One of today’s hottest topics in 2022’s GSPS newsletters, and among the fans of many other comedies, is censorship. In particular, it’s the BBC and the cuts which are made to shows to fit in with the standards of content which prevail today. It’s not a new topic. This article by John Repsch comes from Newsletter no.117, which was published in 2006.
Imagine a young Spike embarking on The Goon Show now instead of 55 years ago. The world of 2006 presents a markedly different kettle of eggshells and, bearing in mind the Milligan’s bevy of barbed comments about the BBC’s overbearing influence on his scripts, would the idea have even passed the germination stage?
In fact, the ongoing conflict he had with the straight-laced, nit-picking Corporation was so stressful that he blamed it for helping cause his nervous breakdown. His love of experimenting, for example, was always being frustrated. As he complained in 1957, the show “must continue to be experimental. And the support for the kind of experiments that I want to make simply isn’t there.” Was that due to the BBC’s inability to cater to his demands or was it unwillingness? Michael Bentine thought that the BBC was on a different wavelength from the Goons: “The BBC didn’t understand the show anyway. It was schoolboy humour, that was the whole point. It was for people with imagination, and the BBC hierarchy didn’t have a clue how to deal with it.”
They thought it was called “The Go On Show.” Peter Eton himself claimed that during his two-year tenure as producer, the show was under constant threat: “The Bumbling Bureaucrats of the BBC presented me with far more problems than the Goons themselves. Altogether I logged thirty attempts by them to stop the show… The Goon Show started off as a variety show – it wasn’t a comedy show. There were all sorts of laws in the BBC’s ‘Blue Book’. I can remember one law: you mustn’t have more than 20 lines of dialogue before a musical note is played. I told Spike this and we had one sketch with these awful noises coming in after 20 lines. The BBC ‘Blue Book’ was the most extraordinary thing. It is out of date now. You weren’t allowed to say all sorts of things that everyone said every five minutes. We used to use the word ‘Berk’ in The Goon Show – we even had a character called Berk – and after we’d been going about six weeks, I remember Michael Standing, who was the head of my department, getting up at a meeting and saying we must no longer use the word ‘Berk’. So my mate, Tom Ronald, got up and he said, ‘I’m just starting a series with Marie Burke – what am I going to do?’ But I mean, the do’s and don’t’s were quite ridiculous.”
Eton always found much to laugh about in dustbins and lavatories – a penchant not shared by the BBC. So when, in an early show, Major Bloodnok received an OBE for emptying dustbins in the heat of battle, Auntie had cause to be twice as flustered because it happened just after two of her own executives had received theirs! Perhaps the nearest the show came to getting the chop was in The Starlings, where Sellers’s portrayal of Duchess Boil de Spudswell bore an unholy resemblance to that of the Queen. But for the determination of chief announcer John Snagge in defending Spike’s right to write freely, the show might not have survived to bring us more “rank bad taste”. Sadly, Sellers’ fruity impersonations of Sir Winston Churchill were forced into semi-retirement after Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest, in which the PM, when asked what he was doing under the table, replied, “I’m looking for a blasted telegram.” Under no circumstances could any display of disrespect towards such distinguished figures of the establishment be countenanced (or words of similar flatulence).
An excerpt from The Choking Horror made it into the UK original but not the Transcription Services’ reissue. Here, famous London buildings and monuments are starting to grow hair:
BLOODNOK: The Albert Hall is a dreadful sight. (Cut starts here.) Its hair is hanging down its back.
MINNIE: That’s – that’s nothing. Graham Sutherland’s portrait of Sir Winston Churchill is completely hidden.
PETER: (Churchill) Th-thank heavens for that. (Cut ends here.)
It was at the start of the 4th series that the show’s producer suddenly acquired much greater editing power. Up until then very little editing had been possible but, with the introduction of magnetic tape, ill-favoured ad-libs could easily be extracted. Aware of this new facility, the actors ad-libbed all the more and the occasional vulgarity, such as the rhyming slang character Hugh Jampton, sneaked safely onto the airwaves. Several, though, caused a row after their first transmission and were winkled out before the repeat.
The recordings for the Transcription Services have suffered many an unkind cut in their reduction to 27 minutes. With the BBC’s dynamic dread of offending foreign patrons, they have spoilt many a good gag. Anything suspected of giving the slightest offence was censored, such as any mentions of Christmas in The Mighty Wurlitzer and most of the Ray “Chief Ellinga” “Red Bladder” Ellington coloured jokes and references to him as “Black Rod”. The Battle of Spion Kop and The Terrible Revenge of Fred Fu Manchu disappeared en masse. As for our old friends Lalkaka and Banerjee, they are naturally credited as “our old friends Lalkaka and Banerjee” in the publicity material whenever they appear. This hopefully helps prepare any sensitive souls in India who might otherwise get palpitations from the “Goodness, gracious me” gabblings. (And is there any truth in the rumour that these gentlemen’s conversations contain dodgy Hindustani dialogue?)
In Harry’s script of The Last Goon Show of All, this part of the scene, where Crun is inside a piano tuning it with a chicken, is crossed out:
CRUN: Min, are you sure the correct way to tune an upright is with a Chinese chicken?
MIN: My mother swore by it.
CRUN: Well, it’s not working this time.
MIN: Well, try swearing.
CRUN: Ahhh wait – there’s a label on its leg. Ahhh, here’s the trouble. It says: “Manufacturer’s Warning: This chicken is a Bombay Duck.”
MIN: But I heard it clucking – sideways.
CRUN & MIN BOTH REINSTATE THAT THEY’VE HEARD IT CLUCKING.
GRAMS: LOUD QUACKING.
CRUN: (Angry) It’s too late for that, brother, you’re a phoney. Verily thou comest to us and sayeth Cluck Cluck in Chinkipoo, and thou really
meanest Quack Quack in Wog. (Cut ends here.)
GRAMS: ONE CHICKEN CLUCK, FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY ONE DUCK QUACK, FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY ONE CAT MEOWW, AS IF ONE ANIMAL.
CRUN: Min, it’s a chicken-duck-cat.
MIN: Does it lay eggs?
CRUN: No, it lays kittens.
Meanwhile from the same show, part of this supposedly risqué piece was never performed:
THYNNE: (to Ned) Here is a preview of next winter in Jimmy Grafton’s attic!
GRAMS: HOWLING WIND.
(Cut starts here.)
OLD ACTOR: (PRE-RECORD) ‘Tis winter – sleet, rain and trousers are falling, the monkey’s still doing it in the soup, and the snow lies heavy on the slopes of Raquel Welch. And Ohhhhh. Oww.
GRAMS: WHOOSH AND SPLOSH AS A CUSTARD PIE HITS HIM.
NED: Johnny Vyvyen! (Cut ends here.)
THYNNE: Can your legs stand another recorded winter like that?
NED: Well, I don’t stand all winter. Sometimes I lie down. It depends who she is.
I remember the producer John Browell attending one of our meetings as a guest speaker and telling me he had often had to edit out doubles entendres, even from conversations between Eccles and Bluebottle. In his book The Goon Show Companion, Roger Wilmut wrote, “Of course, many of the remarks that caused trouble twenty years ago would pass unnoticed on the BBC today.” But he wrote that in 1976. In a society currently awash in political correctness – where the nursery rhyme “Baa, Baa Black Sheep” has recently been recommended re-wording as “Baa, Baa Rainbow Sheep” and where we have been advised to remove the word “Christmas” from Christmas cards – it would seem that most of The Goon Show is prey to the p.c. police’s scissors. Soon to go – if it hasn’t already – will be The Call of the West’s reference to Grytpype and Moriarty’s selling of saxophones to the Nobblynee red-Indians. Lootenant Hern-Hern says it’s causing unemployment among white musicians. If it’s still in there, don’t tell the Commission for Racial Equality.
Later in The Call of the West, Minnie and Henry are discussing the approach of attacking Indians:
MINNIE: What’s that?
HENRY: It’s the war-whoops of the Nakertacker Indians.
MINNIE: Are they the ones that commit atrocities?
HENRY: Yes, Min.
MINNIE: I’ll go upstairs and get ready.
So as not to risk ruffling a few feminist feathers, the bit about atrocities has since been cut. And are the feminists brandishing their rolling pins at this one yet, from Shangri-la Again? –
SEAGOON: Bloodnok, where’s your wife?
BLOODNOK: My wife? Er, my wife won’t be coming with us, old lad. You see, well, she can’t leave her bed.
SEAGOON: Why not?
BLOODNOK: I’ve sewn her in the mattress.
SEAGOON: You scoundrel – that’s matricide!
Also at risk are the hilarious appearances of Lew the Jewish impresario, aka Ernie Cash. In The Greenslade Story he has good news for the new star announcer: “Eccles, Schmeccles, my lovely boy, you’re going to make a lot of money for me.”
And from Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest:
LEW: The Sheriff’s been on the blower to me. He says unless you pay him £2,000’ ransom, he’s going to kill you.
SEAGOON: £2,000? What shall I do?
LEW: Offer him £1,750 and take a chance on it.
SEAGOON: I haven’t got a penny on me.
LEW: Don’t worry, Schmulika. I’ll send a geezer on his way with the gelt to get you out of schtuck.
Lew’s archetypal preoccupation with the purse strings might well get a few liberals hot under the collar, and did upset Max Geldray. We can but hope that the admirable trait of Jewish people generally for making jokes about themselves, and Sellers’ own half-Jewish parentage, will preserve Lew’s esteemed financial escapades for some while yet.
On the other hand, even safer than the day they were first aired are the homosexual quips. Flowerdew’s brief, camp appearances – “Oooh, I could spit!” – might not be so brief nowadays. Nor exchanges such as this one from The Telephone:
GRYTPYPE: You’ll pardon the mess. We can’t help it really – we’re bachelors.
SEAGOON: Why don’t you get married?
GRYTPYPE: I would, but Moriarty doesn’t love me.
In the conservative era when that was written, homosexuality was so frowned upon that people went around with knotted eyebrows. And certain sexual practices, even carried out in private, could win the perpetrators a warm welcome to life imprisonment. Ironically, while in today’s homo bonhomie climate such dialogue would be actively encouraged, this would also have taken the edge off the subject and possibly off Spike’s appetite for it.
Conversely, size still matters. The numerous allusions to Seagoon’s mighty girth and slight height may nowadays render any vertically challenged, generously proportioned human-type personage, in possession of a healthy inferiority complex, purple with apoplectic pique. References such as Duck’s Disease (short legs), Sir Cumference, “a ball of fat” and “I’ll have a crane pick you up” may now go down like a lead balloon amongst those who recognize themselves as such.
These musings you are reading were sparked off by an interview earlier this year on BBC Radio 4’s Feedback, which is printed after this article. However, our own Steam Count raised the subject long ago in the April ’93 edition of the Newsletter. This followed the restoration of a batch of Goon Shows under the administration of Dirk Flywheel Shyster & Flywheel Maggs. Though Maggs had actually reinstated some old cuts – such as ‘fluffs’ and time-savers – other stuff, especially of a racial nature, he described as “not broadcastable” and removed. Had he decided it was safer to risk upsetting a less vociferous minority instead? “The BBC is obliged not to offend any part of its listenership if this can possibly be avoided,” he explained in the July edition. “It’s arguable that we have offended as many members of GSPS as we would people of Afro-Caribbean origin if we had left the cuts in. However, I suspect that Afro-Caribbean members of the GSPS will understand that references to slavery with regard to the character Ray Ellington was asked to play are likely to be uncomfortable, if not offensive. Other references, such as “Uncle Tom” and “having the whitewash brush to you” were also felt to be unfortunate. I might add I consulted an Afro-Caribbean member of staff before cutting the tapes. They were genuinely upset by these lines… None of us can afford to assume time has stood still – the BBC caters to a much wider cultural group nowadays, and it would be terrible to deny new listeners access to the magic of The Goons by ignoring their right to be treated with consideration and dignity.”
Well, if that’s the attitude Spike would have to face, starting out today, The Goon Show would not be around for anyone to pick at. If we must talk about rights, what about The Goon Show’s right to remain unmauled? After its ten turbulent years in the making, during which Spike was mentally hung, drawn and quartered for his art, and the show was bombarded by the likes of The Times describing it as “smutty rubbish”, the Archbishop of York saying it was “somewhat subversive” and MPs in the House of Commons demanding that it be “taken from the airwaves forthwith”, we should by now have simply accepted it for the sacred cow send-up that it is.
When, for example, Major Bloodnok makes inappropriate references to black people as “wogs”, he does so because that represents the imperial attitude that officers of the British Empire had towards colonials. Removing these references not only airbrushes out evidence that we used to talk like that, but also weakens the Major’s character and eats away at Spike’s splendiferous audio-Technicolor images. It’s high time that Bloodnok’s blunderbuss showed these marauding self-appointed guardians of public morals the intolerance they are showing the Goons and blasted them back down their personholes.
The Goon Show is of its time and I suspect that most of us want it as it was first broadcast. The date of that first broadcast should be stated when today’s announcers introduce it. If it then offends people, that’s just too bad and… But wait – while my John Bull printing outfit starts melting on the next few lines of libellous bile – is this a shaving mirror I see before me or is it a CD? Whatever it is, I can’t believe it – there’s more Goon Show on it than was even broadcast!
Brought to us by the latest gas-driven technology and the wonders of Corporation schizophrenia, we can now enjoy on compact disc what isn’t there on BBC 7. Clearly, while full protection from distressing words and noises is granted to all those geniuses tuning in to this BBC archive station and not expecting to hear archive material there, anyone actually going out to buy a CD of the stuff is considered sufficiently compos mentis to expect to hear archive material on it, and thus needs no protection at all. Source recordings for Goon Show restoration are diverse, as our man in the white mac and plastic gloves, Ted Kendall, explains: “Occasionally, as in The Call of the West, I’ve acquired the original Transcription line tape and had all the material that was performed that night. About five bits of it had never been transmitted. On CD it runs for 33 minutes. Also the tape of The Affair of the Lone Banana turned up which had not been edited. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin now runs over 30 minutes. With material from researcher Keith Wickham, I can cut between studio tapes of various kinds and off-air domestic tape. We try to get back to the original version. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t. And you have to make a decision as to whether the textural quality is good enough. There are a few shows where the Transmission and Transcription Services have different material in. I get them as near to complete as I can, sometimes with the entire musical play-out. But there are limits because the show has to flow. Basically, if I do a Goon Show for the Beeb, they put out what I submit. They say they want the most complete version, and the CD versions are the most complete ever.”
Ted also stresses that the continuing of restoring the shows depends on sales. So, if this has got you wondering what you are missing, and you think you are more likely to laugh than take offence at Spike’s freshly reinstated indiscretions – now’s the time to buy!
End credit: (Whispered thanks to Bob Bray for helping out with his wealth of offensive material in the large brown envelope.)
The Goon Show Preservation Society 