Thursday, January 04, 2007

Michael Bentine


One side of an LP on RCA called "Square Bashing" from the TV series "It's A Square World" that was popular in the 70's. This record was released in 1980. Music is by the Square Bashers arranged and conducted by Les Williams.

Tracks are-

1. March On
2. The Concert
3. Freedom Of The Airways
4. What The Public Thinks
5. The Tradegy At The National Gallery

Wikipedia says-

"Bentine was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, of Anglo-Peruvian parentage and grew up in Folkestone, Kent, one of his friends being the young David Tomlinson. He was educated at Eton College.
In World War II he served as an RAF Intelligence officer, and took part in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He said about this experience:
Millions of words have been written about these horror camps, many of them by inmates of those unbelievable places. I’ve tried, without success, to describe it from my own point of view, but the words won’t come. To me Belsen was the ultimate blasphemy.
He had acted before the war, and afterwards he decided to become a comedian, specialising in off-the-wall humour, often involving cartoons and other types of animation. For example, a prominent feature of his series, It's a Square World, was the imaginary flea circus.
Having appeared in the Goon Show on radio from 1951-3, he also appeared in the Goon Show film Down Among the Z Men, and at the time seemed perhaps the most comfortable of the cast in working in a visual medium."

Discover more about Michael Bentine HERE.


The Square Bashers - Square Dance


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I loved Michael's "Potty Time" abd I've seen a short clip of his Peruvian Performing Fleas on that show, hillarious.

Wastedpapiers said...

Yes, I forgot to mention "Potty Time" also "The Bumblies" he did for childrens TV in the 50's which was similar, with puppets, very Goon Show inspired.