The Telegoons was one of several attempts to bring the Goons’ humour to the television. The first episode, ‘The Ascent of Mount Everest’, was broadcast on 5 October 1963.
The script was adapted by Maurice Wiltshire from the fourth series episode ‘The Ghastly Experiments of Dr Hans Eidelburger’, which featured the Everest adventure in its second and third acts.
While the BBC’s Genome project only holds images of Radio Times pages up the end of 1959, you can still see the basic information from the listing on the Genome website, announcing the episode as “BBC radio world-famous Goons in a new puppet series for television”.
Fortunately, you can see the whole episode here, via Daily Motion.
Episode two, ‘The Lost Colony’, was adapted from ‘The Sale of Manhattan’, the 11th episode of the sixth radio series. It’s also available on Daily Motion.
First Series
Episode | Title | Based on | Broadcast |
1 | The Ascent of Mount Everest | The Ghastly Experiments of Dr Hans Eidelburger (S04E03) | 5 October 1963 |
2 | The Lost Colony | The Sale of Manhattan (S06E11) | 12 October 1963 |
3 | The Fear of Wages | The Fear of Wages (S06E25) | 19 October 1963 |
4 | Napoleon's Piano | Napoleon's Piano (S06E04) | 26 October 1963 |
5 | The Last Tram | The Last Tram (from Clapham) (S05E09) | 2 November 1963 |
6 | The China Story | China Story (S05E17) | 16 November 1963 |
7 | The Canal | The Canal (S05E06) | 23 November 1963 |
8 | The Choking Horror | The Choking Horror (S06E22) | 28 December 1963 |
9 | The Hastings Flyer | The Hastings Flyer - Robbed (S06E15) | 7 December 1963 |
10 | The Mystery of the Marie Celeste Solved? | The Mystery of the Marie Celeste (Solved) (S05E08) | 14 December 1963 |
11 | The International Christmas Pudding | The International Christmas Pudding (S06E09) | 21 December 1963 |
'The Choking Horror' was postponed by a few weeks due to the repeat broadcast of a new series called Doctor Who. I wonder what happened to that?
Second Series
Episode | Title | Based on | Broadcast |
1 | Scradge | Scradje (S06E26) | 28 March 1964 |
2 | The Booted Gorilla | The Booted Gorilla (Found?) (S05E10) | 4 April 1964 |
3 | The Underwater Mountain | The Greatest Mountain in the World (S04E23) | 11 April 1964 |
4 | The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea | The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler (of Bexhill-on-Sea) (S05E03) | 18 April 1964 |
5 | Tales of Old Dartmoor | Tales of Old Dartmoor (S06E21) | 25 April 1964 |
6 | Lurgi Strikes Britain | Lurgi Strikes Britain (S05E07) | 2 May 1964 |
7 | Captain Seagoon RN | Personal Narrative (S07E08) | 9 May 1964 |
8 | The First Albert Memorial to the Moon | The First Albert Memorial to the Moon (S04E07) | 16 May 1964 |
9 | The Whistling Spy Enigma | The Whistling Spy Enigma (S05E01) | 23 May 1964 |
10 | Tales of Montmartre | Tales of Montmartre (S06E18) | 30 May 1964 |
11 | The Africa Ship Canal | The Africa Ship Canal (S07E22) | 6 June 1964 |
12 | The Affair of the Lone Banana | The Affair of the Lone Banana (S05E05) | 13 June 1964 |
13 | The Terrible Revenge of Fred Fu-Manchu | The Terrible Revenge of Fred Fu-Manchu (S06E12) | 1 August 1964 |
14 | The Nadger Plague | The Nadger Plague (S07E03) | 27 June 1964 |
15 | The Siege of Fort Knight | The Siege of Fort Knight (S04E30) | 18 July 1964 |
Episodes 13 and 15 were delayed due to sport.
For those interested in more information, including plot summaries, cast and crew details, images and pretty much anything else you can thing of (and plenty you won't have), I highly recommend immersing yourself in the Telegoons website. It's a treasure trove of material and deserves to be appreciated.