Goon Show Reunion - 1966

We Say

Taken from Secombe And Friends via ARTV, a few minutes of classic comedy lovingly restored.

They Say

The Restoration process was quite difficult as the DVD I had to work with which was rather low bit-rate, not only that, It was at least 3 or 4 VHS Gens down from the print, So very soft, very hard to try to coax much detail into it, But Ive manged to make it much more 'watchable'. The Audio in it's raw state was layered with 50hz hum from the optical print, plus much Hi-Fi 'flickers' Ive managed to smooth things out, but again not perfect.

How does this exist if only 17mins were ever aired? Well the story goes that Peter Sellers wanted a copy of the entire Goon bit, and got it! It was luckily spared his 1980 bonfires which destroyed much of his film disc and tapes. I also have it on good authority that some time in the 70's Peter was having one of his 'moods' and had to get rid of everything he had that was associated with Spike, and got rid of an enormous amount of goon type recordings, who knows what at one stage he had, going by some of the cine footage that was spared, it looks like he had one of the 10th series shows on film, well at the very least some of the rehearsals anyway. Ive been trying to get ALL of that material for years, Might be easy to synch up to the actual show, regardless that it's not the 'proper' Audio.
Of course anyone who can access any of this or indeed any more material in this vain PLEASE contact me.
When the Video tape of this reunion was viewed by the producer of Harry's ATV show, It was decided that the Tape was visually uninteresting so interviews with Harry and Ray Ellington were cut in to the reunion and in the end only 17mins and 15 seconds was seen by viewers on ARTV in October 1966.

The show itself? Well to be honest Its not very good, a bit of a let down after wanting to see it for the last 28 years, But then again It's nice to see all the same, Peter has sort of forgotten how to do some of the 'voices' His Blubottle harks back to the whinny 4th series version which is not a patch on the later 'voice'. Herny Crun also sounds a bit odd. When interviewed around the 1972 'Last Goon Show' Sellers mentioned that it was difficult getting all the voices 'right' and had to listen to a few LP's to remind himself!
I take it peter didn't do the same research for this one. Plus Spike or should i say Norma selected a script that spike had very little to do with but to sit and give 'orders' directing every single line almost (which is what He did in the Heyday of the show, but we never heard much of it to the credit of the people on the mixing desk John Browell, Bobby Jay and Brian Willey)
In addition to this there doesn't seem to be the iron rod of a producer knocking them into shape, Listen to the 5th series show and you'll know what I mean, Peter Eaton who Produced the pivotal 5th and 6th Series didn't let them get carried away with themselves very much.
I could Write about this all day, and now realize that instead of the small 5 line description I had planned its now too long.
Now Read on....