Before political correctness, there was the Goon Show.

I started to think about The Goon Show last week when someone sent me a Spike Milligan card, and right on the front was one of his silly poems:

"Today I saw a little worm

Wriggling on his belly

Perhaps he'd like to come inside

And see what's on the telly."

The Goon Show ran from 1951 to 1960, with "The Very Last Goon Show of All Time" in 1972.  If you are too young to remember them, you missed a treat.

Peter Sellers, 1925-1980
Harry Secombe, 1921-2001
Spike Milligan, 1918-2002

Spike Milligan was the driving force behind the Goon Show, and wrote most of the episodes, although the show's strength was its improvisation.  Spike was the one who was most "on the edge" and his "silly poems" showed a very childlike quality.  More of his silly poems .....

"Said Hamlet to Ophelia

I'd draw a sketch of thee

What kind of pencil shall I use?

2B or not 2B?"

"My sister Laura's bigger than me

And lifts me up quite easily

I can't lift her, I've tried and tried

She must have something heavy inside."

Milligan often joked that he wanted to be buried in a washing machine, "Just to confuse the archaeologists" but he is actually buried with a headstone that reads (in Irish) "I told you I was sick."

For more about the Goon Show, go to www.thegoonshow.net and you can actually download episodes of the show at www.thegoonshow.net/downloads.asp.

The official site of The Goon Show Preservation Society is at www.thegoonshow.org.uk.