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 Larry Stephens
Producer: Charles Chilton
Recorded: Sunday 20 October 1957
First Broadcast: Monday 21 October 1957 on the BBC Home Service
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”.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 