Michael Bentine (January 26 1922 - November 26 1996) was a comedian, comic actor, and member of the Goons.
Bentine was born in Watford, of Anglo-Peruvian parentage. In World War II he served as an RAF Intelligence officer, and took part in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. 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 . He was also a television presenter and writer.
He 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.
In later life, his interests included parapsychology. This partly arose as a result of the premature death of his son.
Appeared in:
- The Goon Show (1950-52)
- Round the Bend in Thirty Minutes (1959)
- It's a Square World (1960-64)
- The Golden Silents (1965)
- Michael Bentine's Potty Time (1973-80)
- ...and many other programmes
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