One of mine is Ken Dodd.

"What a day for shoving a cucumber through a letterbox and shout eh up missus, the Martians have landed!"

Mine's also from Doddy, at a time when he was just a radio comedian.



"On the head, women have more hair than men

On the chest, men have more hair than women

But on the (w)hole, women have the most hair"



That resulted in him being banned from the BBC for months.

Bob Monkhouse



When I told people that I wanted to become a comedian, they just laughed.





Well they're not laughing now!

Ken Goodwin on The Comedians...



Bloke goes into a hardware shop & says "I want a bag of nails" and the shopkeeper says "How long do you want them", bloke says "I want to keep them",



settle down now...

That's the first thing that popped into my head, too, and if actually caught me a bit by surprise. A well-crafted gag.

Indeed, if a gag stays in the mind like that one has in ours, it's special.

double post amended

I never really liked Monkhouse for a while (in which I'm pretty sure I'm far from alone, he seemed to put off as many as he entertained), but the more I saw the more I realised how good he was. I actually tend to prefer comedians of the funny stories/observational/rambling sort rather than gag-men, but he was/is an exception for me; you really do have to admire the skill it takes to do it that well.

The "old pro" comedians or comics as they preferred to be known, were masters at the craft of identifying their audience and modifying their act to suit. Monkhouse not only had a vast collection of gags, he also had an incredible memory, this enabled his ability to quickly change to his surroundings, like a chameleon.



During the early 70s I worked at Centre Bar in Hull and the hotel was contracted to provide the accommodation for the local Bailey's nightclub. I consider myself fortunate to have met most of the top comics of that era, the vast majority of whom were down to earth and naturally funny people.

...the second division of which was the working mens club circuit on which a semi-professional (ie "I've got a day job) performer could earn a nice little top-up to the weekly wage with a couple of bookings every weekend and with the sheer number of clubs in any given district could play a different club every weekend and not repeat a booking for at least a year, by which time it was time to book them all again, often with the same act.



My dad loved his working mens clubs, was an amatuer comedian/singer himself and never needed asking twice to get up on stage, Saturday and Sunday evenings in our house when I was a kid were spent with him browsing "The Club Book", a monthly booklet for the district in which every club listed their "turns" for that month, he'd pick from several dozen clubs in the Leeds district book to see a desired act, for free - for free, I emphasise that bit because with his CIU membership (a couple of quid a year) he could get into any of the clubs, free, to watch an act, for free - try doing that now





He also served his time as a concert secretary and so knew many of the comedians (his chosen forte) on the circuit at that time, the best of whom were every bit as good as any comedian playing the arenas today (and becoming millionaires in the process) that you care to name, to pick just two Paul Shane (of Hi-de-hi fame) and Bobby Knut (no spelling mistake intended) both from Rotherham, both well crafted stand-up comedians, both toured West and South Yorkshire WMC's for years and years doing basically the same act on a twelve month rotation, both knew exactly how to play their audiences because they'd learned the hard way decades ago by standing in front of a rowdy audience with crap jokes and being either boo'ed off or paid off, Paul Shane may have been a crap actor on TV (and he admitted the same) but he was by far the best stand-up on the circuit for many years.

PS - has anyone ever stood in front of a paying audience (ie not your mates) and tried five minutes of stand-up comedy ?



I have, one of the worst experiences of my life





When you start with your best joke and no-one laughs then you know you're in trouble with 4mins 30 seconds of hell to follow

Bob Monkhouse again ...



When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandad did.



Not screaming in terror like his passengers.