Starring Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan
Announcer: Wallace Greenslade
Music by Max Geldray and The Ray Ellington Quartet
The Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
Script: Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes
Producer: Peter Eton
Recorded: Sunday 18 September 1955
First Broadcast : Tuesday 20 September 1955 on the BBC Home Service
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.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 