Show 30

"Handsome Harry: Military Intelligence"
The Goon Show episode
Episode: no.	Series: 2 Episode: 13
Written by	Spike Milligan Larry Stephens
Produced by	Dennis Main Wilson
Music	Stanley Black and The BBC Dance Orchestra Max Geldray: My Melancholy Baby Ellington Quartet: Little Red Riding Hood The Three Bears The Goons (Grafton's Parodies) The Waiter and the Porter and the Upstairs Maid Friendship Incidental music: Wally Stott
Editing by	Jimmy Grafton
Recording Number	SLO 6737
First broadcast	22 April 1952 (1952-04-22)

The series 2 shows didn't have 'official' episode names per se, but for ease of reference using the show number and Handsome Harry sketch name is to differentiate them.

The show had now changed its name from Crazy People to "The Goon Show, featuring those crazy people…"

Show 30 (aka Handsome Harry: Military Intelligence) is an episode from The Goon Show. It is the thirteenth show in the second series.

The show recording session was on Sunday, 20 April 1952 at 9pm and was recorded at The Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, Central London.

The first British public broadcast was on the Home Service on Tuesday, 22 April 1952 at 9.30pm (except Northern Ireland). It reached a peak listenership of 2.9m.

The show's repeat was broadcast the following Tuesday at 7.30pm, 24 April 1952 on the Light Programme to an audience of 4.4 million listeners.

Sketches

• Handsome Harry: Military Intelligence: Has Harry explaining how last week he was given a job in Military Intelligence to investigate smuggling in the British Zone of Germany.
• Filthmuck gets a Laundry (Pureheart): A story of progress, telling how London sent Pureheart to install a laundry in a town where people had been itching to have one for a century.
• Presidential Elections: Features radio reporters speaking to American citizens including civil war veteran Colonel Josh Slocombe.
• Slocombe goes to the Firing Line: A recounting of the events when the Colonel was woken by Ellington and Bentine who had returned from the fighting.

Music

• Max Geldray performed My Melancholy Baby (Ernie Burnett).
• The Ray Ellington Quartet (pays tribute to Ray Ellington! with) Little Red Riding Hood (Olav Fermelin) and The Three Bears (Bobby Troup).
• The Goons sing Jimmy Grafton’s parodies of the The Waiter and the Porter and the Upstairs Maid (Johnny Mercer) and Friendship (Cole Porter).

Show Trivia

• The recording for this relocated from the Aeolian Hall to the Playhouse, the former Royal Avenue Theatre on Northumberland Avenue which had been taken over by the BBC in 1951. This thirteenth show of the run included a joke about senior BBC announcer John Snagge which would later turn up in 1955’s Foiled By President Fred, a gimmick sketch about the USA presidential election to be held in November, and also the final appearance for some years of Colonel Slocombe.
• The Kingston-upon-Thames Empire saw the return of Harry, Spike and Michael’s show to England on Monday 21 April, and parts of the show featuring Harry and Max were broadcast on the Home Service’s Vaudeville from 7pm on Tuesday 22… just before the next edition of The Goon Show which attracted almost three million listeners.

Technical

Originally recorded on SLO 6737. (33⅓ rpm, coarse-groove 16" disk recorded at Broadcasting House).