"In my humble attempt to amuse your fiance, Mr. Harker, I was telling her some rather...grim tales of my far off country."

Part of my late night ritual on the Magic Cathode Folder is to check the daily birthdays on IMDB.  A constant source of reflection.  Who chooses that A-Dult Film Star Mona Mounds, seen in such epics as Pleasure My Blender, gets a higher number at 17, than character actor George Zucco at 44?  But I digress...

A short time ago, I saw it was the birthday of the late Fred Stuthman.  "WHO DAT?" you say, banjos strumming in the background.  Fred Stuthman was Jeepers' Keeper, just the coolest late night horror host on local Los Angeles TV.  The third and best host of KCOP-TV's Saturday night program, Jeepers' Creepers.  And my first job in the wonderful weird world of showbiz.

I have a fondness in my heart for horror movie hosts.  I entertain thoughts of ending my dubious careers doing one locally, but let's back up.

Every major city seemed to have at least one or two late night weekend horror movie hosts, starting in the Fifties.  Shock Theatre, Zacherley in New York.  Vampira in L.A.  Each local, non-network station would have a package deal with some studio for horror films, all ranging from the classic Universal monsters (KTLA, channel 5 in L.A.), to RKO (channel 9), to Allied Artists (channel 11) to bottom drawer Monogram (channel 13).  So 5 would have Shock Theatre, 9 would have Science Fiction Theatre, 11 would have Chiller and 13 would have Jeepers' Creepers.  To offset the lower quality of the movie offering, more entertainment from the ghoulish host was required.  This is why on Saturday evenings in the early Sixties, yours truly would watch Bela Lugosi in The Devil Bat at 10pm on channel 13.

Okay, it's 1964, and this little horror movie nut has moved from Fullerton, California to the virgin oak lined hills of Diamond Bar.  I've been making inroads to the worlds of horror, science fiction and fantasy movie making and literature, via The Count Dracula Society and the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society.  Jeepers' Creepers runs these charming grade B to Z flicks like Bride of the Monster.  The current host has replaced the original character Jeepers, played by Bob Guy.  After a long run, he is followed by a rare female host since Vampira, called Ghoulita.  She is soon followed by Jeepers' Keeper, played by character actor Fred Stuthman.  I like this cat.  I decide I want to visit the set.  How do I do this?  Request an interview for my horror fanzine Vampire Castle.

I write the appropriate letter and Lauren Bacall, surprise, surprise...I get an invite to visit a taping at the KCOP-TV studios on La Brea Avenue in magic filled Hollywood.  I discover the shows are taped on Monday evenings around 7pm-7:30 or so, and can last till Midnight.  Whatever segments work are than intercut into the movie breaks for the following Saturday broadcast.  I'm there, man.

So after class on Mondays from dismal John A. Rowland High School, my folks, surprisingly, let me catch a bus from Fullerton into the horrific environs of Downtown LA (NOT the upscale place to be in 1964), catching another bus going up Wilshire Blvd. to ultimately transfer north on La Brea to the sacred studios.  Forget after school football.  This is MAGIC!

Note, I say Mondays in the plural.  This is because my one-off visit begets a regular invitation to the Monday night tapings.  Producer James Sullivan asks my opinion of the show and how I would improve it.  Can you imagine how a teenage horror fan felt about such a thing?  I suggested the horror elements be darker, more gothic.  And the comic moments drier, ironic or absurdist, in contrast to the theme of each week's movie offering.  This observation made me a part of the crew (non-union of course, really just a glorified intern, but to a 15-16 year old like myself, it was my Disneyland).  I really have to thank the producer Jim Sullivan for being so encouraging.  This was a wonderful time in Hollywood.  Doors were open and talented people accessible.  Things would change by the Eighties.

But back to Mondays, 1964:

Fred Stuthman was a theatrical actor.  A tall, thin, balding man, with high cheekbones and a Valentine Dyall type of voice.  When he put on the Phantom of the Opera style clothes, long black wig, hat and cape, he was quite a commanding figure.  A living, breathing Tales From the Crypt, Crypt Keeper image.  I think he relished the role.  He was very flamboyant in these shows.  Other roles he did, he would just disolve or fade into the part.  But at this time, he was the best damn horror host on TV, who also became a friend.

My third bus would arrive across the street from the channel 13 studios after 5pm and I would greet the studio guard.  Lloyd Thaxton would be doing his daily live dance and music program from one of the two major lower studio areas, which on some shows, was redressed into the the Jeepers' Creepers mausoleum set.  I'd head into the make-up room where Fred was transforming himself.  This was an amusing situation, as often or not, the musical guests on the Thaxton Show were waiting in that room as well.  I met Herman's Hermits that way.  In Santa Barbara in the Nineties, Peter Noone lived there as well and I asked him if he remembered being in that dressing room, waiting to go on telly while this man made himself up as monster. "That must have been '65 or '66, wasn't it?  You would have been 16, yes?"  Possibly.  The show lasted from 1962 to 1966.  I hung around for the last half.

So this Monday night excursion became a habit.  I even forsake some episodes of my favourite network show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E when it was in the Monday night time slot.  I felt a slight tinge of remorse seeing a glimpse of a new first season episode on a backstage monitor during taping.  Even the Jeepers' crew were UNCLE fans.  But more important work was to be done.  And thank the pagan gods, summer reruns were to begin, so I could be loyal to both obsessions.

I started creating props for the show.  A horror movie friend at the time made a large bat out of coathanger and black cloth.  This became a set piece.  I added a skull with candle.  There may be a foto enclosed of me setting match to prop as Fred prepares for camera.  I really loved the fog machine.  This technical device for the time, a brown art deco appliance, plugged in with heated Vaseline, ready to spray clouds of smoke...this set the mood.  I loved the smell of it, even though it probably wasn't healthy.  If a take flubbed, new layers of smoke were added.  If they wanted the mists to stay ground level, like a Wolf Man movie, a metal tray was applied to the front of the machine, filled with dry ice.  This kept the clouds from rising.  Pure magic!  The effect was complete.  We WERE in the graveyard.  Like walking into your favourite Universal horror film.

In an era where home recording was only dreamt of, I have no copies of these Saturday night broadcasts.  But I did have my own kinescopes.  I would turn off all lights in the den, open the lens of my Kodak 8mm motion picture camera to full, and film off the second black and white TV set on colour stock.  Except for the fluctuating vertical lines, this actually worked quite well.  I had a small audio tape recorder.  If the batteries were strong, it came out adequate.  If not, oh, dear!  Helium moments in performance playback.  I also took my trusty Kodak to the studio and got some lovely on air and behind the scenes stuff in colour.  Fred, Jim and the crew.  Cool moments.  Better than summer camp.

Ultimately Fred left the show and started a serious career.  He appeared in a lot of interesting stuff.  Check out his resume on IMDB.  He worked in what I believe is Clint Eastwood's best film, Escape from Alcatraz.  And with Patrick McGoohan.  And Fred Ward, whom I got to know in Santa Barbara.  He's back to the satanic in The Sentinel and quite exposed as well.  He worked with both Sophia Loren and O. J. Simpson in Firepower.  He was in Network.  I hope some day to catch up on his TV work I missed, like Lou Grant and WKRP in Cincinnati.

As for Jeepers' Creepers, after Fred left, producer Jim Sullivan took over the host role.  He became The Creeper, possibly the most horrific horror movie host to date.  He looked like he stepped out of an old E.C. horror comic.  Jethro Tull meets a Nightmare on Elm Street.  Half ghoul, half wino.  Daring, but doomed.  The show had come to its end.

Over a decade later, I reconnected with Fred Stuthman.  I tracked him down doing stage work at the Music Center.  He was living in Long Beach and we corresponded by letter.  Lots of memories and a wealth of showbiz stories to share.  I decided to drop in on him.

The last time I saw Fred Stuthman, I didn't see him at all.  He was doing The Crucible at a small theatre in Hollywood.  I thought I would surprise him and come down from Santa Barbara, see the show.  When I got to the theatre on Ivar, a note was placed on the playbill: "Tonight's performance will be performed by Ford Rainey"  FORD RAINEY!  This marvelous character actor, who I had JUST HAPPENED to work with in 1973 in King Lear.  Is this incredible and bizarre or what?

With the utmost respect to Ford... I turned around and left.
 

"Tell me Hilda, does all this frighten you? Does it make you feel insecure?"

When Smokey Robinson hooked up with Trinity Broadcasting Network, he suggested an Evangelical movie project set in Motown Studios.  "The Last Christ of the Temptations" never went past first draft.

Syd Barrett as Jerry Lewis in "The Delicate LSDelinquent."  Likewise.

Everyone remembers Fats Domino and Chubby Checker.  But what ever happened to Porky Parcheesi and Hefty Scrabble?

I love the B Movie factories of the '30s and the '40s.  Does anyone remember MONOGAM Studios?  Their motto: "We only have ONE LEG to stand on."

The studio, too cheap to afford the East Side Kids or the Bowery Boys, introduced the ill-fated Skid Row Juveniles.  Also, unable to pay for Chinatown second unit work, the Mr. Wang of Alameda series was doomed to obscurity.

Citizen Kane to be remade with new product placement: RoseBudweiser.  Peter Gabriel will contribute title song: Sledhammer.

Del Monte sponsoring revival of musical "Hair."  "This is the dawning of the Age of Asparagus."

An intoxicated Tom Jones exposed himself during a concert after changing the lyrics to "It's Not Hung Usual."

Hollywood Hidden Secrets: When long time partner Bob's Big Boy ran off with new lover Pillsbury Dough Boy, jilted lover Alky of Alka Seltzer, commited suicide by throwing himself in a glass of water.

Snow White originally had 10 Dwarfs.  Did Walt fire Nosey because he was too Jewish?  Humpy for his Vice Record?  And Limpy?  There would have only been 5 Dwarfs if Dopey hadn't been a supplier and Doc hadn't performed certain operations.  The first explains Happy and Sneezy's conditions.  Grumpy had piles, but Doc wouldn't perform the operation.  Records were destroyed.

They keep sending me mail about cremation services.  I burn them in the fireplace.

Shouldn't Abbe Lane have recorded Abbey Road?

Michael Caine was once approached to join Emerson, Lake and Harry Palmer.

Max Factor and the X Factor have nothing in common.  There is no foundation to this story.

Likewise, Bette Davis has never been romantically linked with Miles Davis, Sammy Davis, Jr., the Spencer Davis Group or the Davis Cup.  Where DO these stories come from?

Joan Crawford's alter ego was Broderick Crawford.  They were never photographed in the same room together.

Hermes was the Messenger of the Gods, not a fashion designer.  It was never his bag.

"When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide."

Okay, Jo.  Here are some more rib ticklers.

Bob Fosse once considered doing the choreography of the works of Ayn Rand.  "Atlas Frugged" was the first concept.

Nipplelodian (the network for under-nourished, non-breast fed children) had proposed a series about a female child star jazz-funk group: The Jon Benet Ramsey Lewis Trio was quietly shelved.

In the sixties, Johnson & Johnson suggested a line of bath products inspired by The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  David McTallcum Powder only made it to the testing stage.

Likewise, in later years musician Peter Hammill asked Napoleon Solo to join his band, but sadly, Robert Vaughn der Graaf Generator never performed at the Roundhouse.

The planned collaboration of Jethro Tull and Yes never brought forth Thick as a Brick Relayer.

I would love to start a new town called Moderation.  Alcoholics could live there with respect.  They would never feel guilty saying, "I only drink in Moderation."

Likewise, in this town, I would name one street Not in Service.  This would make waiting for your correct bus more fun.

Robert Plant originally sang "Hey, hey, Mama.  When you move your groins.  It makes me glad you're from Des Moines."  Later, sober, this version of "Whole Lotta Lunch" was discarded.

Jimmy Page was asked to join a disbanded Bachman-Turner Overdrive.  Page-Turner is still a mystery.  But then, a good mystery should always be a Page-Turner.

Not many people know that Bob Dylan loved the mystery comedies of Nick and Nora Charles so much, he created "Ballad of a Thin Man."  An obsession with the lead actress inspired the song, "Loy, Lady, Loy."

If Bea Arthur had married William Holden, she would be Bea Holden.  If she had then made a film with The Thin Man's Myrna Loy, they would have been Loy and Bea Holden.  Or was that an Irish Vaudeville team?

Alka Salsa was briefly produced by the Miles Davis Laboratory.

Travel author Rick Steve's marriage ended when he accidentally sent a misspelled postcard from Amsterdam saying; "Wish you were her."

Gene Barry did not appear in the pilot episode of the sixties Saudi Arabian detective show, Burqa's Law.

The first concert merchandise ever sold was after a performance of Trois Gymnopedies, Paris.  The item was an Erik Satie shirt.

Where are the great porno performers of the '70s?  We know what happened to Johnny Trousersnake Disease.  But does anyone fondly recall Veronica Nose, Amber Grope, Bambi Steam, Desiree Humper and Vanessa del Groppo?  And the virile efforts of Jamie Odors and Herschel Sewage?  I miss those all night shows at the Screaming Beaver theatre. Downtown Los Angeles, at 5th and Hell.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Armin Mueller-Stahl, with his new wife Lesley and their adopted son Nick, are heading to a horse farm in Chatsworth to film a scene about Josef Stalin in a barn, when on the Ventura Freeway...guess what happens to the car's engine?

"Nothing less. The number 10 raised almost literally to the power of infinity."

If I hadn't seen the film Forbidden Planet in 1956 at the age of 7, possibly EIGHT, I doubt Space Pirate Radio would have ever come to exist.  Aside from the Existential discussion of the change of time, placement, divergence, effect and outcome, the simple fact was...this film BLEW THE CHILDLIKE MIND!  Hallucinogens in the chocolate milk and frosted flake(s).  It changed my world, like that Mad Magazine cover did 2 years later.

My mother took me to see it in a Southern California theatre after we had moved from Michigan.  She HATED it.  Space movies and science fiction scared her.  My dad LOVED sci-fi, so we buddied up for all of the later interstellar fare.  In my childhood, HE drove me to the first Count Dracula Society meetings.  WE went to Forrest J Ackerman's house to see his sci-fi collection.  I can still remember my father talking to Forry about the classic science fiction film, Things to Come.  Cool.

But back to Forbidden Planet.  This otherworldly interpretation of Shakespeare's The Tempest was a ground breaking sci-fi film.  I'll try to avoid an in-depth thesis.  The film had many levels to excite a young boy's mind, especially Anne Francis and her Sin-emascope legs and her pre-mini (or post-mini, since this is the future) mini-skirt/dress.  Hoo-Hah!

It was the sound of the thing.  The first all electronic soundtrack major motion picture.  Completely alien.  Not a recognizable human instrument in the whole mix.  We had the theremin in Day the Earth Stood Still. An alien amidst the human orchestra.  Very cool.  But this was complete.  Like when I first heard Tangerine Dream's Atem.  Pure space.  The film's composers were Louis and Bebe Barron.

So it would appear that film soundtrack music shaped my imagination.  Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake from Dracula, Max Steiner's complete score from 1933's King Kong, Bernard Herrmann's music from Journey to the Center of the Earth and especially Jason and the Argonauts and Mysterious Island.  Jazz from my Mother...Henry Mancini with Mr. Lucky, the crazy early sounds of Lenny Dee, Errol Garner.  My Sister with classical, ballet and the soundtrack to Spartacus.  I owned Percy Faith's theme from A Summer Place and Spike Jones' stuff as well as classical.  Plug that in with surf guitar, Lou Christie, Burt Bacharach, the British Invasion and lots of keyboards.  Mix with Monster Movie Marathons, Mad Magazine, lounge music and Eurotrash films and fashion.  The nucleus of Space Pirate Radio muzak is in the lab.

These things take time.  For some, a little slower than others.  38 plus years ago, I introduced Tangerine Dream on commercial radio, 8 floors above the Granada Theatre.  A month from now, what is now Tangerine Dream, will make its "Santa Barbara Debut" in the very same theatre below.

Oh, the irony.

It takes time for some of these fads to catch on.

(Will Gaston or the Phantom himself be in the balcony?)

Herbert Lom Chaney? More or less, B.S. Morbius, or less. :)

"Where am I?"

"In the Village."

Hello Surrealists.  Welcome Dadaists.  It's a Meet & Magritte.

Every day, if the fiber kicks in...I meet the New Number 2.  I've Resigned, myself to it.

You know my name.  Look up the number.

What's in a number?  You know Number 6.  Have you met Number 54?  He's the Music Arranger.  Has a Studio.  The House Band?  Why...The Village People, of course.  Number 8 is the DJ.  If you try to leave, your progress is halted by a floating disco ball.  Known as Raver.

Como?  Who is Number Juan?

Meanwhile...

On Perry Mason the other night, Season 6, Volume 2 (how CURIOUS!), the lawyer's client was a toothless prospector who couldn't afford the legal fee.  Perry took his false teeth.  He told secretary Della Street to make note of the retainer.

If Shirley Temple had married The Saint, would she have been Shirley Templar?

If the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. had married Austin Powers, would she also be known as Stephanie Powers Powers?

Did Ironside ever listen to Leadbelly?

Did the Streets of San Francisco ever clean up during sweeps?

How could Frankenstein produce a Son if he was Baron?

Have Gum, Will Chew.  Wire Pallidentures, San Francisco.

It's true what they said about Ed Sullivan.  He had "a Really Big Shew."  And anyone with "a Really Big Shew" had a Really Big Foot.

When the Italian Mouse replaced Jon Anderson in Yes, Tales from Topo Gigio Oceans was briefly rehearsed.

When Wayne and Shuster broke up, followed by Simon and Garfunkel...Simon and Shuster was also considered.  "Book them!"

Topo Gigio was once a member of the Rat Pack.

Senor Wences once tried to enter the fast food business with a brand of cole slaw only sold at Christmas.  It was called Good King Wences' Slaw.

Christopher Walken's first attempt in pop music was to join Missing Persons.  The song Walken in LA, has never seen the light of day.

The Shadow had the "power to cloud men's minds."  Did he also have the power to cloud Carly Simon's coffee?

Simon and "a Really Big Shew" stir.  It all makes perfect sense now, tee-hee.

"What do you want?"

"I have nothing to worry about. Except Ken Russell."

It was early Monday morning (what would have been SPR time), on the computer, answering a letter to my friend David Fontana, when I clicked on the IMDB page and saw the news "Ken Russell dead at 84."  Four hours ago...

Surprise and sadness to see that this person who had influenced my antenna was gone.  My last blog, "Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3," had included him in the Fantastic Five: Fellini, Bunuel, Antonioni, himself and Roeg--now the only remaining name on the fungfmeisters.

Russell and Roeg were major early influences on my Seventies mindset, and even earlier with Ken.  I saw his BBC Isadora Duncan biography on PBS on initial airing, probably before I saw Cammel and Roeg's Performance.  Billion Dollar Brain, the third Michael Caine Harry Palmer espionage film, I saw in a Westwood theatre.  I dug Women in Love and The Music Lovers, but The Devils blew me away.  For over a decade I thought The Devils and Performance were the two best films I had seen.  I would debate with film students from UCSB that Russell and Roeg were in the calibre of Fellini and Bunuel.  They snickered at me as if I had said Russ Meyer was as good as Eisenstein.

I loved Ken Russell because he embraced being both intelligent and outrageous.  Like the Goons (he had done a BBC piece on Spike Milligan, Portrait of a Goon, which I still haven't seen), Ken was smart, silly and surreal.  And sexy.

Russell popped up in my stuff all the time.  My short play, Void in Wisconsin, seems like Russell meets Kovacs with Zappa's 200 Motels.  On Space Pirate Radio, Ken Russell and Federico Fellini wrestled in a pre-Monty Python bit for the title of Most Surrealist Director.  And in the play Casanova's Lips, a pre-Amadeus Mozart shows up at a seance, worried only that Ken Russell might film his life story.

I never met Ken Russell but I met a lot of people who had worked with him.  Georgina Hale and Glenda Jackson in London.  Amanda Donohoe in Santa Barbara.  My wife has met Kenneth Colley in her Star Wars universe.  Most of these actors have worked with Russell and Roeg, and often.

When Space Pirate Radio co-promoted a Rick Wakeman concert in Ventura, the wife and I plus friends had a lovely chat with the man post-show.  Wakeman's involvement with the man in Lizstomania was a first question, having done double duty as actor and composer.

Ironically, I purchased not far back, the Ken Russell BBC Collection, released only in the States.  I rewatched the Isadora Duncan one and saw for the first time, the Debussy biopic with Oliver Reed.  Rossetti, Delius, Elgar and Rousseau still call out.  And not too long ago, I bought the Warners Archive release of Savage Messiah.  Like Orson Welles, he's not long out of radar.

And did I say Ken Russell's films are sexy?  Very sexy.  And scandalous.  Pan-Sexual.  He got Richard Chamberlain out of the closet with the Music Lovers and a smashing performance.  He brought Oscar Wilde back to film.  Louis XIII says in The Devils, "Women. Some men love them."  And oh, how we loved those women.

Talking to Georgina Hale in her dressing room (her wearing an amazing dressing gown that I'm sure was designed by Ken's wife, costumer Shirley Russell), did I ever go into Third Person and realize this was that outrageously daring, powderfaced nymphet from The Devils, the woman who danced naked with a classic phonograph player, fondled by SS Gestapo men on Gustav Mahler's coffin?  Or Amanda Donohoe (pictured) being the vampiric snake woman, biting into the intimate bits of a young boy scout in Lair of the White Worm?  She would rejoin Ken again in his version of D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow.

Glenda Jackson, Labour Member of Parliament, writhing nude on a train to a horrified Tchaikovsky?  Helen Mirren as Nude Descending Staircase in Savage Messiah?  Twiggy in The Boyfriend?  Twiggy and her boyfriend in The Devils?  The Devil and her boyfriend in Twiggy?  Sorry, seized by a moment of Russellmania.  How about Ann Margaret in an orgy of baked beans, a flood of fecal fiber in Tommy?

Rest in Peace, Ken Russell. I would have loved to thank you in person for all the passion, philosophy, photography and pinching at the petticoats of the petite bourgeoisie.  Much appreciated.

And I'm sure you hated it all.  How a great work by Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudon, that JFK conspiracy of 17th Century France, and the play adapted from it, which was the basis of your most important film...

That from all of this would come the genre known as Nunsploitation.  From the solitude of my monastic cell, I salute you.

Bye, Bye Blackbird.

"For his sake, I hope he lives forever."

"I don't know who you are Sir, or where you come from, but you've done me a power of good."

Hello folks!  A September ramble here.  Computer was down, so I listened to an old Goon Show that I probably hadn't heard since the mid Seventies or early Eighties.  "The Great Regent's Park Swim" from October 1957.  Recently released on the BBC's ongoing CD series.  During those decades, I was fortunate to have had one of the most complete collections of Goon Show tapes from a variety of sources.  These included reel to reel tapes of BBC World Service recordings throughout the years.  David Ossman of the Firesign Theatre was kind enough to lend me his personal collection of transcription discs.  He had broadcast them originally in New York.  And over the years, I met fellow Goon fanatics who had the odd show, different from the original, highly edited EMI/Parlophone LPs or the later BBC vinyl series.  Each new show was a cosmic/comic find of immense psychedelic proportions.

So as we hit September 8th, the twin birthdays of Peter Sellers and Sir Harry Secombe, I feel that modern rhythm Min!

Those with nothing better to do have seen in previous pages my meager encounters with the Goons in varying degrees.  Peter Sellers was always a big influence.  I have spoken before of my involvement with the Sellers Estate, especially with his widow, Lynne Frederick.  Her initial blessing on the Sellers documentary I had put together, "Life is a State of Mind: The Life and Work of Peter Sellers," pretty much capped my obsession.

Earlier, I was proud to get Spike Milligan's consent to do a cameo in my "Space Pirate Video" pilot.  He turned down a video project with Rolling Stones member Bill Wyman, but agreed to mine.  No offense Bill, but there was a slight glow in the Space Pirate's intestinal system.  Spike's secretary, Norma Farnes, treated me very kindly in Spike's office off Hyde Park in Orme Court (having introduced the Italian band Le Orme to U.S. audiences on Space Pirate Radio, I was always fond of the street name).  I'm sorry the event did not come together, but I am pleased that Norma continues to carry on all artistic matters Milligna (the famous typing error).

Never met Neddy.  Probably the sanest of the three (or four if we count original member Michael Bentine).  Bentine or Milligan.  Which one is Syd?

Didn't connect with Sir Harry, or his daughter, whose phone number and address was always on the desk, but I never felt like intruding.  Son Andy, yes...see previous Star Wars entry.

Ray Ellington...Ellinga or Rage Ellington as Sellers called him in one hopped up episode.  No.  Nor his son, who portrayed his father in that HBO Sellers film.  Wally Stott or the transformed Angela Morley?  No.

But that great harmonica player, the butt of Jewish jokes and the Great Conk?  Max Geldray.  Yes.  He was cool.  And harmonicas are cool

Quick, into the re-Tardis.  But first, a Time Laird Gnote...

Sellers was born in 1925.  Secombe was born in 1921.  Milligan was born in 1918.

Sellers died first.  Secombe died second.  And Milligan died last.

It's all in the mind, you know.