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Typically we avoid obits, here, but this one deserves a mention. Milligan was the main spirit behind (and one of the three main actors in) the 1950s hit, The Goon Show, which catapulted its regulars--Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, and Milligan himself--to international fame. He was considered by the Monty Pythoners to be a father figure, and showed up in their shows and movies. His desperate, bizarre, wonderfully surrealistic sense of humor was found in tv shows, on radio, in films and novels. He was a tremendous influence on comedy, and a great supporter of clean environments and animal rights.

Oh! how sad! I am watching him on TV at the moment...

Here's a link to a webpage where (with the aid of Windows Find, since it's buried in a lot of other stuff) you can download and listen to Milligan's holiday hit, I'm Walking Backwards for Christmas: http://www.mono211.com/drfetid/

And this, my little Charlies, is a website that lets you play through close to a dozen Goon Shows as they first aired, back in the fifties: http://www.members.home.com/lhennig/

I just heard when i got home, how sad

Sad, shame,sad. A visionary of inane, puerile, daft comedy. Shall be missed. I think he put the "S" in silly.

How can there be comedy without Spike? His books are true gems. He was a genius, and his mum used to live just down the road from me in Woy Woy. - Curdis !

*sigh* another great comic gone

Here's a site with the catchy, wonderfully stupid Ying Tong Yiddle I Po Song: http://www.fireflycafe.org/spike/media.html

There are also some remarkable versions by Peter Sellers (who began his career as one of the four Goons) of Beatles hits. Sellers speaks them, as in conversation, and always in one of hundreds of dialects he was a master of. His "Help" is a wonderful imitation of a middle-aged Anglican minister's sermon, and his "Hard Day's Night" is Lawrence Olivier doing Richard III (complete with Olivier's tendency to rush phrase endings and find odd stopping points). Then there's his "Irish Dentist" rendition of "She Loves You." Amazing stuff.

thanks @fable.

What a great link.