finally find him in the Café Filthmuck, where Señorita La Tigernutta and her troupe are performing Flamenco. The black paint comes off the castanets, revealing the missing false teeth. The missing teeth hoard is recovered, but Londongle escapes. Seagoon often wonders if he ever continued his teeth activities. The show ends with Greenslade delivering a gummy, toothless announcement
1:00 PM - 6/21 [Tales of Old Dartmoor] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon, Governor of Dartmoor Prison, faces the prospect of being fired because there are no convicts left in the prison. Grytpype and Moriarty offer to supply convicts at the rate of 3 shillings per head per day. Since the government pays Neddie 5 shillings, he stands to make a net profit of 2 shillings per head per day, so he agrees to the scheme. The prison is soon completely full of fugitives from justice. Grytpype persuades Neddie to allow the prisoners a holiday in the South of France. Leaving a cardboard replica of Dartmoor behind, they sail the prison to the Château d’If, where guest arrangements have been made. En route they discover Bloodnok has stowed away. Bloodnok, Grytpype, and Moriarty are all anxious to gain entry to the Château d’If because it contains a clue to the location of the treasure of the Count of Monte Cristo. On arrival they dismantle the Dartmoor, wrap the bricks in brown paper, and carry it onto the Château d’If. Grytpype and Moriarty find the clue in the dungeons. A gramophone recording instructs them to reassemble the prison they’ll find wrapped in brown paper parcels. The treasure is buried under cell 626. At this point they discover from Eccles and Bluebottle that Bloodnok has beaten them to it—he’s sailed off in the Dartmoor Prison. They pursue in the Château d’If. Bloodnok fires Christmas puddings at them and they retaliate by firing first roast turkey and then Eccles. Bloodnok fires Eccles back. The d’If catches up and a party boards the Dartmoor. Grytpype and Moriarty dig in the floor of cell 626 and strike the Atlantic Ocean, sinking Dartmoor Prison. And that is why the Dartmoor Prison we know today is only a cardboard replica.
1:30 PM - 6/22 [The Choking Horror] ★
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  • It is 1914. Superintendent Grytpype-Thynne and Inspector Moriarty take Doctor Neddie Seagoon blindfolded to Tower Bridge to observe a strange phenomenon. Scientific tests show that Tower Bridge is growing hair. Moriarty and Grytpype conclude that the composition of Tower Bridge is such that it can grow hair. They scheme to replace the bridge with a life-sized photograph and to grind the bridge into a paste that they will sell as a baldness cure. But then comes word of a Choking Horror – hair is growing on all of London’s great monuments and buildings. As Parliament debates the proper hairstyle for the Albert Hall, word arrives that Germany has declared war on England. Three weeks later, it is clear that St. Paul’s is going bald. In the second year of the war, the hairy buildings have gone prematurely grey, obviously due to the worry caused by the Zeppelin raids. The Secret Service discovers the reason for the hairy buildings. Just before the war, German saboteurs painted them with a secret hair-growing paint that turns silver-grey, thus enabling the Zeppelins to bomb the buildings in the dark. As a counter-move, every hairy building is fitted with a bowler hat. The German spy Justin Eidelburger bribes Grytpype and Moriarty to remove the bowler hats. The traitors are given 1000 gallons of the secret hair-growing paint, hidden in a tank on the Air Ministry roof. Meanwhile, Seagoon, Eccles, and Bluebottle are on watch on the Air Ministry roof. Bluebottle is frightened and hides in a nearby tank, only to find it contains the hair-growing formula. The Air Ministry building starts growing grey hair and thus is the prime target for the approaching Zeppelins. Neddie, Bluebottle, and Eccles run for it. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive on the roof to claim their reward, only to find that they’re on the only grey-haired building in London. They dance as the bombs start to fall. Forty years later, the years of wearing tight bowlers have caused premature baldness in the buildings. Don’t believe us? Just look at St. Paul’s today—not a hair on its head.
1:30 PM - 6/23 [The Great Tuscan Salami Scandal] ★
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  • Greenslade threatens to leave after Peter plays three piano chords following the opening announcement – there’s a musicians’ strike on and, as a member of the Announcers’ Union, he cannot appear in a show that employs musicians. The situation is resolved by the appearance of Adolphus Spriggs, a non-playing musician, who offers to sing all the music links. Neddie Seagoon, part-time strolling Prime Minister, is confronted by the King of Italy, who informs him that Gina, the Tuscan Salami given as a goodwill present, is missing from the zoo. If she is not found it will be war. But this is terrible news for another reason – Gina and her mate, Fred, were the sole breeders of Tuscan-type salami used in the ‘hot dog’, a new and secret missile. It seems that the missing diplomats Burgess and McTeeth have stolen Gina and defected to Russia. For the first musical interlude Adolphus Spriggs sings “I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas”. Worse news follows. The Zoological Society chairman reports that Fred is pining for the missing Gina and will soon be shrunk to the size of a small frankfurter – useless as a guided missile. Grytpype and Moriarty, ostensibly from the Foreign Office but actually Russian spies, arrive on the scene. They find and steal the plans of a female salami. It turns out that Burgess and McTeeth got hungry on their journey and ate the only female salami this side of the Spaghetti Curtain. But the off-white Russian scientist Pavlov has created an artificial male salami and, with the plans of a female, they can breed millions of them. The second musical interlude is Harry performing a parody of Housewives’ Choice. Neddie visits Henry Crun, head of MI5, to check on Grytpype and Moriarty, but Minnie and Henry are unable to figure out how to open the door to let him in. Bluebottle reports that Grytpype and Moriarty have been spotted in a balloon (which turns out to be a MiG fighter in bloomers) escaping toward Moscow. Neddie sets off in pursuit in Bloodnok’s charabanc. They fire Bluebottle at the fighter but miss. Grytpype and Moriarty drop a piano on Neddie and Bloodnok. This foils their escape as they are shot by Customs for leaving the country without a piano. The show ends with Greenslade singing the signature tune and Spriggs singing “Crest of a Wave” as the play-out.
2:00 PM - 6/24 [The Treasure in the Lake] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon,a destitute Londoner, is summoned to Scotland by his uncle, Laird McGool. He discovers that he’s heir to McGool’s fortune when he dies. After trying to give his uncle a death of cold by opening the window, McGool sets his dog (Eccles) on him. Grytpype and Moriarty, fishing in Loch Lomond. They observe Eccles, behaving like a dog, diving to the lake bottom and surfacing with treasure. To drain the lake, they convince Neddie that the lake waters have life-prolonging properties. Neddie sets about drinking the lake in order to survive Laird McGool and inherit the treasure. Just as the lake waters start to go down, the plan is foiled by a rainstorm. Neddie retires to the adjacent old red lodge. The water from the lodge comes from the lake, so Grytpype and Moriarty turn on all the taps and fix them so that they can’t be turned off. The logdekeepers, Henry and Minnie, are frantically try to turn off the taps before they drown. Bluebottle is sucked through the pipes and emerges in the lodge bathroom. He informs Neddie that Major Bloodnok is drowning in the lake, and that the lake level is receding rapidly. Seagoon realises that the life-giving waters of the lake are being depleted and sets off on Eccles the horse to lead a bucket brigade to return the water from the red lodge to the lake. There ensues a battle between Grytpype and Moriarty (attempting to pump the lake waters into the lodge) and Seagoon (trying to return the water to the lake). What of Bluebottle? When he asks about that, he’s blown up in a gratuitous explosion. Meanwhile, Eccles has retrieved the last of the £20,000 of treasure from the sunken galleon in Loch Lomond. Laird McGool is a rich man and Eccles is a far better swimmer. The rest of the cast give up. The show ends with Adolphus Spriggs performing “I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas”, accompanied by Ruben Croucher (Sellers) on the piano.
2:00 PM - 6/SP2 [The Goons Hit Wales]
  • This is a special 5½-minute insert into a St. David’s Day programme celebrating Wales. The Goons present a documentary on Wales through the ages. They start with the end of the ice age, and the first Welshman – Eccles, already singing. Down through the centuries he has sung, until we hear the voice of modern Wales – Eccles, with the same demented singing. In 3 AD the great Celtic chieftain Blodwin walks out of his cave into the snow-bound landscape and exclaims, “It’s parky as anything today, isn’t it?” Count Moriarty comes from France to interview Harry for his paper. In answer to his question, “What have you people to compare with our glorious Napoleon Bonaparte?”, Secombe retorts that there’s a lad in the Rhondda who could sing his head off. But all is not well in Wales. Harry interviews pit-head operator Owen Craddock, who is out of work and unable to support his family because he can’t bring himself to get up in the morning. Bluebottle announces the surprising statistic that there are more Welshman in Wales than in any other country. Cardiff man William Thomas ends the programme by observing that, although Cardiff weather isn’t like the south of France, and it doesn’t have all the night-clubs like Paris, given a choice between Cardiff and Paris he’d proudly say, “Paris any day!
2:30 PM - 6/25 [The Fear of Wages] ★
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  • In the jungles of Burma, Colonel Neddie Seagoon, Major Bloodnok, and their regiment (The 4th Armoured Thunder-boxes) have been fighting the Japanese for fourteen years. They’ve had no food or pay since Bloodnok received what he considered to be a fake telegram in August 1945 stating that World War II had ended. General Yakamoto, commander of the Japanese in a nearby tree, runs out of ammunition and is forced to surrender his troops and stores – 2000 cans of saké and 1000 cans of nitroglycerine. Seagoon telephones England with the news. Meanwhile, Grytpype-Thynne, Chief Cashier of the Army Pay Corps, and his confederate Moriarty are counting their embezzled cash when the word from Seagoon arrives. The 4th Armoured Thunder-boxes had been assumed missing and their back pay has been spent. With accrued interest it comes to £33,000,000. Grytpype’s plan – he tells Seagoon that all Japanese stores must be returned to the War Office or the troops will forfeit their back pay. Seagoon must drive the 1000 cans of nitroglycerine back to England on a lorry. They load the nitro onto one lorry and the saké onto another, along with the tree containing the Japanese. The nitro lorry explodes – with Bluebottle aboard, of course, although he is not deaded. Bloodnok is drinking the saké en route, but Yakamoto reveals that he’s really drinking nitroglycerine that he had substituted. Grytpype’s plan has failed. To prevent bankruptcy of the Exchequer, the government arrange for Japan to declare war on the 4th Armoured Thunder-boxes, but Seagoon succeeds in driving the war back to England. By then, Bloodnok has drunk all the saké and Grytpype refuses them the back pay. Seagoon and Eccles shake Bloodnok vigorously upside-down over a bucket to retrieve the saké, but of course he has been drinking nitroglycerine and there is a big explosion. Bluebottle and Greenslade together announce that Bluebottle was not deaded this week
2:30 PM - 6/26 [Scradje] ★
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  • Britain has been beset by an epidemic of boot explosions. Lord Neddie Seagoon convenes a meeting of England’s top scientists. Grytpype and Moriarty blame the problem on a shortage of scradje, the substance beneath the earth’s that keeps the surface pressure at an even level, thus preventing boots from exploding. British scradje deposits have lost their potency, thus the boot explosions. Four and ninepence in pennies, a blank wall signed by Seagoon (to be cashed at the building-society), and a government grant finance an expedition to the North Pole in search of more scradje. John Snagge, the Home Secretary, cautions all Britons to prevent explosions by removing their boots, reversing the buttons on their socks, and walking backwards holding a gas stove over their heads. Seagoon, Bloodnok, and Bluebottle form the scradje expedition. They follow Dr. Eccles’s directions and end up in Egypt, where they find a pyramid. Inside, Minnie and Henry have been paid by Grytpype to mix Footo, the wonder boot exploder, into boot polish that is then exported to England. This explains the explosions – there is no such thing as scradje! They all hop on the pyramid and Ellinga drives it to Monte Carlo, where the two villains are living it up. Neddie captures them, ties them to a bed post, piles the explodable boot polish tins around them, and lights a fuse, threatening to blow them up unless they hand over the four and ninepence. They capitulate. Neddie releases them and tells Bluebottle to put out the fuse. The villains rush off. Bluebottle tries several times to interrupt Seagoon’s gloats of triumph and finally succeeds in asking him what his captain had told him to do. There is a big explosion. The Home Secretary announces that thanks to the efforts of Professor Grytpype-Thynne and Mr. Moriarty (who are both to be knighted), the boot explosions have ceased. Britons can stop walking backwards, put on their boots, and lower their gas stoves to the ground. Heavy, weren’t they?
3:00 PM - 6/27 [The Man Who Never Was] ★
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  • It is April 1944. The problem for the Allies – how to keep Germany from learning about the intention to invade Sicily. An uncooked German Army boot is discovered washed up at Southend and in it is a microfilm with what appear to be the plans of a secret German weapon. Seagoon takes the microfilm to the head of British International Intelligence, Major Bloodnok. Seagoon is sent with the microfilm to the Woolwich Arsenal where they will build the secret German weapon. He is shot at by Willium, the sentry, and listens to Count Moriarty’s story of why he is still in England (his braces got caught in a bollard at the Southend Pier). Crun, Bannister, and Lew Ginsberg have a plan to hoodwink the Germans regarding the secret weapon. They will put a copy of the microfilm in the pocket of a man dressed as a German naval officer and float him ashore from a submarine off the enemy coast. The volunteer that they found for the job is Field Marshal Montgoonery, also known as Eccles. Meanwhile, the Woolwich Arsenal is ready to test the secret German weapon. As everyone cowers behind the forty inch gamma ray-resistant lead wall, the crank is turned and the weapon is revealed to be – a barrel organ.
3:00 PM - 6/SP3 [China Story]
  • This was a fresh performance of the script from show 5/17 which was recorded at the National Radio Show the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. The plot is identical although there are minor performance differences.

SERIES 7's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['56-'57]

8:00 AM - 7/1 [The Nasty Affair at the Burami Oasis] ★
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  • The British garrison at the Burami Oasis is under attack from that fiendish Arab chieftain, Sheikh Rattle And Roll. Admiral Neddie Seagoon, commander of the family-operated battleship HMS Thespus, is called up to fill the woeful lack of sailors in the Army. Intelligence reveals that the Burami garrison are scheduled to play football against the Arabs next month, and the attacks are designed to tire the British men and guarantee an Arab victory. The chiefs of Army, Navy, and NAAFI decide to send a gunboat. The 42,000-ton HMS Thespus is duly broken down into four-inch squares and sent to Burami. Colonel Grytpype-Thynne and his assistant, Moriarty, hear of the scheme and inform the Sheikh, who tells them that they will get no more money unless the Arabs win the football match. Meanwhile, in the Burami oasis, Sheikh Rattle And Roll tries to collect the back rent from the British commander, Major Bloodnok. Seagoon arrives at the oasis and his technicians, Eccles and Bluebottle, reassemble the battleship, no mean feat as the oasis is only ten feet long, requiring the battleship to be stood up on one end. Just before dawn, 2000 Arabs, cunningly disguised as sailors, take away all the oasis water. Seagoon nonetheless navigates the battleship over sand to the Sheikh’s fort, where he ambushes the Sheik, Grytpype, and Moriarty. There is a stand-off when Grytpype threatens to have his men drink the oasis water, until Bloodnok phones Seagoon to tell him that the water is actually 20,000 gallons of gin that Bloodnok stored there. Seagoon therefore calls Grytpype’s bluff, and the Arabs unwittingly drink 20,000 gallons of neat gin. The Arab football team staggers onto the field in no condition to play. The result is a foregone conclusion – British Garrison 12, drunken Arabs 68.
8:00 AM - 7/2 [Drums Along the Mersey] ★
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  • The Honourable Nedward Seagoon, undefeated World Champion 1936 and scion of the noble House of Rowton, is summoned to Scotland by the law firm of Messrs. McHairy McLegs. Baron Seagoon has left Neddie the sum of £1,000,000, but he is not allowed to spend it until his hundredth birthday. He tries to auction off the money, but to no avail. Minnie Bannister, representing the British Museum, offers to exhibit the £1,000,000 next to an ancient Peruvian calendar stone – their calendar is different from the British – if Neddie were Peruvian, he’d be 100 years old now. Neddie at once realises that if he becomes Peruvian he’ll inherit the money immediately. He and Bloodnok set out on a boat for Peru. They’re rescued in the Atlantic by Grytpype and Moriarty, who tell them that since Cardiff originally came from Peru on a raft, all Welsh people are Peruvian. To prove it, they need merely sail a Kon Tiki-type raft to Peru. Neddie pawns the £1,000,000 for seven shillings to purchase the raft. They land in South America and are escorted by native Chief Ellinga to a rude wooden hut, in which they find rude wooden Baron Seagoon, who had been advised by Grytpype to hatch this scheme to get his money out of the country. Realising that they’d been single-crossed (not double-crossed – this was the first time), they set off in search of the pawnshop. They run Grytpype and Moriarty aground in the Hotel Fred. When they refuse to turn over the money, the Baron sings act three from Tosca. The hotel manager demands the fee for singing in the Royal Suite and discovers that the £1,000,000 is all forged money. Before he can call constable Eccles, Grytpype and Moriarty flee. Baron Seagoon kills himself, leaving Neddie in possession of the money. He is arrested as a Peruvian forger, for which crime he must do a life sentence.
8:30 AM - 7/3 [The Nadger Plague] ★
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  • The year is 1656 in Ninfield, Sussex. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive at the stately home of Lord Neddie Seagoon, seeking shelter for the night. As he shows them to their room, Neddie notices that the seats of their trousers were burned out – the sign of the dreaded Nadger Plague. Neddie flees screaming and calls a meeting of the villagers. As Dr. Crun explains, the Nadger Plague strikes only the seat of the trousers, and as a precaution, the men of Ninfield must desist from wearing any. Instead, it’s agreed that as the seat of the trousers is the vulnerable part, it shall be cut out. Meanwhile, Grytpype and Moriarty are gloating over the four pounds seven shillings in coppers in the chest that they stole from Lord Seagoon’s mansion. They had burnt fake Nadger holes in their trousers to scare off Seagoon. They hear the town crier, Eccles, announcing that Ninfield has been quarantined and a cordon of grenadiers shall surround the town. Moriarty and Grytpype trick their way past one of the guards, Bluebottle, and flee. Seagoon sets off in pursuit and discovers Bluebottle sleeping on guard with a gas stove next to him. But it isn’t a gas stove – it’s Eccles who, having no trousers, couldn’t avoid the Plague by having the seat cut out and instead took a witch’s magic potion that changed him into a gas stove, thus making him immune to the Plague. Neddie visits Mistress Bannister, the witch. He obtains the potion and also learns that the villains are on their way to the Green Sailor’s Inn. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive at the Inn and are shown to a room with a gas stove in the corner and a clock on the mantelpiece. As they count Seagoon’s fortune again, we learn that the clock is actually Neddie, who has drunk the witch’s potion. When Moriarty and Grytpype realise there is a talking clock in the room, they flee the witchery. Neddie asks Eccles to hand him the potion so he can change back, but Eccles can’t move – he’s a gas stove. And Neddie can’t hand him the potion so he can change back, as he’s a clock. To this day, 300 years later, there is a room at the Green Sailor’s Inn available to travellers complete with gas stove, clock, and four pounds seven shillings in coppers.
8:30 AM - 7/4 [The MacReekie Rising of '74] ★
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  • Captain Neddie Seagoon has captured the great hairy caber of the Clan MacReekie from the Scots and taken it to the Tower of London. Laird Red Hairy MacLegs lays siege to the tower. Major Bloodnok stores the caber in the Crown Jewels room, which is empty at the moment. The Jewels are perfectly safe – the pawn ticket’s under lock and key. Fred Nurke, who relieved Willium on guard duty, climbs into a cannon barrel to escape the rain and is accidentally fired at the Scots. In retaliation at the English firing Sassenachs at them, the Scots fire porridge. Seagoon returns fire with Brown Windsor Soup, cooked up by Minnie and poured into the cannon balls by Henry. But it’s no good – the soldiers in the Tower are slowly being driven mad by the noise of bagpipes. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive and try to sell Seagoon phoney earplugs. For once, the Neddie sees through the trick. The barrages of Brown Windsor Soup have badly stained the Scotsmen’s kilts. Disguised as a Chinaman, Seagoon persuades the Scots to give him their kilts, to be laundered. Corporal Bluebottle’s raiding party was less successful – his attempts to make the kilts fall down by sheer willpower resulted only in his trousers falling down. Bloodnok reports bad news – the Scots have stolen the ravens, and legend says that the Tower will surely fall if the ravens leave it. Seagoon capitulates and returns the caber to the Scots, asking only that the ravens be returned. But the Scots don’t have the ravens – Minnie has baked them into a pie.
9:00 AM - 7/5 [The Spectre of Tintagel] ★
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  • Seagoon, christened King Arthur because his parents had a round table, visits Cornwall, the land of Arthurian legend, seeking a way to prove that he is descended from Mallory’s Mort D’Arthur. A Cornishman tells him of haunted Tintagel Manor, the legendary site where Arthur buried his treasure. A Spectre haunts the manor, and anyone who hears its ghostly music three times dies. Seagoon finds the cave wherein live the house agents, Grytpype and Moriarty, and rents the manor for a month. Valentine Dyall, caretaker of the Manor, is taken aback to find that the place has been rented and tries to frighten Seagoon off. King Arthur Seagoon determines to see the Spectre and waits up with his assistant, Bluebottle. In the night they hear the ghostly music and Dyall clouts him on the nut from behind. Major Bloodnok, who owns the Manor, escapes from prison and, together with Dyall, digs up the loot he had buried – the Regimental Plate of the Second Poona Horse. Seagoon comes to and finds that the Spectre is really Eccles, put up to haunting by Dyall. Back in the Manor, they hear the ghostly music, but Eccles is with them. Thinking it must be the ghost, they flee, leaving the treasure behind. Seagoon enters – it was he who played the violin to scare them off. Seeing the loot, he thinks it must be the treasure of King Arthur and when the police arrive he claims it is his. The police carry him off in the van that all their King Arthurs and Napoleons ride in.
9:00 AM - 7/6 [The Sleeping Prince] ★
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  • Grytpype-Thynne, head of the Battersea Labour Exchange, introduces Moriarty, Minister Extraordinary to the South Pacific Republic of Yakabaku, to Neddie Seagoon. Moriarty offers the job of President of Yakabaku to Neddie. On arrival in Yakabaku, the glorious Yakabakuan National Anthem (the highlight of the show) is played for the first time. Neddie finds that there’s a revolution in progress and that he’s being shot at. He presents his credentials to Major Bloodnok, the British Ambassador. It being five o’clock, Seagoon assembles the Imperial Army, which consists of Eccles and Bluebottle, to clock off for the night. Bloodnok reveals the sinister plot to assassinate Seagoon and take his wages. Neddie flees the Presidential Palace, but accepts the offer from the rebels to sleep in their prison free of charge. The next morning, as Grytpype and Moriarty prepare him for execution, Seagoon as his last request asks that they play the glorious Yakabakuan National Anthem again. While they are all standing at attention, Neddie makes good his escape.
9:30 AM - 7/7 [The Great Bank Robbery] ★
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  • Neddie Seagoon is in an attic, practising to enter the World’s Long Distance Bass Drum Race from John O’Groats to Land’s End. Grytpype and Moriarty offer to raise the money to buy a really fast racing drum if he will participate in their naughty game. They sew Neddie into a mattress and deposit him in the vault of Crun’s Bank. They then hire Eidelburger and Yakamoto to hover over the bank in a zeppelin and lower four sky hooks. Neddie is released from the mattress by the bank guards, Eccles and Bluebottle. He persuades them to help him attach the hooks to the corners of the bank. Eidelburger winches the bank up into the air and the zeppelin flies off with it. When police inspector Bloodnok hears of the robbery, he launches a police zeppelin, hauls up the police station with sky hooks, and sets off in pursuit of the criminals. Meanwhile, Grytpype and Moriarty have hidden the loot from the bank robbery in a bass drum, which they give to Neddie at John O’Groats. Neddie sets off in the race. While the police pursue the zeppelin north, the money will be heading south to Land’s End. Eccles and Bluebottle greet Neddie at Land’s End, where he comes in last in the race. He earns the traditional privilege of the last man in – he gets a cheque for eight pounds ten and they burn his drum on the bonfire. Then Grytpype and Moriarty arrive. The show ends with a news report of two men admitted to Brooke Street Hospital with scorched fingers from trying to retrieve a bass drum from a bonfire.
9:30 AM - 7/8 [Personal Narrative] ★
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  • It is 1662. Captain Neddie Seagoon’s ship is patrolling the Channel. They spot a Dutch ship. Seagoon heads to London to warn the Admiralty. Grytpype and Moriarty, hired by the Dutch to sabotage the British fleet, end up being caught in the fiendish trap that they laid on Seagoon’s route. The Sea Lords send Seagoon back to his battleship. A beacon will be lit at Nag’s Head as the signal to open fire. A messenger is dispatched to Henry and Minnie, the beacon lighters, but they cannot light the beacon because Moriarty has dampened the matches. Meanwhile, Eccles and Bluebottle are on watch in the battleship. Minnie and Henry finally get the beacon lit, but Bluebottle cannot fire the cannons because the matches that he got from Moriarty are damp. Grytpype, Moriarty, and fiendish Dutchman Max van Geldray reveal that they have lit a powder trail in the hold, and that Seagoon and crew have two minutes to abandon ship. Neddie sends Bluebottle with a cup of water to extinguish the powder trail. Will he be in time? You guessed it – no.
10:00 AM - 7/9 [The Mystery of the Fake Neddie Seagoons] ★
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  • It appears that at one time they mass-produced Neddie Seagoons, but there is only one original Seagoon, signed at the bottom by his father. Grytpype and Moriarty spot Neddie eating out of dustbins in Lisle Street. Realising that if he’s an original Seagoon he’s worth a fortune, they trap Neddie in a dustbin. He and Eccles (who’s also in the dustbin) are collected by the WVS Dustbin Collection Society, who make up parcels of rubbish for the poor peoples of Acton. They’re delivered to Henry and Minnie, who are ecstatic to have their own rubbish at last. When they let Seagoon out, Grytpype and Moriarty kidnap him and take him to Bloodnok, the art expert. Bloodnok proclaims Neddie to be a fake – on removing his outer layer they discover underneath a man in his underwear. Seagoon is so outraged at being called a forgery that he cannot say his line – he gets Greenslade to say it for him, whereupon Grytpype and Bloodnok apprehend him and take him to John Snagge, the only man who can tell whether he’s an original Greenslade or a fake Seagoon. Under the Greenslading they find Bluebottle, who tells them that his Auntie Min has an original Seagoon in a dustbin. On opening the dustbin they find Eccles. The Eccles washes away in a turpentine bath, revealing an original Neddie Seagoon by Elder the Brueghel. Neddie argues with this Seagoon (pre-recorded). Bloodnok invites the listeners to decide for themselves which one is the genuine Seagoon.
10:00 AM - 7/10 [What's My Line?] ★
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  • The plot is based on the popular TV panel game format – the characters sign in when they first appear and do a mime. Neddie Seagoon’s mime starts with him as a student at the Royal Academy of Music, where he’s studying drums. He is examined by Spriggs and Grytpype. Eccles is also a student there, learning to play the telephone in E-flat. Moriarty is next to sign in. In his mime, he delivers a message to Grytpype from Major Bloodnok – who is in a phone box, naked, and wants the number of a good tailor. Next come Henry and Minnie, postmaster and registrar of parcels, respectively, for the GPO. Henry faints after a rousing rendition of Minnie’s song in praise of the GPO. Messenger boy Seagoon tries to phone the doctor but he can’t because Eccles is doing his mime in the telephone box. He dials Whitehall 1212. Constable Willium answers and informs them that Major Bloodnok is in Alaska, where he’s gone to place a long distance call. After Alaska signs in, Seagoon and Eccles set up a portable road which, by a stroke of luck, leads to Bloodnok’s phone box. Bloodnok signs in. His mime starts in India in 1883. The Son of Mullah and his tribesmen are attacking. Lieutenant Klinge of the navy can’t evacuate them as they’ve run out of water – they have to retreat on foot. Bugler Bluebottle signs in and sounds retreat on his bugle. At that point, Son of Mullah arrives and challenges Bloodnok to a duel. Bloodnok chooses the weapons of his country—conkers. By means of a complicated and silly manoeuvre, Bloodnok forces the Mullah to surrender. At that point the gong sounds and, nobody having guessed any of the contestant’s occupations, the host asks the contestants to tell the listeners what’s their line. Seagoon, Eccles, and Bluebottle respond in turn, “I’m an idiot”.
10:30 AM - 7/SP1 [Robin Hood] ★
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  • *This show is a special edition, recorded for the BBC Transcription Service. It is based on 5/14 Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest.
  • Prince John offers the Sheriff of Nottingham 100 gold splonders for the capture of Robin Hood (Neddie). The Sheriff makes a public announcement of the reward of one gold splonder for the capture of Robin Hood, dead or alive. Grytpype and Moriarty set forth on a coach ride through Sherwood Forest. Also on the coach are Minnie and Henry. The coach is waylaid by Robin Hood’s band. Grytpype and Moriarty join the band as C melody saxophonists. They persuade Robin to enter an archery contest. He does so and wins, whereupon Grytpype and Moriarty remove his disguise. Robin is arrested. Prince John gives the Sheriff his 100 gold splonders and he in turn gives one of them to Grytpype and Moriarty. Robin is thrown into prison. Together with his lieutenant, Friar Balsam (also in the prison), they escape from cell 25 into cell 26, where they find Eccles. The Sheriff offers to ransom them for 1000 golden splonders. They phone Norris, who sends Bluebottle with the loot. As the Sheriff and Prince John are about to tie Bluebottle to a stake, Robin, Friar Balsam, and Eccles (having escaped from prison) arrive on the scene. After a big fight, the Prince and Sheriff agree to let Robin and his men go in return for the ransom money. The show ends with Christmas greetings by the Goons to the Commonwealth nations.
10:30 AM - 7/11 [The Telephone] ★
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  • Henry Crun, inventor of the black telephone, wants a phone and the GPO sends Neddie Seagoon to install it. He finds Grytpype and Moriarty in Crun’s house in North Finchley. They tell him that Crun has moved to 17A, Africa. Moriarty gives Neddie a brown paper parcel for Mr. Crun. Neddie, Eccles, and Willium follow the Finchley Road to Africa, stringing phone cable as they go. In Africa, they encounter Major Bloodnok, who tells the story of how Henry lured Minnie Bannister away from him with sensual Caucasian knee-dancing. He agrees to escort Neddie on safari. Chief Ellinga shows up and leads Neddie to Crun’s house at 17A, Africa. Inside, Minnie is playing the saxophone and Henry offers to entertain her with his knee-dancing. Neddie and company arrive. Bloodnok carries Minnie off from the squalor she is living in … to the squalor he lives in. Neddie gives Crun the package from Moriarty and asks where he’d like the telephone. Crun responds that he’d like it in the study inside his house in North Finchley. We never do find out what’s in the brown paper parcel.
11:00 AM - 7/12 [The Flea] ★
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  • It is December 1665. Samuel Pepys (Neddie Seagoon) sports with Mrs. Fitzsimmons and then goes to Ward’s Coffee House for breakfast. There he meets Grytpype and Moriarty, who are without lodgings. He takes them in. When the two scoundrels discover that he is Secretary to the Navy, they hatch a fiendish plan. Moriarty deliberately lets their trained flea, François, bite him. They then sue the British Government. Pepys denies having ever seen the flea before and claims that he’s a foreigner. Court is adjourned until the flea’s nationality can be determined. Grytpype and Moriarty go to Min and Henry’s flea circus where they find Little Jim, a British flea who’s the spitting image of François. Meanwhile, Eccles and Bluebottle are guarding François in Newgate Prison. Pepys records in his diary yet another session sporting with Mrs. Fitzsimmons. Just then Bluebottle arrives to report that Grytpype and Moriarty overpowered them with a quarter of Pontefract Cakes, switched fleas, and made off with François. They must be stopped from leaving the country or the Crown will lose the case. Pepys visits Major Bloodnok and finds him with Mrs. Fitzsimmons. McGregor (Ellington) arrives and reports that they have captured the two scoundrels. They’ve hidden François on one of forty long-haired sheepdogs. François is found and captured in a dustbin. But Grytpype has one last trick up his sleeve – he’s found a diary that says that Pepys did sport madly with Nell Gwyn whilst the King was away. Pepys offers to forget everything and Moriarty agrees – for £1000.
11:00 AM - 7/SP2 [Operation Christmas Duff] ★
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  • Due to the shortage of civilian contractors, they cannot provide enough Christmas pudding for the overseas forces. Parliament therefore decides to have the services combine their efforts to produce a giant Christmas pudding for their own use. Communication from the Madagan Trans-Antarctic Expedition requests a Christmas pudding, so it’s decided to increase the size of the Combined Services pudding to allow an extra slice for the Antarctic base. At Chatham, Richard Dimbleby reports on the Navy, under Admiral Seagoon’s command, mixing the pudding in a dry-dock, using a flotilla of torpedo boats, with a cruiser in their wake dropping depth charges to bring the raisins to the surface, while Fairey Gannets drop candied peel, stoned ginger, and sultanas. The pudding is pumped into a tanker and transferred to the Salisbury plain, where it’s under Army control. There, Major Bloodnok’s regiment cook the pudding in a gasometer by having tanks bring their flame-throwers to bear on it. The Sappers blast open the gasometer with Bangalore torpedoes and then the Artillery fire threepenny bits into the pudding. When an infantry patrol reports that it has reached the summit of the Christmas pudding and planted the British holly in it, it’s transferred to RAF control. Sopwith Camels drop delayed brandy bombs on the pudding, setting it alight. The Christmas duff is now ready for transportation. One slice is cut and filled with anti-freeze for transport to the Trans-Antarctic expedition. The rest is fitted with wheels and a diesel engine, to be driven to the Middle East depots for distribution. Eccles and Bluebottle, having been recruited into the Army to play the piano, find themselves driving the pudding. They’re stopped by the starving Grytpype and Moriarty, who claim that the only thing that can save Moriarty’s life is eating Christmas pudding on the move. Having picked up the two scoundrels, they drive on. Meanwhile Seagoon and Bloodnok have reached the Filcher ice shelf and proceed inland. Several months later they start eating slices of the pudding to stay alive. Seagoon catches Bloodnok brown-handed digging after threepenny bits. Just then Eccles and company arrive with the rest of the pudding, remarking that it’s probably the first time they’ve had snow in Libya. On asking a passer-by, they discover they’re in New York. Eccles wants to know what New York is doing in Libya. Seagoon wants to know what New York is doing in the Antarctic. Bloodnok flips a coin and concludes they’re in Mongolia.
11:30 AM - 7/13 [Six Charlies in Search of an Author] ★
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  • The show is a performance of Jim Sprigg’s book. In chapter one, Neddie Seagoon meets the bone specialist Grytpype-Thynne and his accomplice, Moriarty. They have a compromising X-ray photograph of Seagoon’s bones and a lady’s. Neddie must pay them £10 by chapter 10 to get them back. But he’s due to marry the beautiful millionairess, Gladys Minkwater, in chapter 8. Chapter 2: Neddie goes to Crun’s pawnshop, to pawn himself. For the dead-weight alone Crun deems him worth 10 pounds. But Neddie can’t leave the shop until someone comes to redeem him. In Chapter 3, Henry locks Neddie in the safe. There he finds Eccles, who has merely pawned his socks but can’t leave because he can’t get his boots off. In chapter 4, Seagoon redeems himself by paying Crun the £10, but then discovers that he no longer has the £10 to pay for the X-ray photo. He discovers that in chapter 7, Grytpype and Moriarty shipped the X-ray photo to an art connoisseur in Paris, Major Bloodnok. Bloodnok wants 10,000 francs for the photo, which Grytpype has locked in a safe in Bloodnok’s room. Only Grytpype has the key, but with aid of a typewriter, Neddie writes in a crowbar. Spriggs, the author, shows up. Neddie and Bloodnok persuade him to write in a character to help them. He writes in a “virile figure” but gets Bluebottle. Spriggs leaves for a rest. Bluebottle uses silent dynamite (only idiots can hear it) to blast open the safe. The audience (and Eccles) hear a loud explosion. Grytpype and Moriarty enter and hold up everyone at gunpoint. Seagoon writes in an empty gun. Grytpype writes in a motor boat in which the two villains escape up the Amazon with the X-ray photo. Bluebottle writes in a speedboat to pursue the villains, but he also writes in Black Claw and his Chinese pirates from the Boy’s Mag. Our heroes are forced to jump out of the boat and swim to the bank. Spriggs shows up and writes them a happy ending on the last page. Seagoon and Gladys Minkwater are married. Bluebottle uses the typewriter to write in a scene where Gladys Minkwater leaves Seagoon and drives off with Bluebottle.
11:30 AM - 7/14 [Emperor of the Universe] ★
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  • Neddie ‘Bulldog’ Seagoon is reminiscing with his companion, Algernoon. He is summoned by Grytpype, the Foreign Secretary to solve the mysterious disappearance of 25 million Englishmen. There is such a shortage that English women are paying £50 apiece for Englishmen. As soon as Seagoon leaves, Grytpype sends a letter to the Emperor of the Universe, informing him that the disappearing Englishmen have caused the Government to become suspicious, but not to worry because he’s put a right charlie on the job. Seagoon visits Henry Crun, whose Irish cook, Ellington, has turned into a Chinaman after eating a Chinese egg. X-raying another such egg shows that it contains yellow grease paint and a pigtail – anyone eating it will become a Chinaman. Seagoon, Eccles, and Bluebottle take a tram to Peking. Once there, they visit the egg factory, where they find Bloodnok and 25 million Chinese in bowler hats, carrying rolled umbrellas and copies of The Times. Our heroes (and Bloodnok) are trapped in a room that is then flooded. They turn the room upside down to empty it. Grytpype and Moriarty enter, but since they’re on the ceiling they fall upwards to the floor. Grytpype turns out to be the fiendish Emperor of the Universe. He’s apprehended, and the Chinese are turned back into Englishmen by feeding them Brown Windsor Soup.
12:00 PM - 7/15 [Wings Over Dagenham] ★
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  • Fort Spon is under siege and the garrison is out of supplies. They eagerly await an aeroplane to bring them supplies, but the aeroplane hasn’t been invented yet. Fortunately Seagoon and McChisholm, trying to build a mangle, accidentally invent the aeroplane. Air Minister Grytpype arrives and arranges, for a fee, to have the air fixed in place over Lisle Street when Seagoon phones. There’s just one problem – whenever Seagoon tries to take off from Lisle Street, the lights turn red. He needs a taking off-type aerodrome. Henry Crun is building one, called Croydon Airport, in Croydon. While the aerodrome is still under construction, the lights finally turn green in Lisle Street and Seagoon’s test pilot gets the plane off the ground. He can’t land both because the airport isn’t there yet and because he hasn’t got enough petrol. They build a steam-driven rocket to carry the supplies to Fort Spon. Moriarty brings an Arab stallion on board to show that the horse still has a place in aviation. A Geographical Society representative comes on board to photograph the Earth from a great height, to prove it’s flat. They succeed in parachuting the rifles to the garrison and save the day.
12:00 PM - 7/16 [The Rent Collectors] ★
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  • Moriarty and Grytpype answer an advertisement by Henry Crun, who will pay £1000 to anyone willing to collect the £8000 11/4 in back rent from Death Grange, Slaughter Hill. But it’s more than their life’s worth to go there. They con Neddie, who’s never heard of the place, into collecting the rents for £5. The bus won’t stop at Slaughter Hill so Ned is forced to jump off. He lands in the canal, thus giving Little Jim the first opportunity to say, “He’s fallen in the wa-ter!” Grytpype and Moriarty happen by in a motorboat, but he doesn’t have the money to pay their rescue fee. He’s forced to swim to the shore and climb out. There he’s arrested by Constable Willium for swimming in the canal, thereby contravening the by-laws. The Court of Little Filthmuck sentences him to be hanged. When Ned insists on appealing, he’s sent to the Squire at Death Grange. The Squire is a drink-crazed Bloodnok who thinks he’s in Afsponistan, and that Neddie is a King’s Messenger. Bloodnok agrees to sign a reprieve for Neddie, for a consideration – the sum of £8000 11/4.
12:30 PM - 7/17 [Shifting Sands] ★
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  • Major Bloodnok tells a tale of India in 1902. The besieged garrison at Fort Thud, on the frontier of Waziristan, has lost their Union Jack and thus can no longer prove that they’re British. Seagoon is sent to the fort with the plans of the Union Jack. Meanwhile, in the fort, Bloodnok is visited by Colonel Chinstrap and they share a drink. Seagoon arrives with the plans of the Union Jack, but there’s trouble. The fort was built on shifting sands, and Seagoon’s combined extra weight has set the fort going north into Waziristan. The Waziri chieftain, the Wad of Char, attacks the fort. Due to a shortage of cloth, Henry Crun is forced to build the new Union Jack out of wood, which means they can’t hoist it as he had to use the flagpole to build the flag. Fortunately the fort shifts back over the sands into India, where it’s stopped at the border by Indian Customs. They can’t enter the country without paying customs duties on Chinstrap’s 48-gallon flask of brandy. Since they haven’t got the money, Chinstrap volunteers to drink their way out of the predicament. That was all many years ago. To this day a white stone marks the spot where Chinstrap saved the day. The inscription reads, “Here lies Colonel Chinstrap. Drowned . . . from the inside.”
12:30 PM - 7/18 [The Moon Show] ★
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  • Aspiring poet Neddie Seagoon buys a poetic licence from Grytpype and Moriarty and begins making verses praising the moon. Grytpype and Moriarty persuade Neddie that the moon was in Moriarty’s family for years but is now being auctioned off. Ned buys the moon at auction for £12/12. He then hears Bloodnok singing “It was spring, and the moon above Paris”, whereupon he realises that the one over England must be a forgery. They set off to the Royal College of Astronomy to find out. At the Royal College, astronomers Eccles and Bluebottle see the moon in the giant telescope and put the cap on the end to trap the moon inside. Seagoon arrives and informs them that the moon they’ve trapped is the forged one – the real one’s over Paris. Neddie sets out for Paris and tracks down Grytpype and Moriarty, who attempt to flee. Neddie pursues them across Europe and to Tangiers. When captured they agree to sell Neddie the real moon for £14. Grytpype holds a jam jar up to the sky and in it Neddie sees the moon. He caps the jam jar, thus capturing the moon, and takes it back to England.
1:00 PM - 7/19 [The Mysterious Punch-up-the-Conker] ★
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  • Inspector Ned Seagoon is investigating a mystery. A man driving a leather omnibus and wearing a masked boxing glove is punching people up the conk. Ned visits Min and Henry, the only leather omnibus manufacturers, and finds that they sold only one. But they don’t know who it was sold to – the buyer punched Mr. Crun up the conk. There is a second mystery afoot. The long-lost heir to the Spon fortune of £40,000 is missing, but he’s known to have a habit of leaping off of leather omnibuses and punching people up the conk. Grytpype and Moriarty put an ad in The Times for Moriarty Nose Protectors. A few more punch-up-the-conk attacks and the orders will start rolling in. The entire London police force is fitted with Moriarty nose protectors. The police discover a leather omnibus, grievously injured. The mysterious punch-up-the-conker is immobilised and there is only one place he can get a new leather omnibus. Meanwhile, Bloodnok hears of the unclaimed Spon fortune and sets off for Crun’s factory. But Eccles and Bluebottle are on watch at the factory to apprehend the mysterious assailant. They perforrm the ‘time writted on a piece of paper’ routine. When Bloodnok leaves the factory driving a leather omnibus, he’s arrested as the mysterious up-the-conk-puncher. Grytpype and Moriarty are knighted for their nose protectors.
1:00 PM - 7/21 [Round the World in Eighty Days] ★
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  • Count Moriarty bets Lord Neddie Seagoon a thousand sovereigns that Seagoon can’t reach the age of 22 before the Count. To his horror, Seagoon finds that however far he races in front of the Count, they both reach the next day at exactly the same time. Bloodnok sends Ned to Dr. Crun for an age treatment – being chased around by an axe-wielding Ray Ellington. But despite this, he still didn’t get older than Moriarty. But then Ned discovers that by crossing the International Date Line he could gain one day, thereby getting a day older than Moriarty and winning the wager. He sets off in Eidelburger’s Zeppelin, but finds out that Moriarty was in the front cabin and thus passed the International Date Line first.
1:30 PM - 7/22 [Insurance - the White Man's Burden] ★
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  • As Ned is trying to buy a piano-playing penguin, he encounters Grytpype and Moriarty. The two scoundrels give Neddie a deed to the English Channel and then convince him to buy a £48,000 policy insuring the Channel against catching fire. Ned immediately sets out to Pevensey Bay, where he finds match factory worker Eccles. He catapults Eccles into the Channel and then sets about trying to light it with a tinder-box. The rescue team of Crun and Bannister sets out in a lifeboat to save Eccles. Seagoon finds the Channel won’t catch fire because it’s damp and returns to confront Grytpype and Moriarty, who tell him to wait until summer, when the Channel will be a tinder-dry fire-trap. On the wireless they hear Min and Henry rescue Eccles. They had to pump 1000 gallons of oil onto the sea to calm it. They set fire to the oil to get rid of it, and so the Channel is on fire. When Neddie tries to collect on the insurance, Grytpype and Moriarty escape at gunpoint. Neddie is fooled by insurance, the white man’s burden.
1:30 PM - 7/23 [Africa Ship Canal] ★
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  • Due to the closing of the Suez Canal, British aeroplanes are being forced to fly around the Cape. Parliament commissions Seagoon to build a canal across Africa so that they can fly over that. So that nobody will drown if a plane should crash, the planes will be fitted with wooden lifeboats. And to prevent the lifeboats from sinking, the canal won’t have any water in it. Grytpype and Moriarty offer Moriarty’s Horse-drawn Zeppelin Service as an alternative. Seagoon sets out to build his canal, but he finds that Major Bloodnok’s house is in its path. Grytpype and Moriarty offer to lift Bloodnok’s house out of the way using sky hooks from Moriarty’s zeppelin. They convince Neddie to go into the house to tell Bloodnok that in 15 minutes, his house will become skyborne. Once Seagoon is in the house they attach the sky-hooks and lift it. With Seagoon out of the way, Grytpype bribes workmen to fill in the canal. The Moriarty Zeppelin Service is back in operation.
2:00 PM - 7/24 [Ill Met by Goonlight] ★
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  • Field Marshal Montgoonery sends Lieutenant Seagoon undercover to Cyprus to capture the German General Von Gutern. Ned, Ellington, and Eccles travel to Portsmouth (barely evading detection by Willium, the ticket collector) and are taken by Moriarty’s French submarine to Cyprus. There Bluebottle leads them to the guerrilla hideout. Eccles and Bluebottle are left on the road to stop Von Gutern’s staff car, while Seagoon and Ellington dynamite the bridge further down. The car gets by Eccles and Bluebottle, but is captured by Seagoon, who drives it back to pick up the other two. But when Bluebottle sees the car returning he has Little Jim put dynamite in the road. The car is blown up, and Eccles, Ellington, and Seagoon along with it. But as they await the return of Moriarty’s submarine to take them away from Cyprus, they are captured by Willium, who it turns out is the German spy, Von Gutern.
2:00 PM - 7/25 [The Missing Boa Constrictor] ★
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  • Ned Seagoon is trying to raffle a boa constrictor. He is also building a new ring road around Birmingham, and blows up a brick wall that’s in the way of the construction. It turns out the wall was the home of those destitute con artists, Grytpype and Moriarty. They convince Neddie that the City Treasurer’s safe also lies in the path of the road, and that the Treasurer has given permission for it to be blown up, provided that it’s done in secret. That night, Seagoon meets Eccles, the dynamite expert. Seagoon goes in to set the dynamite while Eccles sings to cover the noise of the explosion. Willium tries to arrest Eccles for singing without a licence. Eccles does have a licence – a dog licence, because they’re cheaper than singing licences. Since the licence only allows Eccles to bark and howl, he does so, whereupon he’s captured by the dog catcher. Grytpype and Moriarty offer to watch the safe explosion while Seagoon retrieves Eccles. In this way they get Birmingham’s massive wealth – fourpence. Neddie returns to find out he’s an accessory to a robbery – his career is ruined. Ned goes to Scotland Yard and confesses to his part in the robbery. The safe is found in a field in Kent. The police blow the door off the safe and find Moriarty and Grytpype inside, with Birmingham’s fourpence. The ring road goes through.
2:30 PM - 7/26 [The Histories of Pliny the Elder] ★
2:30 PM - 7/SP3 [The Reason Why] ★
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  • There is a gap in the Thames Embankment. Citizens of London Town are falling into the Thames and catching cold. Parliament is in search of something to fill the gap. The builder and sculptor Lord Hercules Grytpype- Thynne offers to make a statue to fill the hole for £39 and 3 dollars (he intends to finish the statue in America). However, the Hon. Bowels (Seagoon) finds that the obelisk, Cleopatra’s Needle, will fit the gap in the Embankment exactly, and he can get it for free. The obelisk is lifted, dusted, put into a wooden container, and launched. It sinks into Alexandria harbour. Salvaging it costs £1500. While the Royal Navy is raising it a hurricane strikes. The bill from the Admiralty for the two ships lost in the hurricane is £12,000. The obelisk finally is raised and towed away to England. Another £8000 is needed to pay outstanding bills in Egypt. Neddie is captured by Bedouins and £20,000 is paid to ransom him. Meanwhile, Cleopatra’s Needle breaks free of its moorings and is lost. Hon. Bowels charters a fleet of Arab dhows to find it. It’s raised but found to be waterlogged and beached in Portugal to dry out. The obelisk finally does make it to London in time for the Silver Jubilee. The bill for erecting it is £20,000. The grand total is £180,000 and eight shillings.

SERIES 8's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['57-'58]

8:00 AM - 8/1 [Spon] ★
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  • Inspector Emery-type Seagoon investigates the new brown terror striking England—spon! Seagoon and Willium investigate a body discovered by an Indian gentleman. The body bears all the signs of a severe sponning. Over breakfast Min and Henry discuss the new terror. Seagoon interviews them, as the sponning took place near their home. At three o’clock that morning, Crun had heard a clock strike two. At last – a clue. Grytpype and Moriarty sell Seagoon a photograph of a spon for £500. It turns out to be a fake – it’s a photo of a military gentleman. Bluebottle, the spon victim, becomes conscious in hospital and tells his story. Seagoon finds out from Moriarty that the photo is of Major Bloodnok. Seagoon visits Bloodnok in Africa. On his return he learns there’s been another sponning – in the zoo. He interviews Harold Blunn, the witness, not knowing he’s a gorilla. A recording of a spon is discovered. Seagoon sets up a roadblock with Eccles on guard. The spon is traced to the Canadian Rockies, where Chief Worri-Guts leads them on the trail of the spon. But with only 30 seconds left to search Canada, the plot ends there. A romantic happy ending is provided for dissatisfied customers.
8:00 AM - 8/2 [The Junk Affair] ★
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  • Both Grytpype and Neddie claim ownership to a piece of junk found on the road. In court, it is ruled treasure trove and therefore property of the Government. Grytpype and Moriarty steal it from the Bank of England. Seagoon, thinking that the junk must have been valuable, orders his stockbroker to corner the market in junk. Ned purchases a monster warehouse from Bloodnok to hold his junk. But before he can corner the world market on junk, he must buy the portion owned by Grytpype and Moriarty. Eccles and Bluebottle try to buy the piece, which is priced eight pounds six foot three inches. Neddie, at four foot eleven, is short, but Grytpype agrees to forget the six foot four and settle for the four foot eleven, like the British high-jumpers. But as Neddie is gloating over his prize, he learns that the British junk has been devalued, and he’s ruined.
8:30 AM - 8/3 [The Burning Embassy] ★
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  • Grytpype lures Fire Chief Seagoon out of the Wandsworth Fire Station with news that Jayne Mansfield is on fire. He then auctions off Seagoon’s furniture. Moriarty sings “You Gotta Face Disaster with a Smile”, the Government’s answer to national ruin. A report comes in from China that the British Embassy there has caught fire. Seagoon and Willium post brown paper parcels of water to Peking, but on reaching the Middle East the water completely evaporates. Seagoon visits Bloodnok, the British military advisor in Abyssinia. He suggests solving the evaporation problem by sending the parcels by a cooler route—over the North Pole. Seagoon discovers that the sun is causing the water to evaporate and so plans to put the sun out. But Grytpype has set two Interpol sun-worshippers, Eccles and Bluebottle, to guard the sun. Eccles discovers that he’s growing older all the time. In the British Embassy, Peking, Min and Henry receive a parcel of water from Moriarty that was disguised as petrol to get it through customs. Seagoon has Crun put the Embassy on a lorry and drive it to Addis Ababa. Meanwhile, Bloodnok has had the parcels of water frozen and placed in a cold storage van. As they drive to Addis Ababa there is a problem with the temperature swinging from too cold to too hot. Finally, Greenslade reports a collision in Addis Ababa between a lorry with a blazing British Embassy on the back and a cold storage van containing 23 sunburnt and frostbitten men.
8:30 AM - 8/4 [The Great Regent's Park Swim] ★
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  • It is 1830. In a fiendish laboratory, Dr. Eidelburger accidentally creates Eccles. Crun disposes of him by getting him to step inside a tiger. Neddie shows up to participate in an experiment in which he swallows a vial of green liquid. Eventually it’s discovered that it enables Ned to swim. Seagoon sets out to patent the idea. In the patent office he meets Major Bloodnok, who has invented the Regent’s Park Canal. With the Canal and the bottle of green liquid Neddie can swim across it without using a bridge. Grytpype and Moriarty must stop Seagoon swimming, as Grytpype has just invented the word ‘help’ for people who are drowning. The night before the swim, they observe Neddie entering the zoo through the tiger’s entrance. Seagoon is spending the night in the tiger’s cage disguised as a tiger. As there is no vacant cage, he must share the cage with the zoo’s Bengal tiger, which is the one holding Eccles. Moriarty dons a tiger skin, enters the cage, and attacks Neddie, but it turns out to be the real tiger. While they’re fighting, Ned nips out to the banks of the Canal. He can’t make the swimming attempt because Spriggs has invented a sign saying “No swimming on Mondays”. Fortunately Bluebottle invents Tuesday and the attempt goes forward. Grytpype steals the vial of green liquid and throws Neddie into the Canal. Neddie says ‘help’, for which he must pay Grytpype £500 royalties. Grytpype rescues him and then throws him back in. After several repeats of this, the show ends with Little Jim announcing that Neddie’s “fallen in the water”.
9:00 AM - 8/5 [Treasure in the Tower] ★
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  • In 1600, Sir Walter Raleigh and Eccles are in America. They load a chest of treasure, which Raleigh intends to smuggle home and bury in the Tower of London. They set sail for England. Meanwhile, in 1957, Ned Seagoon, Minister of Works, reveals sadly that excavations at the Tower have failed to find any treasure. He hires treasure experts, Grytpype and Moriarty, to dig for the treasure, at the price of one guinea per shovelful of dirt. On guard in the Tower, Major Bloodnok receives reports of strange noises under the Crown Jewels room. Grytpype and Moriarty, digging upward under the Tower, break into the Crown Jewels room and, thinking they have found the fabled treasure, take it back to Seagoon. Meanwhile, in 1600, Raleigh’s men, in the good ship Venus, approach. They’re seen by Bloodnok in 1957, who fires on them. Raleigh discovers they’ve left the treasure back in America and sends Eccles back to get it. Grytpype hands over the treasure (actually the Crown Jewels) to Neddie and receives his fee of £10,000. Ned is arrested for stealing them and does ten years hard labour. Meanwhile, Bloodnok encounters Eccles returning with Raleigh’s treasure – he’s swum too far and ended up in 1957. Seagoon hires Minnie and Henry, treasure diviners, who set off in pursuit of the treasure on a pipe-organ. Back in 1600, Raleigh sees the pipe-organ. Beefeater Bluebottle meets Eccles and discovers he’s in 1600, meaning he hasn’t even been born yet. In 1957 Henry and Minnie excavate in the tower and discover no treasure, but they do hit a water main 30 feet down. Back in 1600, Raleigh discovers this hole and buries his treasure in there. And that is why in 1957 they failed to discover the treasure buried back in 1600. It’s all in the mind, you know.
9:00 AM - 8/6 [The Space Age] ★
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  • Gunner Neddie Seagoon is a World War I deserter who’s paying corrupt Military Policeman Grytpype and Moriarty to hide him. When they discover he only has 38 shillings left, they sell him a 20-foot ladder that he can climb so that he can hide in space. Seagoon finds out from Greenslade that World War I is over and visits Bloodnok in Whitehall to collect his 38 years of coward deserter pay. There they hear about the launch of the Russian satellite moon. The space race is on. Henry Crun attempts to launch Minnie Bannister into space but she gets stuck half-way up the chimney. In an attempt to shoot Seagoon up the chimney on his ladder to free Minnie, Henry fires Seagoon into space, where he becomes the first army deserter in orbit. Military Policeman Eccles is sent up in a rocket after him. Seagoon is rescued from orbit, where he learns of World War II. He pays Grytpype and Moriarty to hide him . . . .
9:30 AM - 8/7 [The Red Fort] ★
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  • India, 1857. The natives are revolting (although some of them seem to be nice chaps) because they’ve heard that the British use banana skins to grease their rifles, and the banana is a sacred animal. The Red Fort, headquarters of the Red Bladder, leader of the Sepoy revolt, is the key to India. Seagoon is sent out to get the inside leg measurements of the key to the fort. Disguised as Indian GPO servicemen, they gain entry to the fort, remove the door, and take it back to the British camp. There Lalkaka and Banerjee find that their newly-made key won’t fit the door, but Flowerdew unlocks it with a hairpin. When the door is opened, the Red Bladder seizes Major Bloodnok and closes it again. They must return the door to the Red Fort so that they can liberate Bloodnok. When Bloodnok refuses to sign over India, the Red Bladder has him shot by firing squad. Will Seagoon arrive in time to rescue him? Too late. But it’s all in the mind, you know.
9:30 AM - 8/8 [The Missing Battleship] ★
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  • Seagoon is performing as a comic in “Variety Awash” aboard the HMS Boxer. Grytpype gets the crew to jump overboard by announcing that Sabrina has fallen overboard. Only the two stokers, Eccles and Flowerdew, are left on board—and Neddie. Grytpype and Moriarty maroon them on a desert island (the Isle of Alassie), where they discover Bloodnok. They hear on the radio of a £1000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen battleship, HMS Boxer. They sail the island to London. Meanwhile, Grytpype and Moriarty sail the battleship to the Pool of London and hold up England. On the Isle of Alassie, Bluebottle and Eccles are on watch as they collide with the Isle of Man. As Seagoon is about to tell the Admiralty about Grytpype’s theft, he’s arrested for driving a piece of land without due care and attention. Grytpype and Moriarty happen to have a battleship, the HMS Wrestler, of the same size and speed as the stolen one and offer, for £10,000, to search for the Boxer. As far as anyone knows, they’re still looking.
10:00 AM - 8/9 [The Policy] ★
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  • Grytpype and Moriarty plan to escape dire poverty in the Slagley-on-Ooze rubbish dump by taking out a £10,000 life insurance policy on Neddie. They tell him he can collect the money the moment he’s deceased, and they give him a book 100 Easy Ways to Get Deceased. He tries hanging himself from the rafters but his weight pulls them down. His next attempt is to sleep in the open on Salisbury Plain during a snowstorm. Standing asleep in his long flannel night-shirt, he’s discovered by Boy Scouts Eccles and Bluebottle, who mistake him for a short, fat tent. When they find Seagoon in the ‘tent’, they march him to Major Bloodnok. Seagoon finds out what ‘deceased’ is and tells Bloodnok about the villain’s plans to collect on insurance. Bloodnok takes out a life insurance policy on Neddie and tries to poison him, but Seagoon escapes. He rents a room from Henry and Minnie at the Albert Memorial. In his room he receives a gramophone record of Grytpype and Moriarty trying to shoot him. Fleeing the room just in time, he finds Major Bloodnok and his regiment, come to kill him. Seagoon is left trapped between the British Army and a loaded record.
10:00 AM - 8/10 [King Solomon's Mines] ★
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  • Lord Seagoon loses his entire fortune of 2,000,000 francs to Eccles in a poker game in Monte Carlo (Eccles is playing Snap, but he wins anyway). He sets out for Africa to seek his fortune. He joins Bloodnok, Trader Horn, Spriggs, and Cyril in an expedition arranged by Grytpype and Moriarty, agents for a rich man. They are in search of King Solomon’s Mines. The rich man turns out to be Eccles, who is nailed up in a wooden crate. Travelling up river by boat, Cyril and Little Jim both fall in the water. The safari, led by headsman Ginger (Ray Ellington), forms up for the trek inland. Moriarty, who has the map, runs away with it. Grytpype sets off after him. They’re both captured by Seagoon – it was a plot where Moriarty ran away and Grytpype arranged to make it look like he knew nothing about it. They let Eccles out of the crate, nail Grytpype and Moriarty into it, and throw the crate in the river. It’s then that they discover that Eccles’s money is in the crate. An unhappy ending? Not for Bloodnok, who jumps into the river after the crate.
10:30 AM - 8/11 [The Stolen Postman] ★
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  • The Sultan of Dhurtistan has had to postpone his birthday celebrations because he’s been unable to find a volunteer to act as guest victim in the annual exploding ceremony. He offers £1000 for a genuine charlie in good condition. Grytpype and Moriarty steal postman Neddie Seagoon from the GPO, chloroform him, wrap him in a parcel, and ship him to Dhurtistan by registered post. In the Post Office, Minnie and Henry release Seagoon from the parcel. He’s unable to convince the Police Inspector that he’s Seagoon. He can’t be – Seagoon’s missing and he’s here. Grytpype phones the police to report that the missing postman Seagoon is aboard the steamship Venus. When Seagoon goes there to prove they’re lying, they persuade him to search a crate in the hold, nail the lid shut on top of him, and thus he discovers that they were right. On board ship Seagoon encounters Eccles, who is emigrating on account of his job—he’s a professional idiot and there’s too much competition in England. They escape by tunnelling down through the bottom of the ship. Seagoon visits Bloodnok, the Military Attaché in Dhurtistan, who must supply a dancing girl to the Sultan. He tricks Seagoon into getting into a crate marked “Dancing girl. This way up. Use no hooks”. In the Sultan’s harem, Ned finds Boy Scout Bluebottle, who is there to help an old Sultan across the harem as his good turn for the day, and Eccles, who has become a dancing girl (How did he do that? He took lessons.). The show ends with a big fight as they all think of various weapons.
10:30 AM - 8/12 [The Great British Revolution] ★
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  • Seagoon leads a revolt of workhouse inmates against the British Government. They lay siege to 10 Downing Street. Grytpype cons Seagoon into believing that he and Yakamoto have invented an anti-gravity stick. He sends Ned to Major Bloodnok, allegedly the sole agent. While in the Sahara Desert, they spy the Eddystone Lighthouse, which is off course. Inside, Minnie and Henry light the lamp but pull the blinds so that nobody can look in. Seagoon persuades Bluebottle to drive the lighthouse to Bombay. There he buys the anti-gravity sticks from Bloodnok. Returning to England, he and his men point the sticks at the Government Ministers but nothing happens. Grytpype is awarded an OBE for foiling the revolutionary plot.
11:00 AM - 8/13 [The Plasticine Man] ★
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  • American archaeologists are hard at work at Stonehenge. Grytpype and Moriarty encounter rock ’n’ roll saxophonist Ned Seagoon in the unemployment line. Posing as publicity agents, they arrange to get Seagoon discovered by burying him at Stonehenge. Britain’s leading archaeologists are bemoaning the fact that the Americans are making all the discoveries at Stonehenge. For a fee, Grytpype and Moriarty offer to show them the spot at Stonehenge where lies buried a man of the Plasticine period. They dig up Neddie and fill him with alcohol to preserve him. He escapes and falls asleep in a drunken stupor, where he’s discovered by constable Willium. Ned flees to disguise experts Crun and Bannister, who hide him in a grandfather clock. Grytpype and Moriarty show up, take the clock back to the British Museum, and claim the reward. To prevent Seagoon escaping again, he’s taken to the National Gallery, where he’s framed and hung on the wall. He bribes the night watchmen, Eccles and Bluebottle, into helping him escape. He flees to his old commanding officer, Major Bloodnok. When Bloodnok finds out Seagoon is 6000 years old and figures out the amount of old age pension he must be owed, he agrees to swap identities with Seagoon. But he’s arrested by the Ministry of Pensions for not stamping his card for 5000 years.
11:00 AM - 8/14 [African Incident] ★
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  • This show is a parody of the film Bridge over the River Kwai. British prisoners of General Von Gutern, commander of the German colony in East Africa, are forced to build a railway bridge over the River Carpatee. Seagoon manages to escape. Meanwhile Major Spon (who sounds suspiciously like Alec Guinness) decides that, as the river is 2000 miles long but only three yards wide, they’ll build the bridge across it. Seagoon is sent back in charge of a raiding party to destroy the bridge. They attach limpet mines to the bridge over the ice-cold River Carpatee (there’s nothing worse than a cold Carpatee). Willium, disguised as a coconut tree, is waiting with the plunger. Before he can, Eccles, who had been sent to the other bank to chop down trees, chops him down. But he manages to press the plunger anyway, the bridge is destroyed, and, as Little Jim reports, they fall into the water.
11:30 AM - 8/15 [The Thing on the Mountain]
  • Terror has struck the Welsh town of Llandahoy. There is a mysterious Thing atop Mount Snowdon that makes a horrible trumpeting noise. Seagoon takes up the offer of a £5 for capture of the monster. Grytpype and Moriarty sell Neddie a Snow-Master Complete Mountaineering Kit – a box of matches. To climb the mountain, all you need is a long ladder, which is on a fire engine. To get the fire engine, you start a fire using a match from the box of matches. Ned sets fire to Bloodnok’s trousers. After they’ve been put out, Bloodnok, who turns out to be a mountaineering expert, offers to catapult Ned to the top of Snowdon. He ends up instead at the top of Blackpool Tower, where he finds he can’t get down without a ticket. He’s rescued by Moriarty’s Zeppelin. Grytpype and Moriarty pitch him out for not having the fare. Ned finally takes Greenslade’s suggestion and rides the train to the top of Snowdon. Grytpype attempts to sabotage this by giving fireman Eccles a bomb. Ned nonetheless ends up at the top of the mountain, where he discovers a tea shack run by Min and Henry that serves elephant’s eggs. Min uses a trumpet to call in the elephants—this is the sound that has terrorised the villagers. The elephants turn out to be chickens, which explains why they wouldn’t lay. The show ends with Min, Henry, and Ned searching the shack for the Snowdon Monster.
11:30 AM - 8/16 [The String Robberies] ★
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  • Grytpype and Moriarty are stealing string in order to keep Moriarty’s socks from falling down. To solve the crimes Inspector Seagoon is called from Scotland Yard to Scotland. Inspecting the scene of the crime, Seagoon and MacChisholm find a piece of string on the table with a space in the middle – the part that’s missing. Seagoon points out that it’s a practical joke – someone cut the string in half and pulled the two ends apart, making it look like a piece is missing from the middle. But MacChisholm notices that when the two pieces are put together the outer ends get shorter. Instead of looking for one piece of string they’re now looking for two separate ends. Crun and Bannister hear the police message asking people with two pieces of string to report to the police. They drive their house to the police station and present their three pieces of string to Seagoon. He’s only looking for people with two pieces of string, so they throw one away and thus become suspects. They drive the house away with Seagoon in pursuit. As a police cordon is thrown around England, Grytpype and Moriarty escape by diving into the English Channel. Seagoon has Bloodnok launch his lifeboat into the Channel where they apprehend Grytpype and Moriarty. The villains run for it, land at Dover, and thumb a ride from Crun’s passing house. Bluebottle took a photograph of the house’s number, which they have Lalkaka and Banerjee develop. They hide in wait in the basement of 66 Fairy Cake Lane, Crun’s address. When the house arrives, they force Grytpype and Moriarty to return the two pieces of string, but then they find that they can’t get up out of the cellar because Crun’s house doesn’t have a cellar. Then where are they? They’re all in the mind . . . .
12:00 PM - 8/17 [The Moriarty Murder Mystery] ★
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  • Inspector Seagoon will be sacked unless he finds a murdered body and solves the crime. He places an advertisement for a murdered body. Those down-and-out villains, Moriarty and Grytpype, see the ad. Moriarty places a fake bullet hole on his head and feigns death. Grytpype points out the body to Seagoon in return for the reward and points out which direction the murderer went. Ned runs off that way and ends up in Chinatown. He meets an undertaker whose business is falling off and signs a contract to provide bodies to him. Then comes a report that the body of Moriarty has vanished. Seagoon goes to Crun and Company, licensed clue manufacturers. Among the clues is eye-witness Eccles, who didn’t see the murderer and could identify him if he didn’t see him again. Seagoon takes Eccles to optician Major Bloodnok, who pronounces his eyes to be perfect. A boot such as that allegedly worn by the murderer is found on the banks of the Serpentine. Eccles and Bluebottle are put on guard to arrest the criminal when he returns to retrieve his rightful property. They apprehend Bloodnok, who was there for a secret tryst with Minnie Bannister. When Seagoon offers a reward of £5 for the murderer of Moriarty, Grytpype and Moriarty show up to claim it. Grytpype claims that Moriarty shot himself by putting a finger to the side of his head and going ‘bang’. To demonstrate how ridiculous that is, Seagoon puts his finger to the side of his head and shoots himself. The undertaker shows up and starts to bury Seagoon’s body. Ned says he can’t be buried—he wants to join the Guards. But nobody under six feet can join the Guards.
12:00 PM - 8/18 [The Curse of Frankenstein] ★
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  • The title comes from a joke in the first line. The show is really a story called My Heart’s in the Highlands. Laird Red Hairy McBurk leaves his fortune to the first man to play the bagpipes at the South Pole. Grytpype and Moriarty know of only one man with enough fat on him to succeed—Neddie Seagoon. They give Ned a series of envelopes with instructions on how to complete the task. He buys a South Pole expedition and set of bagpipes from Min and Henry and proceeds to the Falkland Islands. Meanwhile, in Antarctica, Major Bloodnok has Lalkaka and Banerjee try to thaw out his frozen bagpipes but they set them on fire instead. Eccles and Bluebottle arrive in a fire engine and inform Bloodnok he’s in the Sahara Desert – they were led astray by a compass from a cheap Christmas cracker. Seagoon’s expedition sets off for the South Pole on an ice floe. They run into Bloodnok and his party. Everyone camps for the night two miles from the Pole. During the night, a crack in the ice opens up and the sledge with the bagpipes fell in. But Eccles and Bluebottle have a set of bagpipes. At the Pole there is a big fight, and eventually the sound of bagpipes is heard over the roar of a blizzard. One of them made it to the Pole and played the bagpipes, but because of the blizzard, Grytpype can’t make out who it is. Tune in next week for the results.
12:30 PM - 8/19 [The White Neddie Trade] ★
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  • Ned Seagoon is destitute and starving in Paris (Why not starve in England? He prefers French cooking.). Grytpype and Moriarty offer to book him in South America as a Scottish act. They provide him with bagpipes stuffed with illicit senna-pods to be smuggled to Henry Crun, proprietor of the Club Enrico. Seagoon auditions as a nude piano dancer (he dances with a nude piano). When Henry asks for the bagpipes, Seagoon doesn’t have them – the Customs took them and put them in quarantine. Searching the quarantine kennels Ned encounters Eccles, who lives in quarantine masquerading as a dog. In the corner of the kennel are the bagpipes, which Eccles thought was a spider in a tartan sweater. Eccles and Neddie escape into the jungle interior from William the quarantine officer. They encounter gold prospector Major Bloodnok, who receives a gramophone record from Moriarty instructing him to be on the alert for Seagoon, who has the bagpipes stuffed with illicit senna-pods. Eccles and Neddie flee only to encounter intrepid British explorer Bluebottle. As everyone arrives at the scene, it turns out they’re all secret agents from Interpol. Who is the man behind the illicit senna-pod trade? He’s all in the mind, you know.
12:30 PM - 8/20 [Ten Snowballs that Shook the World] ★
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  • It is 1882. Sterling is in danger – it’s dropped from F-sharp to E-flat and must be saved in the key of G. Ned is sent off to warn Min and Henry, the occupants of the Eddystone Lighthouse. There, Ned reveals his plan to save sterling by auctioning off the equator in the key of E-flat. Grytpype sends a letter to the Postmaster General informing him of the attempt at an illegal raffle for the equator, and offers to reveal the organiser for certain monies. Ned attempts to get to the equator travelling by Eccles the train and then by Bloodnok’s ship. He gets permission to raffle the equator provided that it’s done in the key of G-sharp. Grytpype hires Lalkaka and Banerjee to make an imitation equator that would fool any linesman. Seagoon captures the imitation equator and sets off for England on a raft. The plot peters out after an auction and the show ends on a weak joke. Greenslade gives the cast a fifty yards start and then makes the final announcement while being pummelled by blows from a disgruntled crowd.
1:00 PM - 8/21 [The Man Who Never Was]
  • This show is a fresh performance of show 6/27 with only minor reworking of the script. The plot of the two shows is identical.
1:00 PM - 8/22 [World War One] ★
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  • 1917 – England was at war, France was at war, Eccles was at lunch. Grytpype and Moriarty sell German army shares to Seagoon. They claim that the Germans are bound to win any war they enter. Seagoon is called up. Uniform fitters Crun and Bannister send Ned to the Elephant Equipment Unit in Poona. There, Seagoon finds out from Major Bloodnok that the Germans are losing. Bloodnok sells Seagoon 10,000 unused 1904 calendars. Grytpype’s plan is to drop the 1904 calendars on England by Zeppelin, making the English think the war hasn’t even started, thus giving the Germans an advantage. But then the British drop 1918 calendars on Berlin, and the Germans surrendered.
1:30 PM - 8/23 [The Spon Plague] ★
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  • Grytpype-Thynne fashions a pill to cure the non-existent Spon Plague, using Moriarty as a model. He persuades National Health doctor Ned Seagoon that Moriarty has the Spon, the symptom of which is bare knees, and that Seagoon himself has caught it. To prove it, he has Ned roll up his trousers to reveal the bare knees. The British Medical Council are in a panic as the Spon Plague spreads. Grytpype’s pills provide the cure – take the pill, stretch out the right arm, and roll down the trouser legs. Then Eccles and Bluebottle discover a way to prevent the Spon – wear long woollen underpants. Soon all of Britain has been immunised. To prevent the ruin of their plan, Grytpype tells Seagoon, who is now in Scotland, about a new disease, the Quodge, whose symptoms are bare knees covered with long underpants. Scotland is soon full of Quodge victims. Lalkaka and Banerjee, arrived from India to investigate the Quodge, are shot at the Scottish border. Seagoon finds Grytpype and Moriarty hawking a cure for the Quodge – swallow the pill, then remove long underpants. Ned does so, only to see his bare knees – he’s got the Spon again. Grytpype gives him a Spon cure – swallow pill, put on underpants. Now Ned’s got the Quodge . . .
1:30 PM - 8/24 [Tiddlywinks] ★
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  • In the first third of the show, Peter Sellers Is Cured of Cars. Peter is infatuated with cars, cameras, and tape recorders. Ned sends him to a rest-home to be cured. There Peter, thinking he’s a motor car, encounters Eccles, who also thinks he’s a motor car. Dr. Grytpype-Thynne cures the tape recorders by purging, but the cars are more deeply rooted. Dr. Jim ‘Drop-em’ Moriarty is called in and suggests the only way to make Peter believe he’s not a car is to make him believe he’s a horse. But Moriarty and Grytpype are really after Neddie. They give him an injection that turns him into a chicken. The sketch ends with Moriarty commanding Neddie to lay. The remaining two-thirds of the show is the title sketch, Tiddlywinks. Ned Seagoon is bemoaning the Goons’ loss to the Cambridge Tiddlywinks team. Grytpype and Moriarty have a plan of revenge. Ned challenges Cambridge to a leaping contest. Grytpype provides Seagoon with rocket-propelled boots. Ned tries the rocket boots and takes off. Bloodnok mistakes him for a huge pheasant and shoots him down. Bloodnok thus learns about the rocket-propelled boots. Meanwhile, Lalkaka and Banerjee are putting up a concrete lamp-post outside the house of A. E. Matthews (Sellers impression). Bloodnok reveals Seagoon’s treachery to the Cambridge Leaping Team. Seagoon flees to Wales and becomes an outlaw, holding up travellers for their tiddlywinks. He plans to attack Trinity College, Cambridge, to steal the Cambridge team’s supply of tiddlywinks. After luring out the Cambridge students by yelling ‘fag!’, Ned cracks open the safe holding Cambridge’s secret hoard of tiddlywinks. But inside is Jim Spriggs, captain of the Cambridge Tiddlywinks Team. John Snagge, the Umpire, shows up, declares Seagoon’s conduct unbecoming of a Royal Champion, and demands that he hand back his tiddlies. As a penalty, Seagoon must raise his right leg, face east, and sing the tiddlywinks anthem.
2:00 PM - 8/25 [The Evils of Bushey Spon] ★
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  • The Bushey Spon Council discuss the building of a concrete lamp-post. Having decided to paint it a non-sinful colour, they set about finding a lamp-post designer. When Greenslade’s two brothers, a Cornish homicidal maniac and Mad Dan Eccles, prove unsuitable, they advertise for a man. Grytpype and Moriarty answer the advertisement. Willium digs the lamp-post hole while Minnie and Henry, caretakers of the house beside it, look on. They find out that their master is coming home. Meanwhile Seagoon buys a lamp-post from Bloodnok’s factory in Rhodesia. The contract for putting up the lamp-post goes to India. Lalkaka and Banerjee put it up while Crun goes into a fit of jealous rage when he discovers Min watching men putting up the lamp-post. The master, A. E. Matthews, arrives, but he refuses to pay any attention to the script. The last five minutes are total chaos and ad-libbed by all concerned.
2:00 PM - 8/26 [The Great Statue Debate] ★
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  • Parliament is debating the replacement of the leather statue of King James II in Trafalgar Square with a statue of Sir Walter Raleigh made of compressed tobacco. Grytpype-Thynne, owner of the Houses of Parliament, invokes the Rent Act to evict the Members. They try to hold a session in Hyde Park, but are arrested for loitering with intent to govern. Fortunately, the Minister of Transport makes a number 138 tram available and the statue debate resumes there, once the Chancellor of the Exchequer purchases 533 tickets to Trafalgar Square. But Eccles is on the private tram, and he turns out to have measles. Parliament ends up in hospital. Comes the time of the unveiling of the statue, which has been delivered by the transport company of Lalkaka and Banerjee. Again they are found by constable Willium and forced to move along. Grytpype takes pity on the homeless Government and agrees to return the Houses of Parliament in return for the uncooked portions of England.

VINTAGE GOONS's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['57-'58]

8:00 AM - V/1 [The Mummified Priest] ★
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  • *Based on 4/17 The Mummified Priest.
  • In 1889, Ned Seagoon and Eccles, late of Cambridge, take jobs as Assistant Egyptologists at the British Museum, working under Professor Henry Crun. They translate an ancient manuscript that turns out to be the personal narrative of an Egyptian priest. It gives the location of his tomb. Obsessed by the thought of the gold that must be in the tomb, Ned leaves Henry and Minnie trapped in the cellar and leaves for Egypt. There he persuades Major Bloodnok to lead an expedition to the Valley of Eagles in search of the tomb. Desert madness strikes—they find a house surrounded by trees that turns out to be a mirage. They find the entrance to the tomb and become lost in a labyrinth of tunnels. Eventually, they dynamite a hole in the wall to gain access to the tomb, only to find that they’ve released Crun and Bannister from the cellar in which they were trapped.
8:00 AM - V/2 [The Greatest Mountain in the World]
  • *Based on 4/23 The Greatest Mountain in the World
  • Ned Seagoon proposes climbing the greatest mountain in the world – Everest – only to find out that Tenzing and Hillary have already climbed it. He sets out to build a higher mountain in Hyde Park. Henry Crun’s has a mole-hill and hopes to make a mountain out of it. A lorry delivers the mole for the mole-hill, but it turns out to be a lion instead. Soon the mountain reaches 21,000 feet. But it is in violation of a rule prohibiting mountains higher than knee level within a radius of Nelson’s Column, and so Grytpype and Moriarty from the Ministry of Works dynamite it (and nearly Eccles, who mistakes the dynamite for strong cigars). With Hyde Park Mountain destroyed, Seagoon leads an expedition to Mount Fred, which at 40,000 feet high is taller than Everest, but it’s three miles beneath the sea. Since Alpine Club regulations require that all mountains must be climbed up to reach the top, the plan is to drive down to the bottom and then climb up. They lose their way and an attempt to ask an oyster for directions is unsuccessful. They send up Bluebottle hanging onto the horns of a mine to find out where they are. The mine explodes, deading Bluebottle and blowing Mount Fred to bits. Eccles consoles Seagoon by giving him one of the cigars he got from the Ministry of Works fellas. The explosion kills the rest of the cast. The show ends with Bluebottle trying to persuade Eccles to be deaded.
8:30 AM - V/3 [The Missing Ten Downing Street] ★
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  • *Based on 4/15 The Missing Prime Minister
  • Bow Street police station receives a phone report that 10 Downing Street is missing. Inspector Seagoon arrives on the scene to find that 10 men overpowered Willium, the constable on duty, packed Number Ten on the back of a monster lorry, and drove off. Seagoon and Bluebottle set off in pursuit. Eccles throws a brick at the driver of a vehicle that’s acting suspicious. It turns out to be Seagoon’s car. Major Bloodnok, in charge of a military roadblock, finds Ellington, who had dropped off a lorry with a large building strapped to the back. Bloodnok sends Fred Bogg to Crun’s house to phone Seagoon. But what Bogg thinks is the phone ringing is really an alarm clock that Henry can’t turn off because he can’t find his spectacles. Then comes a report that 10 Downing Street is in France. Seagoon sets off in pursuit and finally finds it in a wood. He decides to leave the British Government in the wood in France – can you think of a better place to leave them?
8:30 AM - V/4 [The Giant Bombardon] ★
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  • *Based on 4/13 The Giant Bombardon.
  • 1853. Britain’s only chance to win the Crimean War is to build a giant cannon – a bombardon – to blast a hole in the walls of Sebastopol. Seagoon is sent back to England and, after long debate over the thickness of the walls of Sebastopol, convinces Parliament to fund the project. He goes to visit his aunt and uncle, Min and Henry, to find Henry washing up in the kitchen with an elephant helping. Crun is building a giant leather bombardon and is able to complete it under Government contract. Ned sets out to buy gunpowder for the bombardon, but Grytpype persuades him to use a more deadly explosive – liquorice powder. Moriarty, a Russian-type spy, is hiding in one of the powder crates. They arrive in the Crimea, set up the bombardon, pour in a case of liquorice powder, but it’s the case the two villains were hiding in, and they are blasted to Sebastopol. They discover they’ve been fired! Cue thin chord and cymbal crash.
9:00 AM - V/5 [The Kippered Herring Gang] ★
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  • *Based on 4/19 The Kippered Herring Gang.
  • The plot is identical to programme 4/19, except that the chief inspector is Ned Seagoon, not Hercules Seagoon, and the Brighton nosh bar is run by Grytpype and Moriarty, not by Angus MacDonald.
9:00 AM - V/6 [The Vanishing Room] ★
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  • *Based on 4/21 The Case of the Vanishing Room.
  • Inspector Seagoon shows up in the quiet village of Brodley-on-Cleat to investigate the murder of Lord Cretinby in his library. He seals the room, only to discover that Eccles, the police photographer, was inside. When he breaks down the door, he finds the library, Lord Cretinby, and Eccles all vanished. Meanwhile, in Paris, Bloodnok checks into his hotel room only to find that the bathroom door has been recently sealed and unsealed. On the other side is the missing library, complete with Eccles and Lord Cretinby’s corpse. The hotel manager discovers that a British room is staying at his hotel and that Bloodnok has been concealing two unpaid guests – one living and one dead. Eccles phones Seagoon, who travels to Paris. Seagoon’s attempt to have Eccles and Bluebottle re-enact the murder results in Eccles shooting Bluebottle. The show ends in pandemonium.
9:30 AM - V/7 [The Ink Shortage] ★
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  • *Based on 4/22 The Great Ink Drought of 1902
  • There is a grave ink shortage. Moriarty convinces financial tycoon Sir Bernard Seagoon to try to corner the market on ink. But with no ink left in the world the shares are worthless. In return for 99% of the ink shares, Grytpype sells Seagoon ‘ink’ made by dissolving in water the negative of a photograph of a spoonful of ink powder. Ned now owns all the ink left in the world. The ink shortage has meant disaster for Crun’s blotting paper business. They set off on an expedition to drill ink wells in China. To prevent the new ink supply rendering their ink shares worthless, Ned and Moriarty plan to dynamite the ink field. Meanwhile, Crun’s exploratory wells have failed to locate any ink – the project is a dead loss. Crun sells his blotting paper shares to Eccles. When Seagoon sends Bluebottle off with the dynamite, he blows himself up, but he does strike ink. If Seagoon only had Crun’s blotting-paper shares, he’d be able to corner the market, fix the prices, and get a knighthood. He challenges Eccles to a game of draughts with the shares as a stake – and loses.
9:30 AM - V/8 [The Mustard and Cress Shortage] ★
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  • *Based on 4/24 The Collapse of the British Rail Sandwich System.
  • Master criminule Bluebottle has destroyed every slice of mustard and cress in the world, causing a shortage that causes havoc to British Railways. Seagoon commissions farmer Henry Crun to grow 6000 acres of mustard and cress in the Amazon. The expedition sets out for South America and there meets the British Ambassador, Major Bloodnok. A tribe of hostile natives thwarts their endeavour. The mustard and cress shortage? It’s still going on.
10:00 AM - V/9 [The Internal Mountain] ★
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  • *Based on 4/27 The Saga of the Internal Mountain
  • Lord Seagoon sets out to climb Mount Everest from the inside. After a major adventure at the door, Seagoon gains entry to the Alpine Club where he persuades Minnie and Henry to co-operate with the expedition. He borrows 30,000 pounds in farthings from Grytpype and Moriarty and sets off with mountaineer Bloodnok. They bore a hole up the middle of Everest, install a lift, and ride to the top, where they find a Union Jack. Seagoon claims the Union Jack for England.
10:00 AM - V/10 [The Silent Bugler]
  • *Based on 4/25 The Silent Bugler
  • Agent ‘X2’ Seagoon of MI5 is sent in pursuit of the mysterious Russian agent, the Silent Bugler. The Russians have perfected a time machine with which they will go into the future and, once there, build planes that travel faster than the speed of light. Seagoon receives special training from Major Bloodnok, but fails the object identification test administered by Sergeant Eccles. The three are dropped in East Germany and proceed to the Dresden Opera House, where the Silent Bugler (who knows the location of the time machine) is playing. They attempt to spot him by listening for gaps in the playing of the orchestra, but it turns out that the orchestra are all Russian agents miming to a gramophone record—the Silent Bugler doesn’t really exist. They search the theatre. After a close call with a Russian agent they find the time machine and blow it up.
10:30 AM - V/11 [The Great Bank of England]
  • *Based on 4/29 The Great Bank of England Robbery.
  • Grytpype-Thynne hires Ned Seagoon to help burgle the gold bullion of the Bank of England. Bloodnok and Eccles meet Seagoon at midnight outside the Bank, but there is a difficulty. Seagoon has hidden himself in a parcel in the pillar box but made a fatal mistake—he’s insufficiently stamped and thus the postman won’t collect him. In an attempt to get Seagoon out Eccles and Bloodnok also end up trapped in the pillar box. They escape by drilling a hole through the bottom of the pillar box, down to the bed of one of London’s underground rivers. They proceed up a secret tunnel that leads directly under the vaults, where they blow a hole in the vault floor and get the gold. Grytpype tricks them into allowing him to escape with the gold while they’re left in the lurch.
10:30 AM - V/12 [The Dreaded Piano Clubber] ★
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  • *Based on 4/1 The Dreaded Piano Clubber.
  • Henry Crun is repeatedly assaulted by a man who clubs him with a piano. Soon even BBC announcers and Members of Parliament are assaulted. When the attacks suddenly cease, Seagoon realises that the piano clubber must be having his instrument re-tuned. A search of all of London’s piano tuners finally turns up the piano at Eccles’s shop. The police watch the shop for 45 years and finally the criminal retrieves his piano. The culprit, Moriarty, is finally tracked down and forced to surrender. It turns out that he attacked Crun for a piece of string to prevent his pants from falling down.
11:00 AM - V/13 [The Siege of Fort Night] ★
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  • *Based on 4/30 The Siege of Fort Knight.
  • Fort Knight is under siege by Kurdish tribesmen, and more Kurds are on their way (Kurds and way – get it?). The fort has an ample food supply but no stove to cook it on. They’re forced to eat raw ample, which in a few weeks will cause them to be struck down with the dreaded knee lurgi. To make matters worse, the monsoons will leave the fort nine feet underwater. What’s needed is a waterproof underwater gas stove. Seagoon gets Henry to build one. The stove is assembled at the base camp in Africa, where it’s discovered that at Regulo 5 there’s a railway station inside. They get the stove past African customs by selling the stove to Customs Officer Ellinga for three elephant tusks and then buying it back off him (strange customs these Africans have!). To get past enemy lines to the fort they decide to travel by train. They set the Regulo to 5 and climb into the stove. Except for Eccles, who has to close the oven door from the outside and then bring it in after him. This of course means climbing through it while it’s shut and not opening it until he gets through. On arrival at the fort they discover that the journey’s all been in vain—there’s nobody there.
11:00 AM - V/14 [The Albert Memorial] ★
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  • *Based on 4/7 The First Albert Memorial to the Moon.
  • When the British Interplanetary Society turn down his B-2 rocket, Ned Seagoon rents the Albert Memorial from Henry Crun (who has left Minnie trapped under a grandfather clock), fits rocket motors to it, replaces the statue of Prince Albert with a control cabin, and sets off on an expedition to the moon. They land on a mist-shrouded planet. At first they think it’s Plutron, but the truth is revealed when they hear Minnie screaming for help in getting out from under the clock.

SERIES 9's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['58-'59]

8:00 AM - 9/1 [The Sahara Desert Statue] ★
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  • The first third of the show, up to the first musical break, is free-form clowning around and has no plot. The Sahara Desert Statue occupies the remaining two-thirds of the programme. The House of Commons is debating the fact that the British Atomic Commission have no idea what effect an atom bomb would have on a nude Welshman holding a rice pudding. The Russians do not have this information, so it is an opportunity for Britain to take the lead. The Government offer to pay £2000 for any Welshman willing to stand naked holding a rice pudding while hit by the power of an atom bomb. Grytpype and Moriarty rush off to find Neddie Seagoon. They tell him that Moriarty has been commissioned to sculpt a statue of the Sahara Desert holding a rice pudding and wishes Ned to pose for it. He agrees and soon is standing in the Sahara. He meets Eccles, a lost British soldier, there. The Riffs (singing their theme from Desert Song) arrive and think Neddie is a statue. Their chief thinks a statue of a fat white man holding a rice pudding is just the thing for his harem. They carry Neddie off. Just before the atom bomb goes off, the long lost number 8 touring company of The Desert Song arrives on the scene, and it is they who are hit by the explosion. Grytpype and Moriarty pick up the pieces and take them to the Atomic Commission. Meanwhile, Bloodnok discovers Neddie’s abduction and sets off with Bluebottle and Eccles to rescue him. The Atomic Commission conclude that when a nude Welshman holding a rice pudding is struck by an atom bomb, he turns into a fully-clad number 8 touring company of The Desert Song. Soon, reactors were set up for the purpose, and thus it is that Britain leads the world in production of number 8 touring companies of The Desert Song. Neddie? He’s still standing stock still as a statue in the Red Bladder’s harem. One move would mean the unkindest cut of all.
8:00 AM - 9/2 [I Was Monty's Treble] ★
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  • It is 1941, and the Germans are plotting to capture Field Marshal Montgomery. Herr Von Schlapper Eccles, Germany’s greatest fighter ace, has been ordered to shoot down all planes carrying Montgomery back and forth between Africa and England. But little do they know he is not Von Schlapper. The enigma – who is Eccles? Meanwhile, Bloodnok and Seagoon plan to deceive the Germans by creating a double of Monty. In case the double is killed, they will create a Monty’s treble. Henry Crun, the Statistician Royal, determines that they need 40,000 Monty’s doubles. The Germans are suspicious that Monty was seen in three different locations with three different women. They set out to get the plans of an original Field Marshal Montgomery. German agents Moriarty and Grytpype succeed in destroying the statue of Montgomery’s future movements, but in fact it is only a statue of John Mills and Richard Attenborough’s future movements. Next comes the Battle of Alemain. Bravely the British forces resist the German counter-attack of singing rude songs, and by dawn victory is theirs. But it turns out that the Battle of Alemain that they won was a fake – it was Alemain’s double, played by Eccles.
8:30 AM - 9/3 [The £1,000,000 Penny] ★
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  • The first third of the show is The Sock Jelly Murder. Inspector Seagoon and Constable Willium find a dead man with a sock half full of jelly next to him. The hunt is on for a man wearing one sock and eating a jelly. The murder is solved during Max Geldray’s number. The remainder of the show is Ned the Miser. Miserly Ned Seagoon lives in a lonely house on the moors with his servant Jeeves. His hoard of coins consists of one penny, which he guards in his safe. Fiendish criminals Grytpype and Moriarty hear of this hoard of wealth and set out to steal it. Moriarty hits Ned over the head with a sock full of jelly and they carry off the penny. It is valuable because it has been left £1,000,000 in the will of Neddie’s grandmother. All they have to do now is to finish granny. Meanwhile Eccles captures Bloodnok shooting fish in the river. Seagoon comes to and visits granny Min and Bluebottle. Eccles and Bloodnok arrive and Min recognises Bloodnok as her childhood sweetheart. Henry Crun wants save Min from Bloodnok and agrees to Ned’s plan to put a bomb in Bloodnok’s coffee. Grytpype and Moriarty toss a coin, the rich penny, to see who is to kill Minnie. Just then Bloodnok happens along and accidentally swallows the penny. Moriarty tricks him into drinking castor oil, and that, on top of the coffee he had, results in an explosion. The penny falls at the feet of Eccles and Bluebottle, who set off to buy a lollipop.
8:30 AM - 9/4 [The Pam's Paper Insurance Policy] ★
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  • The editor of Pam’s Paper has offered to pay £1000 to the next-of-kin of anyone drowned in water, provided that a copy of Pam’s Paper is found on the deceased’s body. Grytpype and Moriarty set out to find a charlie to drown. Meanwhile Ned Seagoon shoots a songbird, but it turns out to be Eccles trying to break the world’s bird impression record. Ned finds a doughnut containing Grytpype and Moriarty, who claim to be jam miners and sell Neddie a jam miner’s ticket for £50. Seagoon encounters Bloodnok, who has discovered that the River Thames reaches both banks, and who has seen evidence that a low form of life exists on the other side. They build a raft to cross the Thames. Grytpype is furious that Moriarty let Seagoon get into Bloodnok’s clutches. He places a limpet mine under the raft. Lalkaka and Banerjee finish building the raft. Bloodnok gives Seagoon a copy of Pam’s Paper to keep on his body. On the north bank of the Thames are Min and Henry, the editors of Pam’s Paper. Seagoon has fallen in the water (cue Little Jim) and is rescued by Min and Henry. Grytpype and Moriarty give Eccles a copy of Pam’s Paper and a loud splash is heard – as Eccles steps aside and the villains fall in the Thames. The show ends with Ned pushing Greenslade into the water.
9:00 AM - 9/5 [The Mountain Eaters] ★
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  • Destitute confidence tricksters Grytpype and Moriarty meet Lord Seagoon in a Paris restaurant. They borrow £50 from Ned in order to cure Moriarty’s poverty. They tell Ned they will go to the Louvre and sign an IOU on the Mona Lisa. Seagoon visits the Louvre and indeed finds “IOU £50” in the corner, signed Leonardo Da Vinci. He takes the painting. He meets Eccles and his trainer, Willium. Eccles is training to eat Mount Snowdon. Seagoon offers £50 (the money he’s expecting back from Grytpype and Moriarty) to become Eccles’s stand-in. Meanwhile in Venice, Grytpype and Moriarty have spent most of the money they got from Seagoon. They encounter detective Max Geldray who is investigating the theft of the Mona Lisa. Grytpype and Moriarty set out to find Neddie to obtain the painting. To prevent mountain-eating in England, commissioners Crun and Bannister raise the licence fee to £50. Seagoon and Eccles encounter Bluebottle and the Third Finchley Wolf Cubs, who are collecting for the East Finchley Poor Mothers Christmas Pudding Club Jumble Sale Fete. They discover that eating mountains in India requires no licence and set out to devour Mount Everest. Banerjee and Lalkaka set out to find out why Mount Everest is getting shorter. The mountain eating is being interrupted by Bloodnok playing the saxophone. Ned gives Bloodnok the Mona Lisa to get him to stop. As they finish Mount Everest, Grytpype and Moriarty arrive and explain to Seagoon that his £50 was ill, so they took it to Italy for a holiday. They find out Bloodnok has the Mona Lisa. But Bloodnok has sold the painting to the Finchley Wolf Cubs for three pounds ten. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive at the Jumble Sale to find that the opening bid price for the painting is £500,000.
9:00 AM - 9/6 [The Childe Harolde Rewarde] ★
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  • It is 1899 in Winchelsea. Auntie Min and Uncle Hen have kept their Childe Harolde (Seagoon) in a nappy in a pram for 37 years. When they leave the pram unguarded, Harolde makes his escape. He sets off with Bloodnok, who is in the process of finding King Arthur’s lost sword. Min discovers the child is missing and phones the police. She offers a reward of four shillings a pound for the body’s return. As Seagoon weighed 16 stone, that puts the reward at £44 16s. Moriarty and Grytpype set out to find Seagoon. Bloodnok stops by a lake that might well be the one in which King Arthur’s sword drowned, and sends Seagoon off to find food. Ned finds a sword in a stone (left by Grytpype) and sets out to find a blacksmith. Bluebottle meets Eccles, who has a bottle of genuine Bloodnok water. Ned finds Ellington the blacksmith and with his help removes the sword. Grytpype and Moriarty proclaim him King of England and give him his royal robes, which are way too big. To fatten him up to fit the robes, they feed him such delicacies as stuffed elephant, roast mountain, and fried hippopotamus. A call from the Prime Minister reveals that Ned is only king of 23 Ponge Street, Croydon. Bloodnok shows up and discovers that the sword Excalibur is a fake. Moriarty and Grytpype have by this time fattened Ned up to 603 stone. They go to Min and demand the £1688 4s reward. Min claims Ned is a forgery – her boy only weighs 16 stone. Moriarty and Grytpype put Seagoon in a steam bath to reduce him and succeed in vaporising him. They put him in a bottle and take him to Harry Secombe’s dressing room at the Palladium, where Bluebottle and Eccles are waiting to get an autograph. The villains threaten to drink Secombe unless paid £1000. Lew pays the money and gets the bottle, which he gives to Eccles while he fetches a doctor. Eccles gets the bottles mixed up and succeeds in drinking Neddie. In the interests of hygiene, the show ends as they’re about to pump Eccles’s stomach.
9:30 AM - 9/7 [The Seagoon Memoirs] ★
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  • Grytpype and Moriarty, hitch-hikers on the Great North Road, flag down Ned Seagoon, who is driving a piano. When they discover Ned had been hygiene orderly in charge of Eighth Army ablutions at El Alamein, they convince him to write his war memoirs on the piano. They set out for the Labour Exchange where former field marshals are queuing up. On hearing that Seagoon intends to reveal the true facts about the hygiene of the general staff, they offer Grytpype ten shillings reward for the piano on which Seagoon’s writing the memoirs. Meanwhile, on the Great North Road, Willium arrives to collect the rent from Seagoon, and repossesses the piano, which is then sold at auction to Henry Crun. Min and Hen fill the piano with water so that they can have a bath. The water’s too cold, so they light a fire under the piano, which of course catches fire. Fireman Eccles is unable to put it out in time and the piano burns to the ground. The only copy of Ned’s memoirs are in his head. Moriarty hires Bluebottle, Little Jim, and Eccles to capture Seagoon from Bloodnok’s laboratory. They do so and Moriarty takes him to a publisher. Bloodnok arrives to recapture him. The confrontation that follows is ended by an explosion. Soon afterwards Seagoon was published in an edition of 4000 copies.
9:30 AM - 9/8 [Queen Anne's Rain] ★
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  • It is 1880 in the village of Upper Dicker. It has been raining non-stop for 40 days. Ned seeks shelter at the house of Min and Henry. Eccles, who is in training for the World sleeping contest, arrives. Town Crier Geldray announces that the valley is flooded and the bridge to London (Seagoon’s destination) is under water. Seagoon next appears at Bloodnok’s house – he had been sleeping on a piano when the great dam burst. Bloodnok fits an outboard motor to the piano and the two set off. The villagers conclude that it is Queen Anne’s rain. Grytpype and Moriarty arrive and claim that the sky over Upper Dicker is leaking and that is why the rain is getting in. They plan to sue the Government for neglecting to keep the sky in good repair. On hearing that the villagers have are accusing Queen Anne of raining too long, Parliament sends a steam gunboat up the River Dicker. Meanwhile Bloodnok, Seagoon, and Eccles try to cross the River Dicker by iron bedstead. It is sunk by the gunboat. Ned has failed to get the money from the government, thus foiling Grytpype’s plan. Ned, Henry, and Minnie are saved from drowning when Queen Anne stops reigning.
10:00 AM - 9/9 [The Battle of Spion Kop] ★
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  • It is 1907 and the South African war has broken out. Bloodnok receives an intelligence report that the people attacking them are the enemy. Eccles arrives and is tricked into taking Bloodnok’s place in the front lines at the battle of Spion Kop. At dawn, as the battle is about to start, Moriarty is selling lucky charms to the soldiers. Back in England, the Battle of Spion Kop has received very bad press notices. Seagoon suggests that the reason it has flopped is that there isn’t one decent song in the whole battle. Minnie writes a stirring battle song with spoon accompaniment. The battle songs arrive in Africa and the British troops, spoons at the ready, attack. But the songs aren’t bullet-proof and they’re forced to retreat to the South Pole. Parliament have written off the Battle of Spion Kop as a dead loss. To save the honour of England, they plan a revival of that old favourite, the Battle of Waterloo. Moriarty is cast as Napoleon and Eccles as Wellington. With Eccles as Wellington, the French win Waterloo.
10:00 AM - 9/10 [Ned's Atomic Dustbin] ★
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  • The show opens with Greenslade consulting the BBC Censorship Department concerning the use of the word ‘holly’ in the show’s opening announcement. The plot proper begins after the first musical number. Ned Seagoon has invented a new anti-atomic dustbin to keep Britain’s rubbish atom-free. Parliament intends to find out if it’s possible for a man to go over Niagara Falls in a dustbin. Meanwhile, the Russians send agents Ecclesvich and Bluebottleski to get the plans of the British anti-atomic dustbin. Bloodnok, an expert in atomic explosions, is put in charge of the Niagara Falls operation. Eccles is chosen as pilot for the dustbin. Ned, upset at the debasement of his invention, sues the Government to get the plans back. Bluebottleski tries to use his powers of mesmerism to subdue Seagoon but only succeeds in crossing his eyes. They fail to rescue Eccles from a death worse than fate.
10:30 AM - 9/11 [Who is Pink Oboe?]
  • *Peter Sellers was absent because he developed throat trouble shortly before the recording. The four other actors were brought in by John Browell at very short notice. They take the various parts written for Sellers, with minimal rewriting: Dyall replaces Grytpype-Thynne, Connor replaces Willium and a few others, Stark replaces Henry Crun and Train (as Colonel Chinstrap) replaces Major Bloodnok
  • Moriarty challenges Grytpype to a duel, singing the Miserere at ten paces. Moriarty ends up in the water and is saved from drowning by Ned Seagoon, for which Ned is charged a fee of three shillings. World War I starts. A German spy has obtained the plans and measurements for the Union Jack. He must be stopped before he can build a prototype. Colonel Chinstrap sends Ned Seagoon on a mission to recover the plans. A decoy airship with Eccles aboard takes off, and meanwhile Seagoon travels to France by tricycle. Meanwhile, the airship The Plotless Story, with Eccles aboard, is captured by the Germans. Seagoon arrives in France. His contacts have him swallow an alarm clock. The Germans try to get Eccles to tell them where the British agent is hiding by tying him to a barrel of explosive saxophones. Ned is almost captured by Grytpype and Moriarty as he waits for his rendezvous with Pink Oboe, but they flee when they hear the clock ticking in his stomach, thinking it is a bomb. Pink Oboe (Willium) tells him of Eccles’s danger. Ned tries to rescue Eccles but is blown up by the exploding saxophones. Only the alarm clock is left.
10:30 AM - 9/12 [The Call of the West] ★
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  • In 1867, Ned Seagoon arrives in Boston and there encounters Grytpype and a fish crate containing Moriarty. They hire a spot on Ned’s covered wagon and set out for California. Moriarty is making saxophones which Grytpype plans to sell to the Indians. The covered wagon is attacked by Indians. Ned sends Davy Eccles off to Fort Fertangg for help. Nearby, Colonel Slocombe, Lootenant Hern-Hern, and Sergeant Fladoo of the US 6th Cavalry are visited by Chief Sitting Bull and Bear of the Nobblynee Indians, who threatens to go on the warpath if they don’t leave. Grytpype and Moriarty start selling saxophones to the Indians. Slocombe sends Hern-Hern to apprehend Grytpype and Moriarty. In Dodge City, quack Dr. Dennis Bloodnok hawks his thunder pills but is found to be a fake. Grytpype and Moriarty are discovered in the saloon by Hern-Hern. A card game between Hern-Hern, Eccles, and Bluebottle ends when Bluebottle’s mum arrives. Grytpype and Moriarty are being chased by Lootenant Hern-Hern and Bluebottle is being chased by his mum. Meanwhile, in Fort Fertangg Henry, Min, and Old Uncle Oscar prepare for the Indian attack. The show ends amid the war whoops and saxophones of the Nakertaker Indians.
11:00 AM - 9/13 [Dishonoured - Again] ★
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  • This show is a new production of the script first broadcast as 5/12 Dishonoured, or the Fall of Neddie Seagoon with slight variations in the text.
11:00 AM - 9/14 [The Scarlet Capsule] ★
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  • This show is a parody of the highly successful BBC TV serial of the time, Quatermass and the Pit. When workmen uncover an ancient skull, archaeologists Crun and Bannister are summoned, as is Professor Ned Quatermass. They find a scarlet thing buried in the mud – twenty feet long, large as an engine boiler, with an entrance on the side and a sealed compartment at the front. Min announces that from the ancient bones she’s reconstructed an Irish Stew. Willium reports that, while inside the thing, he heard a voice say ‘minardor’. Ned and Eccles succeed in opening the front compartment and there they find the skeletons of three blue serge suits and the bones of a bowler hat. The press, in the form of Bluebottle, arrives. Inside the scarlet capsule, something is throwing Irish Stew at people. They are all set to dynamite the thing, but Moriarty is still inside. Grytpype, who has an insurance policy on Moriarty, bribes Ned to blow up the thing anyway. The plan fails when it turns out Eccles hasn’t connected up the TNT. As Eccles goes into the thing to connect up the charge, Grytpype phones the insurance company, takes out a policy on him, and bribes Ned again to detonate the TNT. Andrew Timothy ends the show with a report from London Transport experts on what the thing was. The blue serge suits were the remains of three sit-down tube strikers. The capsule was a tube train that had been shunted into a siding and forgotten. The mystic word ‘minardor’ was in fact “mind the doors”.
11:30 AM - 9/15 [The Tay Bridge] ★
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  • It is 1878. Ned Seagoon runs a bridge-building company. The Scots are auditioning for a new Tay Bridge. Eccles, who has just finished the Forth Bridge (the first three fell down), is first. His plan is rejected. Next is Ned, who sings his plan for the new bridge across the Tay (where the cross-eyed haggis play). Moriarty is next and sings his plan to the tune of “Sur le Pont d’Avignon”. Ned wins the bridge-singing contest, but Grytpype and Moriarty sell him steel for the new bridge (the steel looks remarkably like Tower Bridge). Bloodnok and crew are blasting at the bridge site and succeed in blowing up Henry and Minnie. Lalkaka and Banerjee, shopping for a European-style bridge for Hindu Railways, Incorporated, show up. In their retinue is the Red Bladder, who recognises Bloodnok as the scoundrel who stole one of his 800 wives. Bluebottle and Eccles, demon bridge destroyers hired by Grytpype and Moriarty, blow up the bridge just as the first train is passing over it.
11:30 AM - 9/16 [The Gold Plate Robbery] ★
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  • Lord Ned Seagoon’s butler, Jeeves, quits when he wins the pools. Seagoon hires the destitute Moriarty as a replacement. Moriarty falls in a mock faint. Grytpype convinces Ned that it is a food trance and the only cure is a fifteen-course dinner and a drive round the grounds in the car with the gold plate in the back. With this ruse they steal Ned’s gold plate. Fifteen years later, Ned decides they’re not coming back and reports the theft. While he’s at the police station Moriarty is brought in. He tells them that Grytpype has brought the gold plate to Algiers. Seagoon sets off in pursuit and visits the British Ambassador in Marrakech, Major Bloodnok. Bloodnok has just had a visit from the Red Bladder, who tells him where he can find guns, bullets, and drip-dry shirts after being bribed by a gold plate. The Red Bladder tells Seagoon that the Captain of the Foreign Legion fort of Sidi Bel Abbes has a lot of gold plate. Seagoon finds out that the Captain is indeed Grytpype-Thynne, who has had the gold plate melted down into gold bullets. Grytpype shoots Seagoon, who gleefully proclaims that he is going to die rich.
12:00 PM - 9/17 [The £50 Cure] ★
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  • Kenneth Connor, part of the variety act Le Trois Toms des Acton, breaks both his legs on stage. Doctors Grytpype and Moriarty examine his wallet and diagnose Kenny as suffering from advanced poverty. They prescribe him £50 to cure it. They keep his legs until they’re mended and send Kenny off on a pair of skates. He goes to the Bank of England to have the prescription filled. The disguised Moriarty and Grytpype rob him of the money and then, posing again as the doctors, write him a fresh prescription and send him to a National Health Hospital. There they shovel coins into his mouth. He’s taken from the hospital and incarcerated in Holloway Women’s Prison, but released for 24 hours to try to track down the villains and regain possession of his legs. However, he remains chained to the prison. Meanwhile, Min boils up Henry’s laundry into a soup that turns Old Uncle Oscar into a chicken. Connor shows up, seeking lodging for the night. Min offers him the attic, where he could stay with the two gentlemen doctors. The police arrive. Grytpype and Moriarty are surrounded. They threaten to put Kenny’s legs in the mincer, but under attack from Bluebottle’s Finchley gang they give up. They invite everyone inside for a bowl of nice laundry soup. With the entire cast turned into chickens, the Goons and the orchestra sing “We’ll Gather Lilacs”.

SERIES 10's OUTSTANDING RADIO FEATURES ['59-'60]

8:00 AM - 10/1 [A Christmas Carol] ★
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  • After a bit of a music hall joke-type intro, the main plot begins. The miserly Scrooge proclaims the death of his partner, Marley, and shoots him to make sure. Ned Scratchett puts three sugars into his boss’s tea instead of two and dives into the cup to retrieve the extra one. There he finds his office mate, Eccles. Scrooge refuses to let his clerks off early on Christmas Eve. Scrooge entrusts Eccles to deposit his Christmas pudding, full of gold threepenny bits and worth nearly £50,000, in the bank on his way home. They visit Scratchett’s home where they find Grytpype and Moriarty disguised as Ned’s twin sons. The fiends steal the Christmas pudding and escape first by silent movie piano and then by ladder, pursued by Ned on his piano. Ned runs the villains to ground in Wales, where he returns a match that used to belong to them. Grytpype and Moriarty having met their match, Ned returns to his home with the pudding where he finds Scrooge reformed. The plot peters out there with the cast finishing by singing “White Christmas”.
8:00 AM - 10/2 [The Tale of Men's Shirts] ★
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  • 1938 Germany declares war in all directions. British military brass immediately spring to action and start writing their memoirs. In 1942 the German High Command concocts “Operation Burnbaum” – a tasteless, odourless, colourless, but explosive chemical will be sprayed on the tails of British military shirts. The moment the wearer sits down, the heat from his body causes the chemical to explode. The soldier will be neutralised (or worse than that!). The plan is first discovered at Whitehall, where the generals are hard at work on their memoirs. Ned Seagoon, in the Military Forensic Laboratory, investigates. He needs a volunteer to try to make the test shirt-tails explode and consults the man with more experience of shirt-tails than anybody – Major Bloodnok. Seagoon sets sail for the continent on a ship run by Grytpype and Moriarty and piloted by Bluebottle. Grytpype turns out to be an agent for the German Navy. They are captured and put in a Prisoner of War camp full of British soldiers who vowed to die rather than be captured. They discover the whole German plan, escape from the camp, and, remembering the story of how an English officer hid from the Germans in a cupboard, phone Bloodnok to have cupboards airlifted to them. The cupboard arrives – with Bloodnok inside. The show offers two happy endings. In the first one, the American Fifth Cavalry rescues them from the Germans. In the second, Ned Seagoon marries an elephant.
8:30 AM - 10/3 [The Chinese Legs] ★
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  • The show starts with the introduction of ‘fon’, a new word. Moriarty and Grytpype visit Ned and inform him that he wasn’t born in Wales. He was born astride the border of China and British India, and thus his legs are Chinese. He pays Grytpype for a passport for his legs and in the meantime walks about on his hands. Ned visits Bloodnok, the Registrar of Military Leg Certificates on the British India frontier, to solve the mystery of his legs’ nationality. There, his legs are arrested and imprisoned by the British Leg Police. The Chinese, having discovered that a pair of Chinese legs is in a British prison, pay Grytpype to capture them and bring them back to China. Grytpype and Moriarty unscrew Ned’s legs and escape with them. The situation of Ned’s legs is debated in the United Nations by Min, Henry, and Old Uncle Oscar. The great World War III for Ned’s legs ensues. Bloodnok and the Chinese make Ned ever-escalating offers for possession of his legs. Finally, by moving the furniture around, Ned is able to turn the tables on the Chinese.
8:30 AM - 10/4 [Robin's Post] ★
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  • Lord Seagoon is holding a masked ball in his ancestral home of Robin’s Post. The ball happens to be made of gold. Grytpype and Moriarty fuse the gas mantles. Since the band can’t read their music in the dark, Seagoon plays the drums and sings the dance tune. By the light of dawn he finds himself in the middle of a field – the golden ball, and Robin’s Post, are gone. He’s apprehended by Constable Willium and put in the loony bin. With the help of Bloodnok and the law firm of Whacklow, Futtle, and Crun, Bannister, he escapes. Meanwhile, Grytpype and Moriarty are driving Ned’s missing house, the dance still continuing inside, along the King’s highway. They intend to ransom the more important guests to Eastern Potentates. On the highway they encounter Bluebottle and Eccles, who thus are able to tell Seagoon when he phones that they saw his house on a lorry on the Great North Road. When Seagoon arrives, he finds the door to Robin’s Post floating in a nearby canal, and inside the party’s still going on. A rather weak ending, but it’s near enough for jazz.
9:00 AM - 10/5 [The Silver Dubloons] ★
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  • On the sea coast in Cornwall, Ned Seagoon wants to borrow a shovel from Grytpype and Moriarty, as he’s heard that during the Armada a Spanish galleon went down off Brown Cove, and at low tide you can dig for Spanish doubloons. Moriarty feigns illness of the wallet, curable only by a tablespoonful of silver doubloons three times a day. They give Seagoon a shovel in return for him helping cure the Count. For weeks, Ned digs up doubloons for the con men, delivering them to their hotel in Paris. They agree to arrange for a holiday for Ned – up the lift from his basement in Bloodnok’s flats. For the second part of his holiday, he visits Count Valentine Dyall in his old country manor. There he discovers that the Count’s son (his son Dyall) collects silver milk bottle tops, collects them in sacks, takes them away, and buries them. The show ends with Grytpype and Moriarty unable to pay their 10,000 franc restaurant bill because their doubloons turn out to be milk bottle tops.
9:00 AM - 10/6 [The Last Smoking Seagoon] ★
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  • At its meeting of shareholders, the Imperial Ascot Tobacco Company discovers that its only customer, Ned Seagoon, is giving up smoking. Grytpype convinces him to keep up the habit with his latest invention – an all-filter cigarette with a tobacco tip. In his attempts to kick the habit, Ned consults doctors Moriarty, who removes his clothes, and Bloodnok, who removes his wallet. To escape Grytpype and the temptation of his cigarettes, Ned stows away on a Hindu ship. He ends up hiding all the way to South America – and back again. Back in England he hides in Bloodnok’s military museum, where Dennis steals his watch, his last worldly possession. Desperate, Ned signs a contract with the Imperial Ascot Tobacco Company to smoke one cigarette a day. The catch is that each one is ninety feet long. Ned tries to escape in Bloodnok’s rice paper Chinese balloon, but Moriarty, in his tobacco-powered Zeppelin, shoots him down. He ends up in hospital, where Dr. Cameron offers him a cigarette. The episode ends with Greenslade announcing “Yes, that was it. The last of them. So, bye now.”