What a Performance! - Spike Milligan 

😂😂😂😂😂😂

😂😂😂legend

Genius reply

Brilliant ,

Brilliant!!!! The only true answer!

Thank you for sharing that wonderful story. I'm Irish myself and I know very well what Spike means when he describes the Irish as "Thinking Sideways" what a complete one off genius of comedy.

Great story. 😀

So many of them are no longer with us. Spike, Bob, Tim, Terry, Clive...

🥹🥹💫😅🎉🎉🎉🎉

Plus he fought against Hitler

Don't get so offended by people's reactions.

@@simonshiels1 His Part in Adolf's Downfall. That and Musso and his parts.

Put him in the Curry.

Those are super memories to have to share. Bob Monkhouse was a comedy genius. We are a lucky nation in having a tradition that seems to grow talent. I loved his crack that starts "I want to die quietly in my sleep like my father..." I guess fans can finish that one🤣

Yes I've read and reread them all since the first one came out over 50 years ago.

On his gravestone. “I told you I was sick”

@@man.inblack He wanted that it wasn`t allowed apparently.

@@pooooornopigeon IHe wasn't allowed it in English, instead it's written in Gaelic.

@@MephitisUK I know.

Sad to think there are those who would cancel this genius out of history

funny old world where comedians today are more po faced than the maiden aunt's of old .

Indeed

The woke weirdo's can go screw themselve's, this is comedy gold.

@@jonathancook9600 I remember my maiden aunt nearly widdling herself laughing at Milligan, the only man she enjoyed.

Spike was a working-class lad who enjoyed his base Irish family and colonial roots, whereas a lot of comics chose to be middle-class and remain dreadfully politically correct, and they disliked Milligan for his popularity amongst the supposed lower orders who should be listening to radio and not enjoying themselves watching telly. Spike was one of the few post-war comics who beat the system before trying to beat the system became a popular past-time long after the end of the war.

The tide has gone out, It'll come back in again!

That'd the IRISH in him! Mighty Craic!

@@trishameenaghan8982 he wasnt irish. he wasnt funny at all. the sort of person who's consensually funny. he never had it. He just wasn't funny

By 'shite' you mean stuff that isn't racist and offensive to millions of people. But no, what's more important is that you can still laugh at them. Try looking at it from their perspective just for once.

@@neilinely Actually, no. By 'shite'' I mean the humour we have to endure these days which isn't actually humour at all. It relies on bad language and shock value to get laughs. What's being said isn't funny at all, it's the fact that it's being said that makes people laugh. That's not humour to me.

@@MeganInStarlight The thing is that, in those days, people understood that humour was just that. It was a laugh, poking fun, a dig at someone different to us. It was understood as such, and it worked both ways. Men made jokes about women and vice versa. Whites made jokes about blacks and vice versa. The point is that back then, very few people were offended by the humour, they took it at face value and laughed at it. Nowadays society has become so paranoid about prejudice and racism that people lose their careers and relationships simply for one innocent comment taken out of context. This is insanity; bring back the old days where we all laughed at each other and only extremists were offended.

My late father put that on our cassette tape of Christmas music. People who came over to our house would be like, "What the hell is this?" while smiling and laughing!

Across the Irish Sea, perchance.

His 7 part war trilogy is a work of art. I've read and reread them.

I share your hopes for Spike, albeit me being atheist, & we need comic & political (him being a Green Party, animal welfare & Vegetarian Society activist) who can satirise the decay our civilisation is falling in to & pp with the ever-pervasive rise of wokism which would have had Spike "cancelled" (even as a writer) before he even got started! On a religious note he was catholic but pro-contraception on the grounds of the human overpopulation of the Earth & seemed to find it relatively easy to be given an "audience" with the Pope(s) on the subject, just to take the simple decision to allow catholics to use condoms. Spike is very sadly missed & the British gov & establishment should hang its collective head in shame for not allowing him UK citizenship (being born & raised in India in a British army family) which even being a friend of Prince Charles didn't help! Spike was One of a Kind & in these days no one would be *allowed* to step into his shoes! "I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens" 😂

@@iggyb1033 and don't forget what he suggested for his epitaph - "I told you I was ill!"

now that IS a claim to fame!!!!!

I think Spike was a demented genius, his head must have been an amazing place to live, he saw humour in the darkest corners where the sane daren't look. . . I loved him . . . I cried the day he died.

I loved Spike Milligan, a great comidean.

Don't forget George Harrison too! Without him the film wouldn't have been made.

Quite a few seen here have gone. Secombe & Clive James, as well as Tim & Bob. One of our biggest losses recently is the wonderfully underappreciated Barry Cryer.

​@@marmitesmate

I’ve had FOUR copies of Puckoon. I’m keeping number four under lock and key! Why,you may ask?Because,if you lend it to someone else,YOU WILL NEVER GET IT BACK! You can pick it up,open it at ANY page,and within moments you are smiling,giggling,or even laughing out loud,even if you have never read the rest of the book.That is the mark of a great humorist.Anarchic humor at it’s very best.

Well. He is a crawling bastard. Like his bestie, Nicholas Witchell.

What are you two on about? He said grovelling not crawling.

It's well known that Prince Charles loved The Goons.

No, it was 'Shovelling Mustard'

No, it was 'Curdling Custard'

Me too but different army in the 1970's in South Africa

I loved Puckoon

Me too. The beginning of a life sentence in prison in 84 when I got Puckoon.

Did you ever read THE MURPHY? Thoroughly enjoyed it!

Puckoon!

"The PC brigade can go Foxtrot Oscar" Amen to that, Sweet Powers !

A great memory true. Sadly wokism wouldn't have given you the chance to be in the audience these days as he would've been "cancelled", the wokists (as usual) just wouldn't have been able to understand the intelligence behind his humour nor his satirised life-experience contained therein. Spike inspired the careers of pub-cabaret comedians which grew as a way of fighting Thatcherism, Spike being a life-member of the Green Party which has, for me sadly, now become "woke"! Do we have *any* comedy now? In today's Wokeworld Spike certainly *could never have come back to life*, it surely would've been *great* to see him standing for parliament as a member of the, what was a sensible, Green Party 🤔

@@iggyb1033 yes, well put

@@jimstrainsandstuff9539 Even today (2023) when Radio 4 Extra (BBC) repeat The Goon Show on Tuesdays, they coyly apologise for "the langauge and humourof the times" - perhaps people were just more grown up and tolerant between 1951-1960 when the series ran. All the shows from 1954 onwards were preserved and tbhey are rerun on Tuesdays at 0800, 1300, 1800 hours with a further repeat on Tuesday morning at 0400

@Wallace Carney "hatched in India!" And still never learned how to make a decent curry ! Even genius has its limitations, I suppose.

@Wallace Carney Still Irish, English.

Proper British humour is almost gone , what with the recent death of Sean Locke and 🐂💩 pc it is almost completely extinct

His book ,the little pot boiler ,had me in tears,loved him!

His commentary on working class America was a3-d Chess snapshot. What a guy, Pinballem Gottlieb. It is among the best writing I have seen. It shaped my thinking. Brilliant.

Here it is four years later. Still pox ridden and not getting any better.

@@markneedham8726 I used the cream on mine and now it's wonderful

I used to watch The Telegoons on a Saturday afternoon whilst visiting my grandparents in the 60's. That's when I got hooked.

This is a ridiculous comment, of course he would - we still put fucking Russell Brand on TV.

SAY WOT? So very true

@@glenblake3021 You get these stupid comments from Brunts on all the old TV shows from the '70's.

English Gentleman ....Russell Brand. What a ghastly creature. ☹️

@@glenblake3021 Russell Brand is about as funny as Covid 19. As if it isn't enough that we have to suffer what he calls 'wit'' he decided to shove his ridiculous political views at us. I would seriously like to punch him.

Same - was big here in Australia.

Indeed, he was wonderful.

it's ok that some comedy wouldnt be allowed now. It's called evolution. But you'll be ok.

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER PARTS--DON'T LEAVE IT LIKE THAT

Apologies for this utterly random question David, but did you go to Blairgowrie High in SA?

And Bob Todd

@@adb9231 Did Todd work with Spike? I know he a regular on Benny Hill.

Also David lodge,I think his name was who worked on the pink panther films with sellars.

You don't want to know what I think of Baddiel

There was one live breakfast show interview where he insisted on a prison door and a few other random items on set. In the middle of a sentence he got up walked off and started posting bananas through the peephole in the prison door. The camera men were having issues getting the shot because they were all laughing so much.

I agree totally, the likes of Alexei Sayle, Ben Elton & Richard Curtis all said this, plus the burgeoning rise in pub-cabaret comedians in the 1980's owed much to Spike's courage in not being afraid of "upsetting" weak-minded members of the audience & unlike many of the new American-style comedians he never set out to get "shock laughter" from the audience, his humour was intelligent & based on his life-experience, he was also a great writer which is overlooked as was his active membership of the Green Party & support for animal welfare (also being vegetarian). He did notably well for a man suffering from shellshock & true manic depression (unlike Stephen Fry & his invented mental illness). Today, in "Wokeworld" & not being an old Etonian, he would have been "cancelled" & shunned & now, more than ever, we NEED comic geniuses like Spike to make sense of a Human civilisation which appears to be coming to an end.

Oirish astro'nauts.

And, if you really get it, it's actually anti-racist. "Now you know what's wrong with the country."

I showed that to my 22 to nephew....he said"racist"....ffs,the brainwashing worked.

Mine too, if ever your feeling down watch it

I agree, it's hilarious 😂

#

If you didn't have copywrite problems, you could sell that as a cd or dvd for big money.

....and we all marched the streets in anger at this affront and demanded he be cancelled or even imprisoned and...oh..wait a minute,none of that happened,we just laughed like everyone else.

Absolutely agree

His other epitaph gag was, beneath this sod lies another one. I prefer his first gag.

I'm a Scotsman living in England & look what we've got to put up with.. Russ Abbot! It's no different. We joke about each other, race, religion whatever. Can't say Bernard Manning is my cup of tea. Too near the bone for me.

(This is NOT a joke !): back in the late Sixties, we had an archetypically THICK Irishman living with us as a lodger. His name was Patrick (honestly), and he ADORED the Black and White Minstrels. He was incensed when I struggled to convince him that the dark fellas were white !! Cross my heart - it's ALL true.

@@seltaeb3302 RUSS ABBOT? We haven't had him on our tv for DECADES!

@@marvinc9994 I'm 55 and remember it being on when i was a kid. Is my memory correct in thinking they all had white circles around thei eyes and white lips? You know, like every other black person has... How could ANYONE think they weren't white people?

@@koitorob "How could ANYONE think they weren't white people?" Dunno, Mate - but Patrick was convinced they were the real deal, and that I was just taking the mick out of him (as it were) !!

He really did. Truly original; lonely and fearless!

And when he called Prince Charles a "sycophantic little bastard", right to his face. Absolutely priceless 🤣

The PC brigade have won, for now.

@@billfranklin9443 Bullshit, you can still say whatever you want, make whatever joke you want, look at the morons in charge of the UK and the US right now. "PC" is a fascist dogwhistle.

@@theothertonydutch"You can still say whatever you want, make whatever joke you want" Count Dankula being arrested and League being pulled from Pedoflix are just 2 examples of 100% proof to the contrary. Oi commie m8, you have a loicense to be this moronically ignorant to the cancel culture and pandering that's been permeating the last decade or so?

@@zenksren8206 Yep, British jails are full of people who make racist remarks online 😆

Yep, who could possibly be offended by Spike's "Paddy O'Paki"? 😀

What I liked is when the sketch sort of ended and they walked off muttering " what we going to do now " .

I think it's 'I told you I was ill'.

@@Britonbear Yes and it is in Latin because the folks running the churchyard thought it was a little too over the top. Carving it in Latin was a compromise. That is the story that I read. Love Spike, wish I could have met him!

@@andrewlake9699Sounds feasible. I think there are rules as to what you can or can not put on a headstone in most cemeteries.

@@andrewlake9699 it's written in gaelic

@@s8nke Thanks for the info!

It was only when I watched it again in this documentary that I focused on the white cloth on the top of its head.

That's unspeakably funny.