Spike Milligan @ FashionState.com

FashionState.Com salutes...

Goonfather of Absurdity

SPIKE MILLIGAN

1918-2002

"It's all in the mind, you know." - Spike Milligan

King Lear's fool was an excellent example of how a funnyman in the royal favor could get away with lunatic gibberish and brutal forthrightness that could get the head cut off of those who considered themselves his superiors.

And even today, who else could've called the Prince of Wales "a little grovelling bastard" and actually get a knighthood out of the deal except British comedy's most influential mentor?

Terence Alan Milligan was of Irish descent, born in India to a British Army officer and his wife. The family moved to England in 1933, where Milligan was educated at a polytechnic school and worked at a factory to help stave off the family poverty, all the while dreaming of becoming a musician. When he was drafted into the Army at the onset of World War II, he joined his father's old regiment and played the trumpet as part of a military jazz band whilst avoiding getting his behind getting sent to the brink for pranks and insubordination. (His first chance meeting with fellow Goon Harry Secombe occurred in 1943 as the heavy artillery gun he neglected to dig in properly whizzed past Secombe's lorry. Secombe, in a terror and ready to surrender, recalls Milligan sticking his face through the lorry flaps. "Anyone seen a gun?" he asked.)

An explosion in Monte Cassino sent Milligan, now known as "Spike", to a rehabilitation hospital. (The horrors of shell-shock, as well as war, are tied in to his comic antics and military experiences with startling brilliance in his series of autobiographical war memoirs beginning with "Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall".) Always someone to view life with a blighted eye, his war terrors skewed the off-kilter imagination even further, and he became one of the harder-edge eccentrics of comedy to come out of the experience of participation in a World War.

When his musical trio failed to catch on in post-war England, Spike landed as a boarder above Jimmy Grafton's pub in Westminister, where he basically shut himself in and wrote comedy when he wasn't serving drinks. (Jimmy was a sympathetic sort, being a BBC scriptwriter as well as a pub owner, who encouraged Spike to co-write some of his scripts.) At night, Spike would wander downstairs and have meetings with three of his mates - Harry Secombe, Harry's friend Michael Bentine, and an eager up-and-coming comic impressionist named Peter Sellers.

This was the Goons in infancy, and when Peter Sellers wheedled his contacts at the BBC to give Spike's new, anarchic material a try, "Crazy People" came to the radio, and nine years, a name change, one less Goon, and a series of mental breakdowns later, Spike and his "Goon Show" became a household name, and a whole new slew of young comics and writers were encouraged to break outside the traditional boundaries of the vaudevillean "I say, I say" style of music-hall comedy. (John Lennon's books are very heavily influenced by Milligan's absurdity and his Lewis Carroll turns of phrase made so popular in "The Goon Show", of which Lennon was a huge fan.)

After ending "The Goon Show", which beset Spike with a barrage of personal, family, and emotional problems even as it made England roar with laughter, Milligan became a playwright and stage actor with a string of surreal and at times improvisational comedies before returning to television with his "Q Series" with its high degree of outlandish lunacy that inspired the creators of "Monty Python" and remains a cult classic to this day.

Over the years, his experiences with marriage, divorce, fatherhood, show business, mental illness as a bipolar, the war, and the world inspired from him an entire library of works over a vast range of subjects, all of them imbued with lashings of Goonish wit and his very strong opinions on subjects ranging from war to animal rights to abortion to love to just plain Milliganesque musings on life in general - all of them still popular with the Britons and gaining in cult status worldwide. He believed what he believed not out of fashion as his old comrade at the microphone Peter Sellers was wont to do, but because his conscience dictated his beliefs to him. Spike was not in any way someone who marched to anyone's drum but his own.

The unpredictable and moody Milligan, because of his impact on modern British comedy and his status as loved icon throughout the world because of his direct or honorary mentorship of many of today's best-known comedians, was issued an honorary knighthood in 2000, since when given the option of becoming a British subject he opted to retain his father's Irish citizenship. Nevertheless, his most powerful and influential fan, the Prince of Wales, invested him as a Commander of the British Empire, which even in an honorary status is considered a very great privilege. Yet Sir Spike took it all in his stride. "I can't see the sense in it really," he said. "It makes me a Commander of the British Empire. They might as well make me a Commander of Milton Keynes - at least that exists."

When Spike died two years later, the tributes poured in from all over the world about the last surviving Goon, praising his wild genius all the while acknowledging the madness, mayhem, and mercuriality that was this genius' alchemy. Yet even in death, Spike caused a stir in the delicate sensibilities of the Winchelsea Church, where Spike was buried, over the epitaph he wanted on his tombstone. It was simply too outrageous a request, and for two years, Spike's grave was unmarked.

Finally, a concession was reached, and in May, 2004, a Celtic cross was erected at the gravesite with Spike's longed-for epitaph, but in Gaelic: "Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite."

Translated in English: "I told you I was ill."

SPECIAL FEATURE!

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SNAPSHOTS OF SPIKE

SITE LINKS

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Acid Logic (contains graphic language)
Wildly humorous column on the one and only Spike.

The Age (Australia)
Spike had fun goofing on the town of Woy Woy in Australia. Their response? Throw a SpikeFest in honor of the late comedian who put them on the map!

Ananova
An article on the British Heritage Foundation's mounting a plaque at one of Spike's homes to designate it as an historic site. (Archived.)

Ananova: Comic Spike becomes a knight
A short article on the honorary knighthood of the Goon-daddy. (Archived.)

BBC Millennium
Spike Milligan is voted by BBC News Online readers as the funniest person of the millennium.

BBC News: The Nicer Side of Spike
A brief article on the bio by Humphrey Carpenter of the moody Spike.

BBC Two Programmes: I Told You I Was Ill
Programming notes about the Milligan tribute special.

ContactMusic.com
The legendary tombstone!

I Told You I Was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan
A green-lighted documentary about the man himself! Features a blog and an e-mail list you can join.

Jazz Professional
A 1970 interview with Spike by Tony Brown.

Jazzy's Spike Page
A charming little fansite with some nice photos and information. Drop Jazzy a line if you have more info on Spike's career to contribute!

Mail Online - Personal touch raises the bids at Spike Milligan's sale
Memorabilia auction results!

National Library Of Australia: Spike Milligan - A Life Of Being Funny
Retrospective by Barry York. PDF file.

Peninsula News: Name it Milligan's Island (Australia)
No fooling - suggestion by a environmentalist fan of Spike's to name an island close to his family's Australian homestead on the Woy Woy Peninsula "Milligan's Island". (Archived.)

PoemHunter
Verse from the goonfather himself.

Puckoon
Official website of the movie based on Spike's novel.

Q Magazine: Blind Date! The day Van Morrison met...Spike Milligan!?
A 1989 interview of Van Morrison by Spike Milligan. Two great Irish tastes that go great together. (Archived.)

Q Series
A tribute site to a most bizarre television program.

Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club London
Jim Godbolt's interview with Spike. (Archived.)

The Sand Grounder
This tribute to Spike Milligan written by Andrew Wooding, entitled "The Clown and Jesus", was originally posted on Premier Online Christian Website. (Archived.)

The Spike Milligan Statue Fund
They've got a statue in Finchley!

The Spike Milligan Tribute Site (requires Flash)
A MUST for the bookmarks of Spike's fans - a monster tribute site to the legendary Goonish godfather of modern British comedy. Tributes, poems, pictures, bio, information, magazine appearances, book info, and much, much more! A non-Flash version can be viewed here.

Sunday Herald: Prickly side of Spike
A review of Humphrey Carter's bio of Spike Milligan. (Archived.)

Telegraph: Prince sees funny side of Spike's knighthood
An honorary knighthood for Great Britain's king of clowns.

Telegraph: The world's funniest joke was written by Spike Milligan
Somehow this isn't a big surprise...!

This Is London: Me and My Dad, Spike
A tribute to Spike by his daughter, Jane.

William McGonagall - Poet and Tragedian
A site about one of Spike's favorite (and one of Spike's most parodied) doggerel poets. (Archived.)

WriteWords.Org
Poetic tributes to Spike by his fans.

Yahoo! Groups: Spike Milligan
Here it is - fans of Spike have a message board!

YouTube
Owwww....videos featuring Spike.

OBITUARIES

ABC News (Australia) Online: Comedy's "great-grandfather" dead at 83
Australian Broadcast News pays tribute to Spike - the man they banned from their airwaves for disruption of newscasts! (Archived.)

AOR UK Radio Receivers
Bob Ellis of this radio communication products page throws in his perspective of Spike. (Archived.)

BBC - Charles leads Milligan tributes
The Prince of Wales heads the crowd in paying homage to Spike Milligan. Check out the variety of other links referencing the life and talent of this zany king of British comedy.

Barnet and Potters Bar Times
Short obit on Spike. (Archived.)

Beatle Photo Blog
Spike got fan-gifties from a couple of famous singers.

British Film Institute
Biographical entry on Spike. Detailed!

Cambridge News
The recollection of an historic tiddlywinks competition! (Archived.)

CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Online's obit of Spike, complete with interview with broadcaster and friend-of-Spike Nicholas Parsons. (Archived.)

CNN.com: Prince pays tribute to Milligan
An obit in the on-line archives of one of the biggest news organizations in the world.

Coventry Web
A fond reflection by Steve Brookes, MBE. (Archived.)

Daily Llama: Pythons' tribute to Goon legend Spike Milligan
"Daz" Hall from PythOnline's tribute - and quotes from the Pythons and other comics - is reproduced here.

Gerry's Pages
Photos of Spike's headstone.

The Guardian (U.K.)
Official obit for Spike Milligan.

The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephen Dixon from one of Britain's top newspapers pays affectionate tribute.

The Guardian (U.K.)
A list of trivia about the late, great Spike.

HalfBakery
The wild minds at HalfBakery recommend renaming the Thames River!

Hello! Magazine
Retrospective on Spike's life and career.

Just In Time For A Cup Of Tea: A Tribute to Spike Milligan
Keith from Scotland put up this tiny-tribute to Spike, featuring links he archived from the BBC site. The readers' tribute are gone from the original BBC page, but you can now read them at JITFACT!

Lovely Jane's Survival Site
Lovely Jane's lovely reprint of Spike's personal obituary, written for the Sunday Correspondent in 1990.

Nederlands Cabaret Homepage
This Dutch stand-up comedy site pays tribute to Spike Milligan.

NineMSN: Spike Milligan: The Last Goon Gone (Australia)
Fond tribute reflecting the essence of Milligan. (Archived.)

N.Y. Nyuk
This New York comedy website features an obit of Spike.

Occult E-Books
An unusual essay by Dave Evans about the mystical Sufist comic sense of Spike Milligan's work. (Archived.)

Point2Point
Graham Lester's tribute to Spike, complete with classic Milliganese quotes. (Archived.)

Radio London News
Scroll down to see Mary's tribute to Spike.

Scotsman.com
Tribute reprint of a 1995 interview with Spike by Alastair McKay.

Scotsman.com
An obit and many links of info about the seminal Irish comic. (Archived.)

South African Rock Music Digest
This mention of the passing of Spike leads to a review of his concert with singer Jeremy Taylor in Cambridge, 1973. (Which we at FashionState.Com have heard and if you get a chance to listen to it, it's a real kick!)

Telegraph (U.K.)
The Telegraph's obit of Spike includes many links.

Telegraph (U.K.)
British comic actor and Monty Python alumnus John Cleese opines on the influence of Spike Milligan.

Telegraph: Milligan finally gets the last laugh (U.K.)
The controversial inscription Spike Milligan always wanted for his tombstone finally comes to fruition. (Archived.)

Thomas Crosbie Media (Ireland)
Ireland pays tribute to her famous son. (Archived.)

World Socialist Website
A thumbs-up for the man who called himself a "comic Bolshevik".

QUOTABLE SPIKE

"Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs?"

"Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy."

"All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy."

"I have the body of an eighteen-year-old. I keep it in the fridge."

"A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree."

"It was a perfect marriage. She didn't want to and he couldn't."

"His vibrato sounded like he was driving a tractor over a
ploughed field with weights tied to his scrotum."

"Is there anything worn under the kilt? No, it's all in perfect working order."

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the
people some of the time, which is just long enough to be
president of the United States."

"I thought I'd begin by reading a sonnet by Shakespeare,
but then I thought, why should I? He never reads anything of mine."

"When I look back, the fondest memory I have is not really of the Goons.
It is of a girl called Julia with enormous breasts."

"Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."

"The boy stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled. Twit."

"A neat desk is the sign of a cluttered desk drawer."

"A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name."

"We haven't got a plan so nothing can go wrong!"

"He had a mobile face, that is, he always took it with him."

"The cliché is the handrail of the crippled mind."

"I cannot stand being awake, the pain is too much."

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