Operation Christmas Duff

"Operation Christmas Duff"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 7 Episode: Special
Written by	Spike Milligan Larry Stephens
Announcer	Wallace Greenslade
Produced by	Pat Dixon
Music	Orchestra: Wally Stott Geldray: Sweet Lorraine Ellington: Ol' Man River
Recording Number	TLO 17962
First broadcast	24 December 1956 (1956-12-24)
Running time	30:23

Operation Christmas Duff is an episode from The Goon Show. It is a Christmas special in the seventh series that was meant for British Armed Forces overseas, broadcast via shortwave on the BBC General Overseas Service (now known as the BBC World Service). Although it would have been possible to hear the broadcast in the UK, it would not have been very listenable on the specialised shortwave radio receiver that would have been necessary to pick up the signal.

SPECIAL: Operation Christmas Duff (CD6,Track 11) Recording: Sunday 9 December 1956, 7 pm,Aeolian 1 (TLO 17962)

First General Overseas Service Broadcast Tuesday 25 December 1956, 5.30pm [Mediterranean]/ 10.15pm [Antarctica]

First Domestic Broadcast Thursday 25 December 1986, 12.27 noon. [Radio 4]

The recording for transmission was created at 8pm on Sunday 14 December 1958, at The Camden Theatre, Camden Town, London (TLO 72138).

The first Home Service broadcast was the next day at 8.30pm on Monday 15 December 1958, its ratings were 1.1 million.

The show was repeated:

• Wednesday 9.31pm, 17 December 1958, on the Light Programme to 2.3 million listeners.
• Friday 9.30pm, 6 March 1964 on the Home Service in Vintage Goons, to 0.5 million listeners.
• Friday 9.30pm, 20 August 1965 on the Home Service in Let's Laugh Again, to 0.2 million listeners (the broadcast was affected by a fault on the reproduction equipment).

Script Book Synopsis

Entrusted with the task of driving a giant Christmas pudding to the Forces Overseas (minus one slice destined for the TransAntarctic Expedition), Eccles and Bluebottle run into trouble in the shape of two starving ne'er-do-wells, Moriarty and Grytpype. Meanwhile, in the icy arctic wastes, their strength ebbing away. Admiral Seagoon and Major Bloodnok are on the horns of a classic dilemma: whether to have their pudding, or eat it. The choice is agonising…

Music

• The BBC Radio Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
• Max Geldray plays Sweet Lorraine (Cliff Burwell (music) / Mitchell Parish (lyrics))
• The Ray Ellington Quartet plays Ol' Man River (Jerome Kern)

Technical

Originally recorded on TLO 17962 (15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House). This tape survived in TS, and has been used for the show included in Compendium 5.

Ted Kendall's restoration

He prepared this show for its first domestic transmission in 1986, and had to admit to some re-editing. This arose because, for some reason, the audience on this Goon Show didn't laugh very much. The Telephone was recorded on the same evening, after this show if the tape numbers are any guide, so maybe the audience hadn't warmed up. Whatever the cause was, Pat Dixon found it necessary to splice several laughs into the tape. The joins showed, and some laughs were obviously in the wrong place. The engineer who did the editing evidently thought so, too – there is a note in the tape log saying ‘producer states OK for GOS transmission’ (in other words – ‘I was told to do this and pointed out the faults, but Pat says it'll be all right for transmission on shortwave’. Given this history, Ted felt it was appropriate to remove some spurious laughs and tidy up others.