The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #44737   Message #658873
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
27-Feb-02 - 07:11 AM
Thread Name: OBIT: Actor and comic Spike Milligan (1918-2002)
Subject: RE: OBIT: Spike Milligan
I'm glad I learnt about that on the Mudcat just now. So the Goons are reunited at last. (Was ever an episode set in heaven?) And the heart of the Goons was Spike.

Here's a link to the Goon Show Preservation Society (Royal Patron Prince Charles/Eccles) - and here is the "cast list" for the main characters Spike played, taken from there:

Eccles, "the original goon," a voice combining Disney's Goofy character; Edgar Bergen's Mortimer Snerd; and Clifton Finnegan, the super-stupid regular customer at Duffy's Tavern. Jokes about his stupidity are a staple of the show, with Eccles himself cheerfully joining in. His character serves both grown-up parts and as the playmate of Bluebottle.

Miss Minnie Bannister, spinster, a sexy senior citizen who plays the saxophone and regularly breaks out in song or dance. She lives in sin with Henry Crun, but whenever Major Bloodnok comes on the scene it's made clear that they were lovers in the past. (Milligan got the quaver in her voice by pinching his neck and wobbling it about as he spoke her lines.)

Count Moriarty, French scrag and lackey to Grytpype-Thynne, who usually introduces him and attributes to him some outlandish title or record that he holds ("Has played the male lead in over 50 postcards"). Delightfully wretched in his poverty and degradation.