h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone know what stories these bits are from?

1. Seagoon and Bloodnok are attacked by what sounds like an enormous army or something. The noise dies down and one of them says something like 'Gad, that native was clever. He only had a spear.'

2. Seagoon et al go up in a wooden spaceship to put out the sun with a bucket of water

3. In order to get up Everest as quickly as possible they use the lift inside

Oh boy! Three episodes I've never heard to track down and enjoy!

I recognise those clips, but, much like Bond films, I can't remember which episodes they're from...

Number 1 sounds like it might be from The Nasty Affair at the Burami Oasis.

Number 2 - no idea!

Number 3 sounds like it's from The Internal Mountain (or possibly The Mountain Eaters)

You could do worse than go to http:www.goon.org as well as news:alt.fan.goons site. This guy as http://members.aol.com/aawgoon/ is a big fan as well!

...and this guy: http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/7136/gindex.htm, who has quite a lot of scripts as well. It wasn't the Burami Oasis one...

The first two my Dad told me about - he used to listen to them when they were originally broadcast (damn him for being in the right place at the right time! )

The other one certainly isn't the Mountain Eaters, but I haven't heard the Internal Mountain one...

Jack Train appeared in at least two Goon Shows as Chinstrap: Shifting Sands and The Spy, or Who Is Pink Oboe? On the latter occasion he was one of four actors hastily called in to replace Peter Sellers, who had lost his voice. The others were Valentine Dyall, Kenneth Connor and Graham Stark.
'Ay don't mind if ay do' originated in ITMA, which was even more catchphrase-riddled than The Goons.

By an interesting twist, Valentine Dyall also played Gagravarr (sp?) in the radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Just occurred to me........

However many surrealists you have about (and let's face it, there are quite a few), I don't think anyone will ever be able to match the Goons. Especially through television - the Goon Show could only ever have worked on radio.

Interesting point about Bingbotten pre-dating South Park's Kenny. To think that most South Park fans have probably never heard an episode of the Goons.......

M@x

Hang on, that's a point.......

The article is great, but the "bit part character" section is a bit duff......... The cockney known as "mate" is called Willium - and where's the bit on Henry and Minnie (my personal favourites)?

Er - I've definitely finished now.

Um err veeeery guud.

Has anyone else noticed the similarities between Eccles and the hapless Kenny in the cartoon series South Park; then there is Cartman who is reminiscent of Neddy and so on. Actually if you think about it the plot structures are very similar to the goons. I think I'll get out the few tapes and scripts I have and do a little more research "Any excuse"

It's a fair point - Bluebottle used to get "deaded" practically every week, just like Kenny in South Park. But there the similarity ends, I feel! South Park is brilliant in its own way, but its humour is observational while the Goons' was pure surrealism. And you could never have a swinish Englishman like Gritpype Thynne in South Park. But good luck with the research - I only wish I was going with you, but it's me leg you know...

I did see an article where Nick Park & Stone said they had grown up with "British comedies", so perhaps as well as Monty Python, they had been influenced by the Goons when young. That's my theory at least.

I was with you up to the point where you said "grown up"...

Number 2 is from "The Fireball of Milton Street". The same episode has Bluebottle on top of a ladder, trying to toast a piece of bread on a fork using the sun, to see if it really is on fire. He drops the fork, and Eccles (who was holding the ladder) climbs up to bring it to him. Then Bluebottle asks "Who's holding the ladder?", Eccles does that "Ooooohhhh..." thing, then they both fall down.
This episode also has one of my favourite gags, where Greenslade rabbits on for a bit about the mechanism for the sun being on fire (lots of scientiffic techno-babble), then Crun says "It's not as simple as all that..."

Seagoon: "Eccles, stand on my shoulders and pull me up."
Eccles: "I'd like to see 'em do that on television."