The Goon Show

The Goon Show is a British radio comedy programme that debuted on the BBC Home Service on 28 May 1951, created by and starring Spike Milligan alongside Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and, in its earliest series, Michael Bentine. Each roughly thirty-minute episode combined absurd, loosely plotted scripted comedy with surreal wordplay, running catchphrases and an unusually elaborate use of sound effects, applying an avant-garde sensibility to a medium more often associated with conventional variety entertainment. The programme exercised substantial influence on later British and American comedy, cited directly as an inspiration by the Beatles and by the creators of Monty Python among others, and it is widely regarded as one of the most innovative uses of the radio medium itself in broadcasting history.