Starring Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, with John Snagge
Announcer: Wallace Greenslade
Music by Max Geldray and The Ray Ellington Quartet
The Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
Script: Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens
Producer: Pat Dixon
Recorded: Sunday 11 March 1956
First Broadcast: Tuesday 13 March 1956 on the BBC Home Service
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?
The Goon Show Preservation Society 