'The Walrus's' point about the Goons being 'cutting edge' for their day is spot on. Remember that they were appearing regularly on radio over 50 years ago now - things have moved on - of course they have!!

True, Shimrod. But even today, the BBC's Goon Show CDs are selling well. They seem to bring out a new CD every year, with 4 of the shows remastered.

And their humour still appeals to younger people too. A few years ago, I was working with some fellow Goons fans and we used to trade Goonish remarks during our conversation, and some of the younger ones at first would take the mickey out of us old f*rts for liking that stuff. I lent some Goon tapes to them and they became converts themselves, even though they weren't born when the Goons were first on the radio (even I was too young to appreciate them in their time, and discovered them later, from radio repeats).

Monty Python were big nearly four decades ago now - and they begin to appear a bit dated (except, of course, to those tiresome tw..s who have learned all their sketches by heart).

Python used to say that the Goons were one of their biggest influences - one of them once described the Python show as a sort of visual version of the Goons. Perhaps not quite true, but Python probably influenced TV comedy in a similar way that the Goons influenced radio comedy.