Nineteen Eighty Five

by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes

Greenslade: This is the BBC Home Service
Sellers: Big Brother is watching YOU!
Eccles: Ohhhh
Fx: Gong
Secombe: Listeners! You are warned this program is NOT to be listened to! [Manic laughing]
Milligan: [Phlegmish Coughing]
Bluebottle: Ehh ehh! I don't like this game
Greenslade: The BBC would like to caution parents this program is unsuitable for the very young, the very old, the middle aged, those just going off, those on the turn, young dogs and Alderman John Snagge.
Fx: Gong
Sellers: This is the story of the year 1985
Cast: Wailing...
Orchestra: Tea party dance music
Seagoon: My name is 846 Winston Seagoon. I am a worker in the great news collecting centre of the Big Brother Corporation, or as you knew it the BBC. In every room is a TV screen that gives out stream of orders.
Big Brother: Attention people of England state. Thanks to derationing and the free market the price of tea has now gone down to 85 guineas a quarter. And now here is good news for state housewives, the following goods are now in the shops. Plastic and sawdust elephant nightshirts, second hand concrete parachutes, artifical explodable wooden bloomers, mens self igniting tailess shirts (with anti thundersheet attachment). There are unlimited supplies in the shops!!
Eccles: Ooh its good to be alive, in 1985.
Big Brother: Now here is announcer 283947625232476954327618976/2
Seagoon: Good old Greenslade.
Greenslade: Special interest to BBC workers. By mixing water with earth our scientists have invented MUD! Its now on sale in the BBC canteen under the name of Macaroni Au Gratin or coffee.
Seagoon: Big fat slob, get off the screen
Grytpype Thynne: Worker Seagoon, did I hear you complaining?
Seagoon: Ohh, Vision Master Ronny Waldman.
Grytpype Thynne: You are not complaining about our new BBC TV are you?
Seagoon: No, oh no. I ..
Grytpype Thynne: What is the finest TV program in the world?
Seagoon: Kaleidoscope!
Grytpype Thynne: You are forgiven. As a penance you will put a copy of the Radio Times in your window. Don't forget to watch tonights program.
Seagoon: Yes, ask Son of Pickles.
Grytpype Thynne: Yes. Tonight he hopes to have a one legged dying Eskimo play the piano for him. Now everybody, face the TV screen. Time for the 'Hate Half Hour'.
Big Brother: Attention all! On the screen now is the one man you must hate! The sworn enemy of the Big Brother Corporation. This is him!
Horace Mimic: Listen, listen! Don't believe them! Listen! BBC workers. Rise and overthrow your masters before its too late. I will lead you against them. Strike now! Revolt!
Seagoon: So this was Horace Mimic. Leader of the ITA.
Horace Mimic: Join the Independent Television Army now.
All: HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE!...
Big Brother: STOP! Enough. Now here is a special announcement from Big Brother!
Orchestra: A Fanfare
Big Brother: BBC workers. The canteen is now open. Lunch is ready. Doctors are standing by.
Seagoon: As I sat at my table eating my boiled water I began to hate Big Brother Corporation.
Eccle: Hey Winston. Guess what I found in my dinner.
Seagoon: What?
Eccle: Food! Oh its good to be alive in 1985
Seagoon: Poor producer fool. Still 60 years with the Huggetts would turn anyone.
Miss Fnutt: I love you darling!
Eccle: I love you too, darling!
Miss Fnutt: Not you 213 Eccles, you 846 Wintson.
Seagoon: You are a woman, aren't you?
Miss Fnutt: Yes.
Seagoon: Thank heaven, you have got to be careful these days.
Miss Fnutt: 846 Winston, darling, I have loved you from afar.
Seagoon: My favourite distance. But who are you?
Miss Fnutt: I am 612 Miss Fnutt. I operate the Pornograph Machine in the Forbidden records department. I love you, do you hear me!
Seagoon: No, love is not for us.
Miss Fnutt: No.
Seagoon: Love is only for the higher income group, John Snagge, Audry Cameron and Paul Fenulay.
Miss Fnutt: Let's take a chance. Lets meet somewhere under the moon alone. We can clasp each other to each other and then... ohhhh.....
Eccles: Ohhh! It's good to be alive, in 1985
Seagoon: Shutup Eccles!
Eccles: Shutup Eccles!
Seagoon: Now darling, where?
Miss Fnutt: Somewhere noone is listening
Seagoon: I know the place. Home Service, 8:30 Tuesday night.
Miss Fnutt: You mean the forbidden Goon Sector?
Seagoon: Yes. Wait, that belt you are wearing...?
Miss Fnutt: It is the anti-sex league belt
Seagoon: Ahh emm, I don't think I'll come.
Miss Fnutt: But you too are wearing the anti-sex league belt
Seagoon: I was forced to!
Miss Fnutt: Why?
Seagoon: My trousers kept falling down.
Miss Fnutt: Till Tuesday darling.
Seagoon: Till Tuesday.
Fx: Horse galloping away.
Seagoon: There she goes, little fairy. That night in my room I sat out of range of the TV screen. I loved Fnutt, and I hate Big Brother. I wrote it in my diary 'I hate BB, I hate BB, I hate BB, I hate BB'
Fx: Ringing phone.
Seagoon: Hello?
Groucho Marx: Don't tell anybody but I hate BB too.
Seagoon: Who are you, Ben Lyon?
Groucho Marx: No, I was, but this script was altered.
Seagoon: Karl Marx, so there was an underground movement. I must try and find it. I strode into the street, pausing only to hear worker Geldray play a perforated haddock sock at the slope.
Max Geldray 'It had to be you'
Seagoon: And so I entered the forbidden Goon Sector of London hoping to contact a member of the ITA. Once there I went into the notorious public house, 'The Grosvenor'
Grams: Noises suitably apt for a bawdy house
Bloodnok: Now lads I know you are all enjoying yourselves, but silence please, silence for the cabaret. I have pleasure in presenting those glamourous Grandmothers the three Beverley Sisters.
Fx: Gun shot!
Bloodnok: Correction, the Beverley Twins.
Fx: Gun shot!
Bloodnok: Miss Beverley will sing.
Fx: Gun shot!
Bloodnok: Everybody dance!
Grams: Bar piano playing.
Seagoon: To think, this used to be Palm Court. I looked around the bar. They were dressed in cloth caps, corduroy trousers, rough lumberjacket shirts, bald heads and beards, and some of the men were dressed the same.
Bluebottle: Ehh!
Seagoon: I'm sorry I did't see you.
Bluebottle: You did not hurt me. Enter Bluebottle the toast of the Goon Sector. Thank you fellow Goons for the sausages.
Seagoon: What is that plain wrapper book you are reading?
Bluebottle: It is a naughty little bookule. Listen to this. In the darkness she felt his hot breath on her bed rails. Then a warm hand fell on her marble washstand.
Seagoon: STOP! Stop, stop that at once. Give me that book!
Bluebottle: Why?
Seagoon: I want to read it. What's it called?
Bluebottle: It's called 'Mrs Dale's Real Diary'
Seagoon: Mrs Dale's? Heavens, would the BBC stop at nothing? So this was how they kept the masses from thinking.
Bluebottle: Hehehe! Look at this page! Ehh! It's a 3D picture of Mrs Dale in her nightshirt being chased by Richard Dimbleby... ehh! ehh! oooohhhh. Pauses to wipe drool off chin.
Seagoon: I had to go outside. I couldn't bear to watch these poor Goons wallow in misery. It was then I wandered into an antique shop.
Fx: door opens, shop bell rings
Shop Owner: [singing] I've got a luverly bunch of coconuts...
Seagoon: Good evening. Do you mind if I take a gander around the shop?
Shop Owner: No, as long as its housetrained.
Seagoon: I say! What's this old object?
Shop Owner: That, beautiful isn't it, it's called a cricket bat.
Seagoon: Oh yes... yes ... did they have test matches way back?
Shop Owner: Yes... that's right. As a matter of fact this bat was used in the very last match by Lenn Hutton, you can see it is quite unmarked
Seagoon: Old man, tell me,- what was it like back in 1954.
Shop Owner: Well we had sports and games, coloured movies, Charlie Chester, Monkhouse, Rupert Harding, ohhh it was terrible.
Fx: shop bell
Eccles: Listen, look who I bought along
Miss Fnutt: Hello dearest.
Seagoon: Darling, darling I love you
Eccles: And I love you too
Seagoon: Shut up Eccles
Eccles: Shut up, you!
Miss Fnutt: We were looking in the window for antiques and we saw you
Seagoon: Huh erm! We mustn't be seen together, quick into this room
Fx: Door opens and closes.
Miss Fnutt: Darling, alone at last.
Seagoon: Oh dearest Fnutt, let me kiss you.
Eccles: Oh! Don't start yet, I'll get a chair
Seagoon: Eccles you go outside and keep watch
Eccles: I can watch better in here
Fx: Door opens.
Seagoon: Eccles! There's the door, And now dearest, alone at last
Eccles: Alone at last
Seagoon: Eccles! Get out or I'll...
Eccles: Ok...
Fx: Door closes.
Eccles: Huh! Telling me to get out. See if I care. I don't care, I don't, I just don't care that's all. Slamming the door like that, they can stop in there all night for all I care. I don't mind I will wait here until they have finished. I don't mind.
Seagoon: WILL YOU STOP MUTTERING AND GET OUT!
Eccles: Ok.
Fx: Door slams!
Eccles: Oh!
Bluebottle: Ehhh!!
Eccles: Bluebottle?
Bluebottle: Eccles!
Eccles: Here, you were looking through the key hole.
Bluebottle: Yes I was.
Eccles: It's naughty to look through the key hole, very very naughty to look through the keyhole
Bluebottle: Well stop looking through it when you are talking to me!
Eccles: I was only looking because, I tell you something, I aint never seen a fella kiss a girl before.
Bluebottle: Ohh ... haven't you Eccles?
Eccles: Nooo! Here, here.
Bluebottle: What Eccles?
Eccles: Have you ever kissed a girl?
Bluebottle: Ehh!! Not gonna tell you
Eccles: Come on, come on, I won't tell anybody.
Bluebottle: I'm not going to say, I'm a man of mystery.
Eccles: But I'm your friend. Come on ... have you ever kissed a girl?
Bluebottle: Ehhhhh!! Yes!!!
Bluebottle and Eccles: [Laughing]
Bluebottle: Eccles, I've seen something you haven't seen
Eccles: What's that?
Bluebottle: I have seen, I've seen my sister's washing on the line!
Bluebottle and Eccles: [Laughing]
Eccles: Ohhh,- It's good to be alive.
Bluebottle: I'm a happy­go­lucky man. Thinks, I'm a happy­go­lucky man.
Fx: Door opens
Seagoon: What's all this noise! You, what do you want?
Bluebottle: I have a messenge, if you want to join the Independent Television Army, report at once to number 10 RUCertain Street.
Seagoon: Are you certain?
Bluebottle: Perfectly
Seagoon: Right let's go!
Fx: Whoosh, Whoosh, Wawhoosh
Seagoon: [Out of breath] Here we are. Number 10, the ITA head quarters
Grytpype Thynne: Oh Winston, I've been expecting you
Seagoon: Vision Master Waldman, what are you doing?
Grytpype Thynne: Don't be frightened. I am a secret member of the Independent Television Army.
Seagoon: I had a feeling you were. I knew it by the little things, the way you smiled at me across the room, the way you touched my hair when you passed my chair [sings] Little things meeeeeeeeean a lot!
Grytpype Thynne: You silly twisted boy you. Now then, you want to join ITA?
Seagoon: Yes
Grytpype Thynne: What do you know about television?
Seagoon: Three years at the BBC staff training college.
Grytpype Thynne: What did you learn?
Seagoon: Nothing.
Grytpype Thynne: Good. We'll make you a director. Now say after me, down with the BBC
Seagoon: Down with the BBC!
Grytpype Thynne: Drink!
Fx: smashing glasses
Seagoon: We drank and smashed our glasses in the fire place, I had to borrow a spare pair to find my way home. As I walked home I paused only to build a rough brick radiogram to play a record of Ray Ellington and his proles.
Ray Ellington 'Shake Rattle and Roll'
Big Brother: Silence! Stop ! Attention! 846 Winston Seagoon. You are under arrest for conspiring with the Independent Television Army. You will wait detention by the studio attendants, you will then be prepared for the agonising death type three.
Seagoon: Had they suspected me?
Big Brother: Silence!! You will be taken to room 101!
Seagoon: No! Not 101, not the listening room! Oh noo!!! [cries in fear]
Greenslade: I would just like to mention that the Radio Times is now on sale at all book stores price thruppence, and jolly good value for money it is too.
Seagoon: No ! No! Let me go! Why are they strapping me in this box? Why these earphones?
Grytpype Thynne: Hello Winston, laddy
Seagoon: Vision Master Waldman. So they got you too
Grytpype Thynne: Yes, they got me a long time ago. I remember the date, Monday night at 8. Now Winston, we must torture you..
Seagoon: You .. you traitor, you decieved me.
Grytpype Thynne:Yes, of course you can save yourself
Seagoon: How?
Grytpype Thynne: Just sign this three year BBC contract.
Seagoon: What if I refuse?
Grytpype Thynne: You have no option
Seagoon: A BBC contract with no option? Impossible. What has become of my beloved? What have you done to Miss Fnutt?
Grytpype Thynne: Fnutt will never walk the streets again.
Seagoon: Why not?
Grytpype Thynne: She's bought a scooter. Now are you going to sign?
Seagoon: No no!
Grytpype Thynne: Greenslade, turn the knob to 247 metres.
Fx: [Radio program]
Seagoon: No! No stop it! Stop it! Stop it ! I can't stand it!
Grytpype Thynne:You going to sign, Winston?
Seagoon: No!
Grytpype Thynne: Greenslade, 330 meters
Fx: [Radio program]
Seagoon: You fiend to let me hear that.
Grytpype Thynne: Sign!
Seagoon: No!
Grytpype Thynne: You won't sign?
Seagoon: No!
Grytpype Thynne: Greenslade...
Grams: Radio program of pub sing songs which speeds up
Seagoon: NO!!! Not that!!
Grytpype Thynne: I warn you Winston, we can change people into somebody else. You know Eccles?
Seagoon: Yes
Grytpype Thynne: He used to be Izzy Bon.
Seagoon: You're lying.
Grytpype Thynne: You think so? Greenslade, call Barbara Kelly
Greenslade: Miss Kellyyyyyyyyy
Ellington: Yes, you calling me Ronnie?
Grytpype Thynne: Ahh, Barbara dear, what's your line?
Ellington: A coloured television.
Grytpype Thynne: Thank you, dear, back on the old flying wire
Seagoon: You fiend. Poor Barbara Kelly
Grytpype Thynne: On the contrary, we think it is a great improvement.
Seagoon: It must be terrible at Bedtime with Braden
Grytpype Thynne: Well it gets dark early in Canada, you know.
Seagoon: So the awful torture went on. In three days I lost ten stone. My weight went down to a mere twenty stone. I looked so old and ill, Wilfred Pickles demanded me for his TV program. Then the torture started again!
Secombe: [Singing]
Seagoon: No! No! Stop! It's agony, stop that voice, stop that voice, stop it! Who's is it?
Grytpype Thynne: YOURS!
Seagoon: [Applauding] More! Bravo! more! let's have him back again, short fat fellow with the glasses, more, more!
Grytpype Thynne: Moriaty? Take over, I'm going to Jim Davidson for a saxophone lesson.
Big Brother: Very good. Little torturer?
Bluebottle: Enter torturer Bluebottle, with junior cardboard cut out torture kit.
Big Brother: Listen little Lurgi ridden Yako. Prepare the screaming agony rack.
Bluebottle: Goody Goody! Thinks, perhaps 1985 is going to be a good year for Bluebottle. Starts to get agony set ready
Seagoon: No, Bluebottle, don't do it . Remember me? I'm your old pal Neddie Seagoon? Your friend?? Remember me?
Bluebottle: Yes? My friend, you are the one who deads me every week, aren't you. Ehhh!! Thinks, I know the very thing for him. Prepares dirty big pile of dreaded dynamite. Ehh! I like this game now, I do, I like this.
Seagoon: Bluebottle, stop!
Bluebottle: There. All is ready for the dreaded deading of the traitor Seagoon. Ladies and gentlemen I want you to witness, that, for the first timules in the history of the Goon Shones, Bluenbottens will not be deaded. Observe. I light a 100 foot fuse, so. Now all that remains is for me to escape. Taxi, to the airport!
Fx: Car driving off
Bluebottle: Stop! Airplane, drive me to America.
Fx: Jet taking off.
Bluebottle: Stop! Horse, drive to the desert.
Fx: Horse hooves.
Bluebottle: Ladies and gentlemenins. Observe. I am now 6000 miles away from the dreaded dynamite. Here I am safe in the middle of the desert.
Fx: Explosion
Bluebottle: Ehhh!!! You rotten swines you! Exits left, never to play this rotten game again, never never, thinks, all right then,e next week. Ohh, look at my knees, they've gone.
Seagoon: Meantime back in the BBC listening room I struggled to free myself before the dynamite exploded.
Bloodnok: Don't worry Seagoon.
Seagoon: Bloodnok, Eccles?
Bluebottle: Quick, untie him.
Eccles: OK, I had better hurry up before the ....
Fx: Explosion
Eccles: That's got his legs free.
Seagoon: Yes, but where are they??
Eccles: Here they are.
Horace Mimic: Attention! Attention! Face the TV screens.
Seagoon: Look, it's Horace Mimic.
Horace Mimic: Listen, listen! Great news! After a telephone conversation lasting three days, and bribes worth 10 pounds I have gained control of the BBC.
Seagoon: Hurray! Freedom at last!
Horace Mimic: And here is the first of our new style Indepent Televion Army programmes.
Grams: [Horrible light entertainment radio programme]
Seagoon: No!!!
Orchestra: End theme.
Greenslade: That was the Goon Show, a recorded programme featuring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan with the Ray Ellington quartet and Max Geldray. The orchestra was conducted by Bruce Campbell, script by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, announcer Wallace Greenslade, the program produced by Peter Eton.

Transcription and HTML by Kurt Adkins: gsd@goons.cx