by Bruce Bellingham - from the bagdadbythebay website

The last of The Goons, the legendary British comedy troupe, has died. Spike Milligan, who survived his brilliant colleagues -- Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine -- died in Sussex at 83. The cause of death was liver failure. But Milligan's spleen was always intact.

There were many reasons to love the Irish genius who changed comedy writing for generations to come. Here's one reason: On accepting a lifetime achievement honour at the British Comedy Awards in 1994, Milligan called the prince a "grovelling little bastard" after the royal had sent his congratulations in a letter. After that, Prince Charles was a devoted fan. Without Spike Milligan and The Goons, most agree there would have been no Monty Python. Certainly no "Beyond the Fringe" with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook. No Ernie Kovacs. Some of Milligan's lines have a touch of Woody Allen. There was a Goon connection. Allen's first movie, "What's New, Pussycat?" starred Peter Sellers. Sellers apparently ad-libbed a great deal of the movie, to young Woody's consternation. Richard Lester, who directed The Goons' famed "Running, Jumping, Standing Still" film for BBC, later directed The Beatles in "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help." Both movies are decidedly "Goonish." "We were thrilled with Richard Lester as director," the late George Harrison said all those years ago. "We always loved The Goons." Many of Spike's lines have been purloined or cast about without attribution. Such as, "My father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic."

"Money couldn't buy you friends, but you get a better class of enemy."

Being Irish, Milligan had a terrific wit for class conciousness: "Well, we can't stand around here doing nothing, people will think we're workmen."

The acerbic Milligan could be downright sentimental: "When I look back, the fondest memory I have is not really of the Goons. It is of a girl called Julia with enormous breasts." Touching, isn't it?

And if there is a Spike Milligan epitaph, this has got to be it: "I don't mind dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

I loved the guy. The last of The Goons is gone. I had a vicarious contact with the great satirists. I was lucky enough to write -- and act in -- a sketch with Ian McKellen back the 1980s on radio in San Francisco. When McKellen, not yet "Sir Ian McKellen" paused on a line, I asked, trepidaciously, "Ian, is it too obscure?"

"EVERYTHING you write is obscure, Bellingham!" he bellowed in mock indignation. "Have you heard of The Goons?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, you stuff reminds me of 'The Goon Show'."

Whatever the misfortune, whatever the disaster -- no one can take that moment away from me.

Milligan would have liked this-- sent along by Dave Donnelly, columnist of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Dave is also rather Goonish and probably has a panoply of Milligan stories:

"Two trucks loaded with a thousand copies of Roget's Thesaurus collided as they left a New York publishing house last Thursday, according to the Associated Press. Witnesses were stunned, startled, aghast, taken aback, stupefied, amazed, astounded, and unsettled..."

I'm glad the wires are staying away from that tired, old "shocked and dismayed" stuff these days. But the San Francisco Examiner is doing its best to keep up the tenets of yellow journalism, though I'm not sure if it's a bright yellow. In a front page story in Wednesday's editions, we find a devoted fan of Marjorie Knoller, the former owner of the notorious presa canarios in the notorious dog mauling trial. The fan's name is Anaperia Aureoles, of the city's Mission District. "Marjorie is a victim," says Aureoles. She is a legally blind "vegan who loves animals, goes everywhere with her guide dog, Henry Miller." When Hera, the second dog in the attack that killed Diane Whipple, was put down by authorities, "Aureoles went to hold (the dog's) body afterwards. It was still warm, she said, and she prayed for the dead presa canario."

It was said of Spike Milligan that he was a master at pointing to life's absurdities. I think even this one would give him pause -- or is that "paws"?

So let's close with a more palatable animal fable -- if you find animals palatable.

"On The Ning Nang Nong" -- by Spike Milligan

On the Ning Nang Nong Where the cows go Bong!
And the monkeys all say Boo!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping
And the tea pots Jibber Jabber Joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang!
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So it's Ning Nang Nong!
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning!
Trees go Ping!
Nong Ning Nang!
The mice go Clang!
What a noisy place to belong,
Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!


And anon and anon we go...Bellingham