A Show Called Fred  A Show Called Fred was a sketch comedy series best known for being an early television work by Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, then both regular performers on the BBC Home Service as two-thirds of the cast of "The Goon Show". Directed by Richard Lester, it starred Sellers, Milligan, Valentine Dyall, Kenneth Connor and Graham Stark - principle contributers it shared with "The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d", a comedy show which had finished only a month before. Its five 30 minute episodes were made by Associated-Rediffusion for ITV and broadcast only in the London area. It was predominantly a sketch comedy, attempting to translate the audio antics of "The Goon Show" into visual antics in bizarre and often surreal comedy sketches. Jazz harmonica player Max Geldray had a music segment in the show, reprising his role from "The Goon Show", and Canadian star Patti Lewis had a singing spot. Performers including Mario Fabrizi, Ernest Clark, Patricia Driscoll, Jon Jon Keefe, Jennifer Lautrec and John Vyvyan had roles over the show's run. Contemporary celebrities such as Hans and Lotte Hass were parodied. There were a few taboos, with sketches showing people in various states of undress, cameramen, behind the scenes workers and the studios. The Ying Tong Song, written by Milligan, served as the show's opening theme, and became a hit on the UK Singles Chart when released in September 1956. A Show Called Fred provoked strong reactions upon broadcast for its unusual content. "The People" reported that the show had received more telephone complaints than any other ITV show for being difficult to understand. Reviewing the programme in the "Daily Mirror", Clifford Davis described it as "the most meaningless, weird, un-funny piffle ever to have been perpetrated on TV". In other quarters, the show garnered critical acclaim. Kenneth Baily of "The People" described it as "a new approach to TV fun" and "just as original as the Goons and radio's inimitable "It's That Man Again"". Writing for "Truth", Denis Thomas singled out the show from any other comedy show on television, describing it as "so "televisually" funny: this, for once, is a variety programme which owes nothing at all to gramophone records or to the Palladium, or even to Cabaret". Thomas's comments were echoed by "Truth"'s Bernard Levin, who noted that the show had been "hailed in many quarters as not only the funniest thing that has ever been seen on television, but as the first programmes to exploit the full resources of the newest medium in a manner which owes nothing to the methods of any older one".