There is absolutely no connection between the Goons and the Simpsons so what on earth is this special bonus episode all about?

Well, my very good friends Ian and Michael over at the Lord Of Adders Black podcast - celebrating all things Blackadder - joined me to share our love for The Simpsons and talk through our favourite episodes!

(Their podcast is really good - find it here: https://shows.acast.com/lord-of-adders-black )

Great comedy is great comedy and while it's fair to say that few people could describe most post-2000 Simpsons content as 'great comedy' the stuff that came before remains sublime. I'm not sure what a Venn diagram of Goon Show fans and Simpsons fans would look like but hopefully it's more or less a circle.

So indulge me for this special bonus episode with Michael & Ian where I get a rare chance to gush about comedy from the 1990s!

How young Ned Seagoon journeys by steam packet to the Americas to find the Lost Gold Mine and how, after being foully tricked by several desperadoes, he eventually triumphs. The action takes place aboard the S.S. Filthmuck, in a New Orleans dustbin, near the desert town of San Fairee Ann, and in a dried-up gulch near Hammersmith.

Sandwiched between The Whistling Spy Enigma and The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-On-Sea, this episode of The Goon Show is an often overlooked gem from early on in Series 5. It's a cracking yarn, invoking Treasure of the Sierra Madre-type themes as Neddie tries to retrieve the map of a gold mine he lost to Grytpype-Thynne and Moriarty. Much double-crossing and map-tearing abounds, and we even get the opportunity to discuss 1830s pornography!

Returning guest Paul Abbott is co-host of The Big Beatles & Sixties Sort Out and the podcast can be found HERE:

https://linktr.ee/bigsort

One of the few actors who could genuinely command respect and admiration from Peter Sellers, Irene Handl is mainly remembered now for her multitudinous 'mum', 'gran', 'landlady/charlady' and general 'dotty old dear' roles in films and on TV.

She and Sellers appeared together in films, on record, on stage and on television. Perhaps the pairing is most well known from the 1959 film I'm All Right Jack, in which they played Mr & Mrs Kite. That same year saw the release of the LP Songs For Swinging Sellers which includes two tracks featuring Handl - The Critics and Shadows On The Grass, which she also wrote.

Poignantly the two were reunited in 1979 on the LP Sellers Market, on the track The Whispering Giant and Sellers' death a year later upset Handl terribly - she said she never got over it. Clearly the two had had a unique friendship and understanding of each other that few others could equal.

This week we welcome back Donna Rees to discuss the work they did together and Irene Handl in particular. She was a fascinating figure: not getting into acting until relatively late in life; the daughter of well-to-do parents with servants; a woman who never married yet received regular marriage proposals as she travelled the world in her twenties; a published novelist and huge fan of Elvis Presley and owner of many chihuahuas; she quite liked pornography, hated ET and her favourite actress was Yootha Joyce. And she pretty much worked with everyone.