The Mountain Eaters

"The Mountain Eaters"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 9 Episode: 5
Written by	Spike Milligan
Announcer	Wallace Greenslade
Produced by	John Browell
Music	Orchestra: Wally Stott Geldray: It's All in the Game Ellington: There'll Never Be Another You
Recording Number	TLO 71336
First broadcast	1 December 1958 (1958-12-01)
Running time	35:20

The Mountain Eaters is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the fifth show in the ninth series.

A pre-recording session took place on Wednesday 26 November 1958 at 4.15pm. The session was recorded at Aeolian Hall Studio 2 (DLO 70734) and again on Sunday 30 November 1958 at 4pm at The Camden Theatre (DLO 71336/A).

The show that was transmitted was recorded at 8pm on Sunday 30 November 1958. The recording took place at the Camden Theatre, Camden Town, London.

The first British public broadcast was on the Home Service on Monday 1 December 1958 at 8.30pm. It reached a peak listenership of 1.1m.

Repeats

Day	Time	Date	Ratings	Station
Wednesday	9.31pm	3 December 1958	3.0 million	Light Programme
Thursday	7.30pm	11 February 1960	0.8 million	Home Service
Friday	7pm	1 August 1969	0.8 million	Radio 4 (Not Wales)
Sunday	12 noon	16 October 1983		Radio 4 in Smash of the Day

Transcription Service Synopsis

I know something you don't know...

As everybody knows, there is only one place in the world where you don't need a licence to eat mountains - India - and that's why the Famous Eccles , who has an insatiable appetite, is discovered at the foot of Mount Everest. How all this can have any connection with the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre is a mystery which is, very considerately, not explained in the script.

Music

• The BBC Radio Orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott
• Max Geldray plays It's All in the Game (Charles Dawes / Carl Sigman)
• The Ray Ellington Quartet plays There'll Never Be Another You (Harry Warren (music) / Mack Gordon (lyrics))

Technical

Originally recorded on TLO 71336 (15 ips ¼" tape recorded at Broadcasting House).

The TLO 71336 master tape no longer exists, and the version of the show found on Compendium 10 has been sourced from an unedited tape in the Bernie Andrews collection, the warm-up and unused material from which appears on CD7 of Compendium 10.