YMMV / The Goon Show

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: In "China Story", Greenslade interjects at one point to mention that page 52 of that week's Radio Times "shows a three-quarter rear view of a lady wearing a pair of corsets. We would like to point out that this is an advertisement and not a programme. Though I must say it might be the basis of a jolly good show." One fan went to the trouble of looking up that edition in the archives, and it really does.
• Anvilicious: Some shows, especially early ones, contain extended Take Thats against things Milligan disliked, such as advertising. As it became more surreal, it became more of its own universe in which such things either didn't exist or couldn't possibly be taken seriously.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Ray Ellington spent most of his time on the show singing love songs, yet the frequent traveling required by his post-show singing career was cited as the primary cause of his divorce from his first wife.
  • The slow but steady decline of Moriarty, both socially and mentally, becomes somewhat harder to enjoy once it's noticed how it parallels Milligans own decline.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Jokes about how "that is why this show will never be televised" after a scene in which it's implied someone's naked, etc... the show was eventually televised, albeit with puppets.
  • Also, Count Jim Moriarty's name.
    • This was, of course, an intentional parody of the original James Moriarty's name, but to be fair, nobody had ever seriously called him Jim until Sherlock.
• Ho Yay: Spike Milligan admitted that he had written Hercules Grytpype-Thynne as an closeted gay man, leading to several such exchanges. The crowner of them has to be Rommel's Treasure, where he and Neddie flirt with each other constantly.
• Memetic Mutation: A pre-internet example - "Lurgi" remains a common British word for generic illness and is sometimes used by children instead of 'tag' in schoolyard games.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Defied. While the commentary on British culture is far from timeless, it's bizarre enough to still fit right in with the show's trademark Surreal Humor.
• Values Dissonance: There are jokes about singer and occasional guest cast member Ray Ellington being black that, while obviously made with his consent, tend to raise modern eyebrows - e.g. another character is blackened in a Harmless Explosion and is promptly mistaken for Ellington. Even at the time, the show was criticized for being anti-Semitic with regards to minor Jewish characters/bystanders such as show business agent Lew^note loosely based on real-life impresario Lew Grade (ironically, Peter Sellers, who was half-Jewish, usually played those roles).
  • And then there's Yakamoto in "Napoleon's Piano". "What's he do?" "Nothing, he's just here to lend colour to the scene."
  • "How on earth shall we defeat him?" "I've found a chink in his armour!" "Those Chinese get everywhere."
  • "Tonight's programme comes to you from an Arab stench recuperating centre in Stoke Poges."
  • At least two scripts have this uncomfortable gag:
    (ch-CHING of a cash register)
    Bloodnok: Ah, the Jewish piano.

---