In the 1950s a radio play called the Goon Show was aired in Britain and around the British Commonwealth. Written predominantly by Spike Milligan it featured, amongst others, Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Seacombe. It was half an hour of silly voices, ridiculousness and outright insanity as it drifted between the absurd to the sublimely brilliant. It ran for more than 240 episodes over ten series between 1951 and 1960 with such wonderful episode titles as “The Ghastly Experiments of Dr. Hans Eidelburger”, “The Great Ink Drought of 1902”, “The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler (of Bexhill-on-Sea)” and “The Great Tuscan Salami Scandal”. Re-runs During the next two decades ensured that the show had a fan base that was deeper than the original ten year run of the programme. For my American readers, who have probably never heard of this, it can best be described as the radio version of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and twenty years earlier.
So what is my point with this opening? Well of the many thousand lines of script that were written one stuck in my mind today. It is a superb piece of Milligan nonsense (delivered by the character Major Bloodnock voiced by Peter Sellers) playing on the name of Eartha Kitt, whose popularity as a performer was at its peak in the 1950s, and ran something like “...tropical kit...my God I loved that woman...” And still you are searching for my point, right?...well it is because the Brazilian infantry unit shown below is presented in tropical kit. I know it is a tenuous link to an obscure line from a 1950s radio play, but I am stuck at home alone in lockdown and having to deal with work problems on my unpaid day off, so my frazzled brain is making all kinds of weird connections.
So here they are, in their tropical kit, the second battalion of Brazilian infantry.
I really like look of these guys, but the white uniforms took a lot of work to get right.
I'm old enough to remember the re-runs of The Goons , I like the white uniforms on these chaps .
ReplyDeleteIt is the re-runs that trapped me in the mid-1970s.
DeleteWell your effort was certainly worth it as the tropical kit looks great. My late Mum loved the Goon Show and I remember reading Milligan's books on holiday and laughing an awful lot. The show titles are superb and must surely lead to some fun wargames!
ReplyDeleteI am pleased with the tropical kit unit and it will make for a nice variation amongst the blue coated units.
DeleteHi Mark- Once again excellent figures - great painting. Spike Milligan has to be one of my all time favorite people- he wrote a book 'Gunner Who' which was all about his part in the downfall of Romell and the Germans- a great read with lots of laughs. Cheers.KEV.
ReplyDeleteI loved Milligan’s memoirs - the trilogy in four parts. He had a brilliant comedic mind but suffered from mental illness most of this adult life.
DeleteThey look lovely Mark. White is so hard to do, I just can’t get my Napoleonic Austrians right.
ReplyDeleteThanks Norm. Oddly I didn’t find the Spanish all that difficult, and I did a LOT of them, but this one unit caused me issues.
DeleteThey do look good! White is a hard color to make interesting on a figure, nice job on them!
ReplyDeleteI am about to do another couple of tropical kit Argentine units, one of which may be in white, but thankfully these are smaller units - not so much white to paint.
DeleteThe white uniforms look terrific! I want to see more units in white, tropical kit! I would enjoy seeing how you rendered the white uniform. This would work for faded, Spanish rayadillo too.
ReplyDeleteFor the white is simply block painted a base coat of white and then applied Apothecary White from the GW contrast range. Then just highlighted and touched up where needed.
DeleteNice work on these Mark - I sympathise with Norm, having painted around 350 Napoleonic Austrian. I have similar memories to Steve J - found one of Milligans books belonging to my older cousin when I was about 13 or 14 staying at my Aunties for summer holidays in the mid 70's. "After my last book, I swore I would never write another. This is it"! But my all time favourite Milligan quote about his time in N Africa was this one - still applicable today and I am sure internationally so - "The army works like this. If you hang a man and he dies, keep hanging him until he gets used to it!" Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteThat contrast white certainly simplifies painting white uniforms. I read all four books - twice - in the late 70s...must see if I still have them.
DeleteThese look great, and really have a South American look about them.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lawrence. And the great thing is there is no need to vary the hair colour too much!
DeleteGreat work Mark. Yes it is funny how the brain makes weird connections like this. No World War Two Tunisia game is complete in my mind without saying, 'A Tiger? In Africa?'.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nathan. Yes we make the weirdest connections at times, probably more so at times of stress.
DeleteVery nice Mark...
ReplyDeleteThat is indeed a rather attractive uniform...
All the best. Aly
Thanks Aly. The Argentinians can have a similar uniform and I can feel the need to do onevif their units in white too.
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