Rhubarb (1969 film) Rhubarb (1969 film) Rhubarb was a 1969 British short film written and directed by Eric Sykes, starring Sykes and Harry Secombe. The dialogue consisted entirely of repetitions of the word ""rhubarb"", all the characters last names were "Rhubarb", and even the number plates on vehicles were "RHU BAR B". A baby "spoke" by holding a sign with the word ""Rhubarb"" written on it. "Rhubarb" is a radio idiom for unintelligible background speech. Typically extras would mutter the word over and over to provide ambience for a crowd or party scene. In "The Goon Show" the cast was usually only the
Eric Sykes mostly written by Sykes, although he co-wrote one episode each with John Antrobus and Spike Milligan. All subsequent episodes were written solely by Sykes. Nine short seasons of "Sykes and A..." were made between 1960 and 1965, ranging between six and nine episodes each, plus a short 1962 special in the BBC's annual "Christmas Night with the Stars" programme, now lost. Twenty-five of the original fifty-nine episodes have survived in the BBC archives. It was during this series that Sykes introduced one of his best known creations, the wordless slapstick routine "The Plank", which originally appeared in Episode 2, Series