"Who would have suspected him? I mean, nobody ever noticed him. I never did." In 1969 Canadian director Alvin Rakoff directed a big screen version of his successful television play Call Me Daddy, which had starred Donald Pleasance and Judy 'Keeping Up Appearances' Cornwell. Now renamed Hoffman, the film starred Peter Sellers and newcomer Sinead Cusack. Benjamin Hoffman, a manager at a cigarette company, blackmails one of the office girls into staying with him at his flat for a week. His intentions are never wholly made explicit but Janet Smith (Cusack) has a pretty good idea and very reluctantly agrees. As the days go by very gradually the power dynamic shifts and we come to recognise Hoffman for what he really is: a rather sad, pathetic figure. Sellers famously hated this film, or didn't hate this film, depending on who you spoke to - but in any case he saw in the character of Hoffman too many traits which sat uncomfortably close to home. Some good did come out of it, in a way - he enjoyed a brief romance with Cusack which ended almost as soon as it began. And the film is quite absorbing, even if some of the content and themes are problematic when viewed from a 21st century perspective. It is pretty much a two-hander (the supporting cast, including Jeremy Bulloch and David Lodge, don't get much to do) and hardly full of belly laughs but is amusing enough in its own way. Joining Tyler to talk about it is actor Patrick Strain and among the many questions raised is "Could you make it today?" Patrick was introduced to Sellers' film work via three relatively cosy black & white British comedies and then this film - QUITE the gear change! As he explains, it's a film he's fond of as much for the history and background of its production as for the finished product. The film was recently released on blu-ray with oodles of extra features including an essay by former Goon Pod guest and host of Smersh Pod John Rain.

Actor & writer Chas Early first heard the Goons when he discovered in his dad's record collection a 1967 LP called Goon But Not Forgotten, featuring Six Charlies In Search of An Author and Insurance, the White Man's Burden. It's the latter show which he discusses this week, a tremendous episode which at first appears to focus on a flannelled fool's attempt to make a fortune out of a piano-playing penguin but then swiftly pulls a handbrake turn as Ned lucklessly tries to set fire to the English Channel in order to claim insurance money. An unwitting mark in the latest crooked scheme cooked-up by those confidence tricksters Thynne & Moriarty, along the way Ned meets an employee of a match factory who sunbathes in the snow and tries to start a fire with a boy-scout's legs! Oh, and Wallace 'The Pelvis' Greenslade has to beat them off while belting out some rock & roll! Plus there's the usual mix of tangents, conversational meanderings and general blather for which Goon Pod is uniquely suited! It's all here, folks!

Originally formed in 1972, The Goon Show Preservation Society (GSPS) has for over fifty years championed all things Goon and achieved remarkable success in keeping the show fresh and relevant into the 21st century. One of its patrons recently got fitted for a crown so it can count among its supporters folk from the highest echelons of society right the way down to poor wretches kipping in dustbins! Over the course of Goon Pod we have played host to a number of former and current members of the GSPS, many of whom were or are active participants in society events and meetings, but this week's guest is undoubtedly one of the society's most significant figures: Chris Smith. Chris, among other things, found time to put together the quarterly GSPS newsletter, overseeing its transition from rather rudimentary, stapled together A4 sheets to a much more professional A5 booklet form. He was a key co-organiser of major GSPS events down the years (including the Fred weekends) and was fortunate enough to spend time with the three surviving Goons on a number of occasions. Chris joined the GSPS soon after its formation, while still in short trousers, and there could be nobody better to help navigate through the society's history - its highlights and (sometimes) lowlights, from the earliest days corresponding with founder Mike Coveney and putting on regional shows with the legendary Steam Count, right up to the present day (with a few gaps here and there). The GSPS would have been nothing without the enthusiasm and support of its members and has done more than most to keep the Goon Show alive, and by extension reminding us, especially in the crazy times we live in now, of mankind's capacity for idiocy. goonshow.org @TheGSPS

Think of all the great comic characters brought to life by Peter Sellers - Bluebottle, Clouseau, Strangelove, Percy Quill, Dr Pratt, Fred Kite and countless others - but chances are you won't think about Tommy Grando. Who? In 1972 Sellers made a surprise guest appearance in his old mate Eric Sykes' titular sitcom, co-starring the sublime Hattie Jacques. Although Tommy Grando could hardly be described as a complex three-dimensional character (Sellers plays it very broad in keeping with the general tone of the show) his arrival is rather akin to a fox let loose in a henhouse. This disreputable roughhouser is an uninvited visitor who disrupts the calm and boredom which had previously pervaded the Sykes home. What follows is pure farce as Eric and his sister try ever more outlandish wheezes to rid themselves of the menace. Joining Tyler this week to discuss 'Stranger' are Andrew Trowbridge and Lisa Parker, the pair behind Round The Archives, a podcast dedicated to scrutinising the dustier fringes of archive telly as well as revisiting firm fan favourites. Round The Archives: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/round-the-archives-524254 @Roundthearchiv1 @goonshowpod

In 2022 Spike Milligan’s family opened up his archive to selected guests – and what an archive it is! Hundreds of tapes, film rolls, scrapbooks, photographs, unpublished novels & scripts, box files and albums, much of it meticulously documented and annotated by Milligan himself, including bound volumes of family history, wartime journals and assorted paraphernalia covering his earliest childhood memories right up until his final years. Sky Arts filmed a documentary which originally aired in December last year where viewers saw the likes of Joanna Lumley, Ian Hislop, Eddie Izzard and Sarfraz Manzoor (as well as former Goon Pod guests David Quantick and Al Murray) nosing around this treasure trove. Spike’s whole life is under the spotlight, from his early days in India to his underwhelming introduction to a Britain of fog, cold baths and terrible food, a world away from what he’d been used to; the wartime highs and lows (a whirlwind romance, being blown up); The Goon Show; his marriages and children; his post-Goons career on television; his campaigning and activism; his books, poetry, music and much more. Joining Tyler is Simon Meddings - Meds - from Waffle On podcast – a trailblazer in terms of telly and film review podcasts and certainly one of the few to have covered such diverse topics as School For Scoundrels, Fight Club and Donald Sinden! Meds and Tyler talk at length about Spike and his life as filtered through the documentary but find plenty of time to go off on tangents (within the first four minutes they've talked about Michael Caine and The Smiths, for instance) so there's plenty here for everybody who likes a good natter about old films, old telly... and old comics.   https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/waffle-on-podcast/id298729068