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Post by dem bones on Sept 16, 2010 18:18:21 GMT
Spike Milligan - Frankenstein (Virgin, 1998)  Cover design: Slatter-Andersonblurb How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? There was the bolt that affixed his neck to his spine, there were the screws holding his forehead to his skull; but now was the moment of truth. I plunged the electrodes into his rectum and switched on the current. He gave a groan and he was alive! He spoke as he sat up, 'Have you got a fag mate?' My God, I had given birth to a nicotine junky! I handed him the cigarette which I lit, then leaping off the table he stood there. But, alas, we had forgotten one thing. He had no support for his trousers which fell to the floor revealing his manhood in all its glory. If any women saw them they would be leaving their husbands in thousands. Quickly I got some string round his trousers. What had I done? No mortal could support the horror of that countenance! I rushed downstairs, to seek refuge in a cupboard where I remained during the rest of the night walking up and down in great agitation, something difficult to do in a cupboard.
'Spike Milligan wrote the book on today's sense of humour...' - Sunday Times i've had Gilbert Pearlman's Young Frankenstein novelisation hanging around unread for months and, half way through Spike "national treasure" Milligan's attempt at something similar, i wish i'd gone for the former. I guess he was an audience divider, was Mr. M. If you find the chunk quoted on the back cover hilarious, you're in luck as there are a hundred pages of similar to enjoy, but if you don't .... *shrug*
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 16, 2010 18:38:40 GMT
I was force fed The Goons by My Uncle - great guy had some lethal vodka and a good sense of humour. He told me the thing about their humour was that it was full of Forces innuendo which meant that only half the audience knew what they were really laughing at.
I like Spike Milligan but there is a sense that its all long ago and these times will never come again.
Spike, a consummate entertainer and musician also saved my life on several occasions with this advice. 'If you are ever in the shit two songs will get you out of it - 'A long Way to Tipperary' and Loch Lomond' He's absolutely correct about that.
That's another to add to the list although I sense its not one of his best efforts.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 16, 2010 19:09:37 GMT
in that case, Craig, there's also a companion Hounds Of The Baskervilles according to Spike Milligan which may or may not be better. Frankenstein is so funny/ sad to begin with, it hardly seems worth parodying. All i'm getting from Spike M.'s version is a load of swearing and crap penis jokes. To be honest, i can get more than my daily quota of both from vault, and we have loads of nice covers to go with them.  |
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Post by lemming13 on Sept 16, 2010 20:02:30 GMT
Actually I like the Goons, and Spike was responsible for warping my fragile young mind with his Q shows (his version of David Attenborough's Tribal Eye was true genius, likewise the self-strangulation kit), but his According To series was a sad farewell to a great comedian. I grabbed the Frankenstein one thinking this was my ideal book, Milligan does classic horror, and then it all fell apart. I persevered to the end but I wished I hadn't. When I saw others of the series I dipped in first, and simply put them down again. I'm afraid he'd lost it by then, if he even wrote them at all; at times I suspected a computer had been programmed to randomly mash together his old books and scripts with out of copyright classics.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 16, 2010 20:03:22 GMT
I can imagine that, Dem. I think old Spike was probably better at satirising the mundane than tinkering with the nether realms where his off ball humour would perhaps look merely contrived..
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Post by pulphack on Sept 16, 2010 23:02:35 GMT
I think I fall in somewhere in the middle. I love the Goons and the Q series, and Puckoon is a great lost Irish novel in the tradition of Flann O'Brien. However, Spike always trod the line of great or crap as he went out on a limb in public, rather than hiding away the failed experiments.
Really, though I hate to say it and feel really judgemental, he'd lost it by the end of the eighties, partly because of the illness and partly becasue of age, perhaps. The Looney -n the second novel, trumpeted as a great work, is bloody awful and funny only in fits and starts (but mostly not) and the 'According To' series seems to have been an attempt by his agent Norma Farnes to build a franchise as a pension for him. A noble aim, but really... The Bible and Lady Chatterly got the treatment, and to be hnest Les Dawson did a better job of nobbling famous novels over at Robson Books (believe it or not, he was actually a very funny writer at times). I stopped after those two, and would recommend all but the least critical Spike fans to avoid them.
I'm not sure, but I think he also had a ghost writer on some of them - one his daughters, the one respnsible for the Tube Mice kids TV series in the 80's, though I wouldn't swear to it.
Certainly, they do his great work of the fifties and sixties and early seventies no justice.
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Post by marksamuels on Sept 16, 2010 23:28:18 GMT
Dem
I must confess, I was thoroughly intrigued by this one as I saw you add it to your pile...
Glad to have the low-down on it.
Mark S.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 17, 2010 7:08:56 GMT
ah, thanks all of you. i'm glad to get the fans viewpoint because i worried that maybe i was being unreasonably harsh which, Vault being a celebratory board, i try to avoid most of the time. perhaps i should have mentioned this is the first time i've read a Spike Milligan book and it seems from the above i made just about the worst choice possible for a beginner. pulphack's suggestion that it may even have been ghosted makes sense - either that or he'd shot his quality controller knowing that Virgin would be quite happy to publish any old rubbish with his name to it. maybe the results would have been better if SM had tackled Frankenstein twenty years earlier? Dem I must confess, I was thoroughly intrigued by this one as I saw you add it to your pile... Glad to have the low-down on it. Mark S. Mark, other than the above (many thanks!), the best of my small haul that day was the Pulp Press paperback, Killer Tease. I picked it up as much out of curiosity as anything, not really expecting great things but glad that a modern indie publisher had gone for something that looks like it came from the 'sixties/ 'seventies (right size, very trad lurid artwork, etc). It's one thing getting the packaging right but the good news is Danny Hogan's no-frills, just-plenty-of-violence writing style compliments it perfectly. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 17, 2010 9:30:24 GMT
Erratic genius - Frankenstein probably more erratic than others...
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Post by H_P_Saucecraft on Sept 17, 2010 20:35:17 GMT
I may have to re-read this one, I seem to remember enjoying it. But then I would, being a firm Spike fan & having a shelf full of his books. His war memoirs are very funny & honest.
Even as a fan, I'll admit there's the odd thing I'm not keen on - His film 'The Great Mcgonagal' not being one of his best. But the main thing I liked about him, was not giving a fuck & not suffering fools gladly.
I've still got a fair few of his to read, in the accorrding to series - The Bible (old testament) according to Spike Milligan is extremely funny. Just a shame he's no longer around.
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Post by ripper on Sept 18, 2010 8:41:42 GMT
I've read Spike's series of war memoirs and found them extremely funny, sad, poignant and touching. His account of his early meetings with Harry Secombe had me in stitches, while his very honest re-telling of his shell-shock breakdown and slow recovery brought tears to my eyes. I have not read any of his According to... series as yet. Is there one in that series that particularly stands out from the rest as a good sampler?
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