Lollipop (Shirley Temple) and Guppy (Cap’n Crunch) for starters, but were any real ships called the Good Ship [whatever]? And if so, what was a ‘good ship?’
Chumbawamba’s “This is the good ship Lifestyle”.
Loudon Wainwright’s “The Good Ship Venus”
I have no idea how this gets attributed to Loudon Wainwright (whoever he is) but I was singing a version of this in the pub after rugby on a Saturday night over 50 years ago. The clever buggers would make up their own verses.
I think ships became ‘good’ purely for scanning purposes.
I wonder if other languages have anything similar.
Discussion here.
Seems to be just a general description.
I think you’ve got good ships, and the rest are at the bottom of the ocean.
Thanks, all.
That was actually my gut feeling.
FWIW, the “good ship Lollipop” was an airplane. The song is also full of puns that don’t play now, and I don’t get all of them, but a few are landing on a “chocolate bar” meant making a home landing among military pilots, ie, the kind you’d need to make before you went on leave; a “Tootsie Roll” was a kind of dance, and for all I know may also have been a stunt pilot move (some others were named for dances); and a “cracker jack” anything (like the band here) meant a very, very good whatever. So I wouldn’t be surprised if “good ship” meant something specific, other than saying that the airplane was simply a good airplane.
A “lollipop actress” was an actress in the 20s or 30s with a flapper body, and a big head (actually, more like big hair, like Clara Bow). Someone might jokingly call Shirley Temple that, but I don’t think that was on anyone’s mind in writing the song “The Good Ship Lollipop,” although, I am not privy to any insider information here, and for all I know, it could have gotten big laughs when the film premiered (which BTW was the film Bright Eyes [1934]).
As opposed to a Hell ship perhaps?
Wainwright is one of the best songwriters of the past 40 years, but you’re right – that’s not his song. One look at the lyrics and you can tell it’s not his style: he’s far more witty and clever than that. For example.
Not so.
“With a load of iron ore 26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty, that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early”
The “Filthy Whore” sounds like a nice ride. But I’ve seen the documentary and the cabins are terrible.
There’s also the Good Ship Ragamuffin, from the song “Botany Bay”.
And is it you, the captain?
Should I draw the curtains, tighter?
Next your going to tell me there is no crew…
That’s fine, as long as you don’t steer a course to nowhere, and do something stupid like drop anchor. 
I’ve heard there’s an island big enough for every castaway, you know, a few tracks further.
There’s the Good Ship Planet Express Ship, which comes swinging the olive banch of peace.
The opposite of the “horrible old Leopard”.
The aircraft carrier USS Lexington was known in the navy as a “good ship”, but was sunk by the Japanese*.
Meanwhile, its sister ship (the USS Saratoga) did not have a reputation as a good ship to serve on, buttwice survived torpedo strikes and a serious kamikaze attack during WWII plus the first of two bouts of being a target ship for nuclear weapons testing, and stayed afloat.
Reputation isn’t everything.
*technically scuttled by a U.S. destroyer after being massively damaged by Japanese attack.
I’ve always had a similar question about the old-timey form of address, “Goodwife.” Were there also “Badwives” out there? :eek:
If I am in command, it is “the good ship SS Minnow.”
If you are in command, it is “the vessel SS Minnow.”
If he is in command, it is “that old bucket SS Minnow.”
That description is still very much alive, although it may simply be getting reborn periodically.