A Kick up the Archives – NL173 – The Goon Show Preservation Society

Originally published – September 2021

by Mark Cousins

But first some news…
André Maranne died on 12 April 2021 at the age of 94. Rather as Burt Kwouk had made a good career from playing stereotypical orientals, Maranne seemed to appear whenever a British film called for a stereotypical French man. This
culminated when he appeared as Sgt François Chevalier in six Pink Panther films
www.hollywoodreporter.com

The Goons

Secombe & Friends – ARTV 1966 Goon Reunion – Fully restored

Michael Bentine

Scotland Yard Ice Cream

Introduction – The Horse Show. It’s A Square World

Patricia O’Connor talks to Michael Bentine. From her TV series A Head of Our Times (see pic)

Peter Sellers

The Truth about Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers
www.thewrap.com

Sophia Loren & Peter Sellers Interview
g ettyimages.co.uk

Interview with Steve Allen (clip) – 1964

Sellers drumming from the same show

The famous Parkinson interview – 1974

Peter Sellers Interview | Cinema Showcase (1978) Jim Whaley

Peter Sellers Interview 1978 Brian Linehan’s City Lights

Bobbie Wygant Interviews Peter Sellers for “Revenge of the Pink Panther” 1978

KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas 1978
digital.library.unt.edu

Peter Sellers- Interview (Being There/Pink Panther) broadcast on April 17th 1980.

Peter Sellers full interview with Gene Shalit on NBC’s Today Show (1980)

The Interviews: Peter Sellers

Peter Sellers Interview – Close Up (part 1 0f 2)

Notes From The War Room:
www.criterion.com

Too pinko for Dan or How Slim Pickens replaced Peter Sellers as Major Kong in Dr Strangelove
flashbak.com

Here’s a nice slide show of more than 40 pictures of Peter Sellers
museviews.org

A Skype interview with Film Director Peter Medak and Lab Mag publisher and BritWeek Chairman Nigel Daly OBE

Revenge Of The Pink Panther trailer

There Used to Be a Me: Peter Sellers: Comic Genius.
This new play stars Alfred Molina and a sample of it can be heard here.
amazon.co.uk
aukstudios.uk
comedy.co.uk
spitefulpuppet.com

An interesting interview with Alfred Molina on the subject

Some occurrences of Inspector Clouseau from Revenge of the Pink Panther

Blake Edwards on Peter Sellers

Call Me Daddy – Original British TV 1967 version of the play that became Hoffman – on Facebook

A while back we featured many of Sellers’ full-length movies. Here’s two that escaped!

The Dock Brief – complete film

The Millionairess – complete film

For those interested in Peter Sellers’ last wife, Lynne Frederick, here’s Lynne The English Rose (2019) a documentary that is naturally somewhat biased in her favour.
Trailer

Documentary

Harry Secombe

Harry Secombe talks to Michael Bentine on Songs Of Praise in 1996

Secombe’s Secret Diet – on Facebook

Did you know that Harry has his own theatre?
harrysyouththeatre.co.uk

Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes with Jonathan Ross

Spike reading Badjelly The Witch
www.slaphappylarry.com

A Show Called Fred – 25 minutes of one

Spike biopic – put an hour by, it’s worth it. Lots of folk doing snippets, and lots of Spike clips. 2014. It’s called, Love, Light and Peace.

American comedian Scott White reviews Spike’s appearance on The Muppet Show.

Spike Milligan in Autumn 1972

Furious Spike Milligan says we are living in a dark age. 1970. It’s not a comedy thing.

For those of you who are Goons fans and don’t already know then you should write 18th September 2021 in your diary right now. The Goon Show Preservation Society has organised its annual knees-up, courtesy of Mother Brown. Covid and Boris Johnson notwithstanding, this festival of idiocy will take place at The Heath Robinson Museum at Pinner in North London
www.heathrobinsonmuseum.org
This will be a Covid free event, so please don’t bring any of your own!

Finally, if you’re not already tuned in, why not take a listen to Goonpod? It’s about more than just “The Goon Show”. Subjects covered so far include: The Great Bank Robbery, The Muppet Show, Peter & Sophia (LP, 1960), The Call Of The West, Dr Strangelove, Larry Stephens, Down Among the Z Men, The Man Who Never Was and I Was Monty’s Treble with the promise of lots more to come. It all happens here!

Soft Beds, Hard Battles (1974) – Goon Pod

The first half of the 1970s was not a particularly fruitful period for Peter Sellers, at least in terms of critical and commercial success. He made a slew of films which failed to take off or, in some cases, weren't even released. Some of his worst films date from this period, chiefly the execrable Where Does It Hurt?, which we previously covered on Goon Pod with Paul Litchfield and Jeremy Limb.Those two return this week to tackle Sellers' 1974 wartime 'comedy' Soft Beds, Hard Battles, in which he takes on six roles – an elderly French General, a gung-ho British Major, a sinister Gestapo officer, a Japanese Prince, the President of France and, er, Adolf Hitler.While not as bad as Where Does It Hurt? (few things are), SBHB is a bit of a slog, an attempt by the Boulting Brothers to cash in on the then-vogue for sex comedies without fully committing, while weighing the film down with ill-judged set-pieces such as a group of German officers farting, belching and dying.It was during the production that Sellers embarked upon a six-week romance with Liza Minnelli, which was front-page news and rather got in the way of filming. An unhappy affair all round, the Boultings ended up losing a lot of money, the film was generally panned and didn't do much business at the box office.Join Jeremy, Paul and Tyler as they try to make sense of it all!