The Goons

The Great Regent's Park Swim

Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens. The Goon Show, Series 8, Episode 4. First broadcast 21st October 1957.

Seagoon: Well, what's that long parcel you've got in your long brown bathing suit?
Bloodnok: Ah, it's something that I have invented...
Seagoon: What?
Bloodnok: Regent's Park Canal.
Seagoon: What a stroke of luck! With that canal, and this bottle of green liquid, I can swim across it without using a bridge. Any revenues from it, I'll split in two and keep both.
Bloodnok: Well, one doesn't get an offer like that every day! Very well, at dawn tonight, you start training for the Great Regent's Park Swim.

1830 seems to have been a bonanza year for inventions: Neddie Seagoon, following an experiment with a green liquid, has invented swimming, and Grytpype-Thynne has invented the word "Help". Realizing that Neddie's invention will render his own invention worthless, he is determined to stop the Great Regent's Park Swim taking place.

Bloodnok: Right, Neddie, now drink your green liquid and swim.
Grytpype-Thynne: Hands up, all of you! Bloodnok, drop that Regent's Park Canal.
FX: (iron bar drops)
Grytpype-Thynne: ...and I warn you, nobody shout "Help". That is a word I've just invented and will cost anybody five hundred pounds to use. Now, give me that green liquid. Right, Neddie, into the canal.
Seagoon: But I can't swim without that green liquid. Aarrggh.
FX: (splash)
Seagoon: You swine, you pushed me in! Help!
Grytpype-Thynne: Out you come, Ned. To using the word "Help", five hundred pounds.

My thanks to John Mathews who transcribed this episode. The full text can be seen at the The Goon Show website.