Who or what were The Telegoons?
The Telegoons were the Goon Show characters reinvented in puppet form. They were shown on BBC television in the early 1960s in two series of programs called The Telegoons. The puppets were designed and constructed by professional puppeteer Ron Field, and Ralph D. Young, father of Tony Young of Grosvenor Films Ltd. (who in turn made the programs for the BBC). It is not known who did the actual sculpting of the puppet heads. The puppet’s hands and Eccles’ worn out boots were made in Ron Field’s puppet workshop. Critical to the design of the puppets were the pencil sketches of Goon characters (many of which still adorn the surviving copies of the studio scripts) done by the Goons themselves. Although Spike Milligan had final say in the look of the puppets, it is not known how much direct influence he had other than through his pencil sketches. The voices of the Telegoon puppets were provided by the usual (Goon Show) suspects, namely Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and Peter Sellers. The pu
