The Goon Show
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The Goon Show
''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled ''Crazy People''; subsequent series had the title ''The Goon Show''. The show's chief creator and main writer was Spike Milligan, who performed the series alongside Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and (for the first two series) Michael Bentine. The scripts mixed ludicrous plots with surreal humour, puns, catchphrases and an array of bizarre sound effects. There were also light music interludes. Some of the later episodes feature electronic effects devised by the fledgling BBC Radiophonic Workshop, many of which were reused by other shows for decades. Elements of the show satirised contemporary life in 1950s Britain, parodying aspects of show business, commerce, industry, art, politics, diplomacy, the police, the military, educ ...
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Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in '' The Pink Panther'' series. Born in Southsea, Portsmouth, Sellers made his stage debut at the Kings Theatre, Southsea, when he was two weeks old. He began accompanying his parents in a variety act that toured the provincial theatres. He first worked as a drummer and toured around England as a member of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). He developed his mimicry and improvisational skills during a spell in Ralph Reader's wartime Gang Show entertainment troupe, which toured Britain and the Far East. After the war, Sellers made his radio debut in ''ShowTime'', and eventually became a regular performer on vario ...
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Monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduce sound from two microphones on the right and left side, which is reproduced with two separate loudspeakers to give a sense of the direction of sound sources. In mono, only one loudspeaker is necessary, but, when played through multiple loudspeakers or headphones, identical signals are fed to each speaker, resulting in the perception of one-channel sound "imaging" in one sonic space between the speakers (provided that the speakers are set up in a proper symmetrical critical-listening placement). Monaural recordings, like stereo ones, typically use multiple microphones fed into multiple channels on a recording console, but each channel is " panned" to the center. In the final stage, the various center-panned signal paths are usually mixed d ...
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Subversive
Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Subversion can be described as an attack on the public morale and, "the will to resist intervention are the products of combined political and social or class loyalties which are usually attached to national symbols. Following penetration, and parallel with the forced disintegration of political and social institutions of the state, these tendencies may be detached and transferred to the political or ideological cause of the aggressor". Subversion is used as a tool to achieve political goals because it generally carries less risk, cost, and difficulty as opposed to open belligerency. Furthermore, it is a relatively cheap form of warfare that does not require large amounts of training. A subversive is something or someone carrying the potential ...
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BBC Transcription Services
The BBC Transcription Services started life in the mid-1930s as the London Transcription Service to license BBC Radio programmes to overseas broadcasters who were authorised to broadcast the programmes for a set period, usually two or three years. The programmes sold to overseas broadcasters in this way covered every part of the BBC's output, including all types of music, drama, religious and children's programmes and comedy. It is now called BBC Radio International. Whilst the BBC destroyed most broadcast recordings it produced for its various outlets, BBC Transcription Services often retained their copy and many of the surviving radio programmes from the 1940s onwards owe their survival to the fact that Transcription Services issued the material. The original releases were in the form of 12-inch 78 rpm discs. Each of these discs contained no more than three or four minutes per side and so a radio operator would have needed to cue the start of many discs as the previous one f ...
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BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering work in electronic music and music technology, as well as its popular scores for programmes such as ''Doctor Who'' and '' Quatermass and the Pit'' during the 1950s and 1960s. The original Radiophonic Workshop was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware Road, Maida Vale, London. The Workshop was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. Its members included Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, David Cain, John Baker, Paddy Kingsland, Glynis Jones, Maddalena Fagandini and Richard Yeoman-Clark. History The Workshop was set up to satisfy the growing demand in the late 1950s for "radiophonic" sounds from a group of producers and studio managers at the BBC, including Desmond Briscoe, Daphne Oram, ...
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Music And Sound Effects
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect of all human societies, a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, and psychology. Music may be performed or improvised using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice. In some musical contexts, a performance or composition may be to some extent improvised. For instance, in Hindustani classical music, the performer plays spontaneously while following a partially defined structure and using characteristic motifs. In modal jazz the p ...
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Surreal Humour
Surreal humour (also called surreal comedy, absurdist humour, or absurdist comedy) is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, thus producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Portrayals of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions, incongruity, non-sequiturs, irrational or absurd situations, and expressions of nonsense. Surreal humour grew out of surrealism, a cultural movement developed in the 20th century by French and Belgian artists, who depicted unnerving and illogical scenes while developing techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. The movement itself was foreshadowed by English writers in the 19th century, most notably Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. The humour in surreal comedy arises from a subversion of audience expectations, emphasizing the ridiculousness and unlikeliness of a situation, so that amusement is founded on an unpredictability that is separate from a logical analysis of the s ...
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Radio Comedy
Radio comedy, or comedy, comedic radio programming, is a radio broadcast that may involve variety show, sitcom elements, sketch comedy, sketches, and various types of comedy found in other media. It may also include more surreal or fantastic elements, as these can be conveyed on a small budget with just a few sound effects or some simple dialogue. Radio comedy began in the United States in 1930, based on the fact that as most United Kingdom music hall comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel progressed to silent films, they moved to cinema of the United States, Hollywood and fed the radio comedy field. Another British music hall comic, George Formby, stayed in the British movie industry, and in 1940 joined the Entertainments National Service Association to entertain British World War II troops. UK radio comedy therefore started later, in the 1950s. Background and history Radio comedy began in the United States in 1930, and got a much later start in the United Kingdom becaus ...
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Ray Ellington
Henry Pitts Brown (17 March 1916 – 27 February 1985), known professionally as Ray Ellington, was an English singer, drummer and bandleader. He is best known for his appearances on ''The Goon Show'' from 1951 to 1960. The Ray Ellington Quartet had a regular musical segment on the show, and Ellington also had a small speaking role in many episodes, often as a parodic African, Native American or Arab chieftain (but also often, with no attempt to change his normal accent, in counter-intuitive roles such as a female secretary or a Scotsman). Early life Ellington was born Henry Pitts Brown, at 155 Kennington Road, Kennington, London, England, the youngest of four children. His father was Harry Pitts Brown (c.1877–1920), an African American music-hall comedian and entertainer, his mother was Eva Stenkell Rosenthal (b. c.1879), a Russian Jew. His father died when Brown was four years old. Ellington was raised as an Orthodox Jew and attended the South London Jewish School (1924–30) ...
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Max Geldray
Max van Gelder (12 February 1916 – 2 October 2004), professionally known as Max Geldray, was a Dutch jazz harmonica player. Best known for providing musical interludes for the BBC radio comedy programme ''The Goon Show'', he was also credited as being the first harmonica player to embrace the jazz style. Geldray was born in the Netherlands and played jazz in the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and his home country, before settling in Britain at the outbreak of the Second World War; he was wounded during the Invasion of Normandy. He appeared in nearly every episode of ''The Goon Show'' from 1951 until the end of the show's run in 1960, providing one of the musical interludes and the closing music for each programme, as well as sometimes taking brief speaking roles. After ''The Goon Show'' series ended, Geldray settled in the US, where he worked as an entertainer in the Reno casinos alongside performers such as Sarah Vaughan and Billy Daniels. Moving to Palm Springs, he e ...
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Stompin' At The Savoy
"Stompin' at the Savoy" is a 1933 jazz standard composed by Edgar Sampson. It is named after the famed Harlem nightspot the Savoy Ballroom in New York City. History and composition Although the song is credited to Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, Edgar Sampson, and Andy Razaf, it was written and arranged by Sampson, Rex Stewart's alto saxophonist. Sampson wrote the song when he was with Stewart's orchestra at the Empire Ballroom in 1933. It was used as the band's theme song until the band broke up, after which Sampson joined Webb's band, taking the song with him. Both Webb and Goodman recorded it as an instrumental, Goodman's being the bigger hit. Lyrics were added by lyricist Andy Razaf. Goodman's 1936 version is written in 32-bar song form with four 8-bar phrases arranged AABA. The A sections use a Db6, Ab9, Db6, Ddim, Ebm7, Ab7, Db, Db chord sequence. The B section phrases use a Gb9/G9, Gb9, B13/F#m6, B13, E9/F9, E9, A13, Ab13 chord sequence. The tempo is medium fast. Chick Webb’ ...
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Crazy Rhythm
"Crazy Rhythm" is a thirty-two-bar swing show tune written in 1928 by Irving Caesar with music by Joseph Meyer and Roger Wolfe Kahn for the Broadway musical '' Here's Howe''.Roger Wolfe Kahn & His Orchestra
at The Red Hot Jazz Archive


Performances

''Crazy Rhythm'' was first recorded for by and His Orchestra in New York City in April 1928 with singing the chorus: ...
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