I was watching Countdown tonight, and in an Oddball segment about a guy who made a full-size Viking ship out of 15 million popsicle sticks, Keith tossed out the line, “You can’t get the wood, you know.”
As any fan of the Goon Show will tell you, this is one of the show’s dozens of catchphrases, frequently uttered by Peter Sellers as Henry Crun.
I knew that Keith was a fan of Jean (“Keep your knees loose”) Shepherd, and ISTR occasional references to Firesign Theater, too. So I’m not exactly surprised that he’s a Goon fan, but pleased nevertheless.
There was a segment about a year ago where Keith was talking about some Stonehenge business (I think it was a recent excavation or whatnot), and he tossed out a couple of lines from the similarly-titled song by Spinal Tap.
And IIRC there was one time where he said something about someone being S.O.L. (in the classic sense), and he qualified that by saying, “no, not the Satellite of Love”.
How much of that is Olbermann and how much is the staff writers, I don’t know, but somebody there knows where it’s at
Ah, Neddy, you sentimental old fool! Just stand here beside this three legged piano, and I’ll lower this bucket of cold custard over your head. That’s better. Are we comfortable? Excellent.
Never overestimate MSNBC viewership in any timeslot. This is because of their schizo programming policy of Way Too Stupid (Doc Bloc, Crime Time, rerereruns) alternating with Not Quite Stupid Enough (most of daytime). You can’t average out stupid - stupid people want it when they want it, and they are just unstupid enough to know they ain’t getting it.
Your average cable channel gets higher ratings when people tune away during commercials than Keith gets in primetime. As much as as I like Countdown, I understand it’s basically an in-joke.
The BBC often replay the Goon Shows and they are usually available via their Listen Again service as streaming Real Media audio files. The shows are available for seven days after broadcast. Broadcast time is 8am gmt. You will need Real Media player (or equivalent - I use Real Alternative/Media Player Classic) to listen to them.
As they are streaming media files, with some special software you can download them to your computer.
This week’s episode is Wings Over Dagenham.
Here is the link to the Listen Again site. Just click on Comedy and Quizzes, then The Goon Show.
Well, if I’d had any doubts, Keith started off the Oddball section of tonight’s show with a long tribute to Spike on the 90th anniversary of his birth, complete with pictures of the Goons.
