When I was at the University of Florida circa 1979 - 1982, I couldn’t afford cable. In Gainesville, there were approximately 3 channels - NBC, ABC & PBS. Thanks to an aversion to Wink Martindale & “Tic Tac Dough”, I started watching PBS. I am now eternall grateful to Mr. Martindale. Because of his smarminess, I have experienced the nirvana that is Dave Allen, “To The Manor Born”, “Doctor in the House” and Monty Python.
I loved Dave. Good on him for being such a talent.
VCNJ~
So, an Irish comedian dies and goes to Heaven. When he reaches the Pearly Gates, St. Peter stops him and says,…
…you’ve got to answer one question correctly before you can come on in…
I remember him well. WVTV channel 18 in Milwaukee would play his show after Benny Hill in the late 70’s. He was a laugh riot. He could even take a stale old joke (like the cure for a hickey gag) and make it sound new & hillarious. A man truely does deserve paradise who can make his friends laugh.
Hemlock posted this joke on his website:
A little black guy moves to Belfast, and after a week or so he wants to pray. So he goes out, walks the streets, and he finds a church. And he goes in, kneels down. And he’s about to start praying when the Reverend Ian Paisley comes out from the back. And Paisley goes – “What are ye doing in my church you horrible little man – get out of here right now.” And the black fellow runs out. A week later he really feels he should pray, so he goes back and sneaks into the church again. He’s about to start praying when Paisley comes out again. Same thing happens. “What are ye doing here again? I thought I told ye… Be off with ye this minute!” So off he goes. Another week passes, and he really thinks he has to say his prayers, so he goes out, and this time he finds a different church. He goes in and kneels down.
“Dear God,” he says. “I’m really sorry I haven’t prayed to you for so long. But the thing is, I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to get into the Reverend Ian Paisley’s church.” And a bright light shines in through the window. And a deep heavenly voice booms out – “Two weeks? I’ve been trying to get in there for decades!”
Not a joke really, is it? Like all the best humour.
What a shame. It’s been at least 20 years since I’ve seen Dave Allen At Large, but I have fond memories. Maybe this will provoke BBC America to show some episodes.
Or release a DVD.
Interestingly, Sister Aimee Semple MacPherson told that about a black man in an white segregated church to A CONGREGATION FULL OF KLANSMEN.
Discarded robes were left around the church that day.
SISTER AIMEE by Mark Epstein, I believe,
God bless you, Dave Allen & I hope you were happily surprised at His Reality.
Btw, I loved the Joust. I was amazed that such skits & stories were actually considered offensive & edgy in England!
Yes, like all the best jokes, I have no doubt it’s done the rounds. There’s probably a tribe in the Amazon rainforest telling it at this very moment. But the special power of this version lies in the fact that Paisley is a minister of the church.
Along similar lines, Corrie Ten Boom (who helped to hide Jews from the authorities in wartime Holland, if I recall correctly) used to answer those who refused to believe that someone who called themselves a Christian could do bad things by saying: “Just because a mouse gets in the cookie jar, it doesn’t make it a cookie.”
Funniest thing I ever saw on TV -
Dave’s sidekick, Ronnie (I think) is playing a cop. He walks up to a car parked at the side of the road. In it is Dave, dressed in scuba gear. The “cop” knocks on the window. Dave rolls it down and gallons of water pour out!
No dialogue, no fancy effects, just a classic :eek: moment!
I’m gonna miss him.
In the early days he even told jokes about " the troubles" of the 20’s . Of course he had to stop this when it all flared up again in the late 60’s and was no longer a laughing matter.
One of these jokes I do remember is about a group of IRA men planning to ambush someone. They are waiting for hours and there is no sign of their intended victim. Suddenly one of the men turns to the others and say “I wonder where Paddy has got to? I hope he hasn’t had an accident.”
The one Dave Allen joke/story I’ve always remembered is him talking about the Irishman drinking in the bar on a dark and stormy night. After he’s gotten himself loaded pretty heavily with drink, he thinks about going home, and says to himself, “That’s a bad storm out there. The kind where the banshees are out, along with ghosts and the goblins. I’m not taking the long way home tonight. I’ll take the shortcut, through the graveyard!” See, that’s thing about the Irish, they’re not afraid to go through graveyards on bad nights, because they know that’s when the spirits are out wandering around everywhere else.
So this fellow finishes his drink, and heads out. He walks through the graveyard, and falls in this open grave that had been dug earlier in the day. He tries to get out by climbing up the sides, but it’s so muddy that when he gets just below the top, he slides back down to the bottom. He tries several times to get out, but is never able to do it. So finally, he sets himself down at the bottom of the grave to wait till morning.
About an hour later, another fellow’s coming through the graveyard, and he falls into the grave. He gets up and starts trying to climb up the side of the grave. The first Irishman looks at him and says, “You’ll never get out.”
He did.