Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Colonial India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.
Milligan, c. 1990
Men of Milligan's unit, 56th Heavy Regiment, with a BL 9.2-inch howitzer, Hastings, Sussex, May 1940
A Scammell Pioneer tows a howitzer of 18 Battery, 56th Heavy Regiment in Italy, 23 December 1943.
Milligan during his prime years
Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones was an American musician, bandleader and conductor specializing in spoof arrangements of popular songs and classical music. Ballads receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells, hiccups, burps, and outlandish and comedic vocals. Jones and his band recorded under the title Spike Jones and His City Slickers from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, and they toured the United States and Canada as "The Musical Depreciation Revue".
Jones, c. 1945–46
September 14, 1949 appearance of Spike Dyke, modeled on Spike Jones, in Chester Gould's Dick Tracy
Jones with some of his musical instruments – empty tin cans – in the background
Spike Jones Jr and Senior with Howdy Doody