Ill Met by Goonlight

From The Goon Show Depository

"Ill Met by Goonlight"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.Series: 7
Episode: 23
Written bySpike Milligan
Based onIll Met by Moonlight
AnnouncerWallace Greenslade
Produced byPat Dixon
Music
Recording
Number
TLO 24461
First broadcast14 March 1957 (1957-03-14)
Running time31:03
Episode Order
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"The Missing Boa Constrictor"
The Goon Show series 7
List of episodes

Ill Met by Goonlight is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the twenty-third show in the seventh series.

A pre-recording session took place Sunday 10 February 1957, 5pm. at The Camden Theatre, Camden Town, London (DLO 28461/B). The recording for transmission was created later that same Sunday, also at The Camden, at 9pm (TLO 28461).

The first Home Service broadcast was the following Thursday at 8.30pm 14 March 1957, its ratings were 1.9 million.

The show was repeated:

  • Wednesday 8pm, 18 March 1957, on the Light Programme to 3.0 million listeners.
  • Friday 12.00 noon, 11 September 1983 on Radio 4 in Smash of the Day (as Ill Met by Goon light [sic]).

Transcription Service Synopsis

Here is a tale of adventure to fire anyone's imagination! The scene is set in Crete in 1942, where Lieutenant Seagoon is on a daring mission to capture General von Gutern. His mission cannot fail, for he is armed with the latest and most deadly secret weapon - an army sock filled with luke-warm spaghetti. But unfortunately anything can happen in a Goon Show – and it does.

Music

Technical

Originally recorded on TLO 24461 (15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House). The TLO 24461 master tape no longer exists, and the version of the show included on The Goon Show Compendium Vol 6 was compiled from the TGS disc, the POTG master tape and a domestic recording of the original transmission .[1]

Show Notes

  • Ill Met by Goonlight, a script written by Spike alone which sent up the newly released wartime movie Ill Met by Moonlight starring Dirk Bogarde and based on a true commando mission to capture a German general in Crete.
  • This show required the sound effect of a sackful of spaghetti being flung at someone, and – striving for authenticity – Spike couldn't capture exactly the noise he wanted. In desperation, he asked the BBC canteen to cook him some spaghetti, took his sock off, poured the spaghetti in, took it down to the studio and recorded it… only to find it still didn't sound right.
  • The show also saw the debut of a character referred to as Cyril based on a Jewish impresario acquaintance of Peter's (‘I seen 'im! I seen 'im!’).

References

  1. ^ Kendall, Ted (2012). The Goon Show Compendium Vol 6 (Booklet 2). BBC Worldwide. p. 13. ISBN 978-1408-468548.