Talk:Hercules Grytpype-Thynne

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Needs merging

from The Goon Show cast members and characters

Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, a suave, well-educated impecunious homosexual cad. He often collaborates with Count Moriarty to swindle Neddie. As with Moriarty, his decline into disgrace was apparently a character development that was not deliberate - after all, in The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler, he was a police inspector. His homosexuality was never mentioned openly in the show, although it was alluded to on several occasions (e.g. Seagoon: Why don't you get married? Grytpype: I would, but Moriarty doesn't love me.), but "came out" in a biographical note in the book The Goon Show Scripts (1972). Sellers' characterisation was based on renowned British actor George Sanders.

Charlie as rhyming slang

The Cockney Rhyming slang bit needs expansion - maybe "(Charlie Smirke --> berk --> Berkeley Hunt --> cunt)" as the rhyming between "Charlie Smirke" and cunt is quite obtuse. --Tim

Removed this and corrected it to meaning foolish or easily fooled person, which is what Charlie means in this context - anon

Grytpype-Thynne as a name

Indicates the character's sexuality. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to unearth any references. However, 'gritpipe' was used as British Army slang (according to my father) during and after WWII as a slang term for anus. It was also in common use when I was at school in Essex (UK) in the 1960s and 70s (e.g. 'kick him in the gritpipe'). Spike Milligan's nomenclature and terminology was partly current slang and partly invented, and intended to bamboozle the BBC censors, but not the audience of the Goon Show, who were usually in the know.

^ Has this ever been actually cited? I've tried to find literally any reference to this elsewhere but can't find anything whatsoever. This page is the only reference to 'gritpipe' as a slang term available online. - anon