“I guess irony can be pret-ty ironic sometimes…”
In fairness, Bob Hope was born in 1903 and was still going on the Tonight Show to plug his specials 88 years later. By then his eyesight was failing (and probably his hearing, as well) and had to rely on scripted bits and remembering how many steps to get to the couch.
The thing about Airplane! is that it’s so funny even if you don’t know about and have never seen Zero Hour, the movie it’s parodying.
With Westerns and classic Horror movies, you have a lot of clichés to draw on. With Aviation Disaster movies, not so many. Often it’s knowing the clichés that make parodies funny in the first place.
Easy to tell them apart:
Bob’s the funny one.
And Bob’s the one with the funny nose.
If I ever gave any thought to Bob Hope at all, I never really thought of him as an asshole, although his political views should have been a clue. But I definitely never regarded him as even remotely funny. Hope’s idea of humour was straight from the vaudeville days, and it was the kind of humour that was lame even then. It’s beyond me how he achieved success in radio, TV, and movies.
Which one’s your uncle?
The grown-ups were laughing at the clangers they had been hearing all their lives, a kind of habitual reflex, and the kids (me, 1950’s) laughed because the clangers were fresh to them. I ate up his specials (I especially liked the discovery of Jerry Colonna in the audience, and I repeat: KID!). But the bloom went off at the sight of him snarling at the soldiers who were flashing the “V” on one of his Viet Nam specials.
Dan
Bob Hope’s talent was timing. The jokes he told were rarely any good. He had two kinds of writers; hacks and talented comedians who were holding back their good stuff for their own use. The fact that Hope could get laughs anyway speaks to his incredible talent as a performer/actor especially compared to the wooden deliveries that prevailed at the time.
Coincidentally I was just listening to Goldie Hawn on the ‘Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend’ podcast yesterday. She said that when she auditioned for Laugh-In, the name of the character she read for and went on to play was literally called “The Giggles Girl”.
AND, how many of your friends at a party would even be familiar with 1950’s vaudeville-derived comedy?
Germane to this thread, I’d hesitate to tell either the “arms tired” or “joke’s tired” version, because I’d be delivering it to an audience that didn’t grow up with that format, and even if they were, wouldn’t think it was funny.
I play poker with guys who are even older than I am, and this one guy’s taste in humor is so bad…
“How bad IS it?”
It’s so bad… that he’ll start with “Okay, I saw a great joke on the internet.”
What follows is always an Old Fashioned Joke: ‘So two guys walk into a bar…’ or ‘So, Joe gets home late from the bar, and his wife is furious…’. And the punchline takes a while to get to, is dependent on outdated sex/race/age stereotypes, and hasn’t been funny since Bob Hope was in diapers (the first time).
Sort of the opposite of what my friends find funny, which is playing off something someone just said in a discussion. A witty insight/reference/pun, rather than a “joke”.
More like having a beer with John Stewart than a seltzer-down-your-pants with Jerry Lewis.
The version I heard was “You need a good German accent for that one”.
Yeah, sometimes the joke is so old it’s new again.
I broke and split open a finger a couple years ago. When the ER doc was treating it, I asked if I’d be able to play guitar when it healed. I wasn’t really trying to set up a joke, I was genuinely concerned. He said “oh yeah, it’ll heal up just fine. You’ll be able to play, no problem”. Then I remembered the punchline to an old Vaudeville joke and said “great, I couldn’t play guitar before!” I expected no more than a groan, but I got a genuine laugh. Then I realized that this doctor, who looked barely pubescent, must never have heard the old joke (which in the original version I think involved a broken arm and playing piano).
- Unless you mean 981 which is only slightly different.
I stand corrected. Pretty sure a German accent with 981 would actually be pretty offensive! 
Hah - I did this with the doctor before my wrist surgery (piano, not guitar). I hastily interrupted with “I know, old joke, but I really DO play!”.
Turns out to be a good thing, as he modified his surgical technique a bit.
Reminds me of an episode of MAS*H in which Charles Emerson Winchester had a patient with leg and arm injuries. Charles concentrates on the leg injury at the cost of some nerve damage to the patient’s hand but later finds out that the patient was a concert pianist and is no longer able to play with his right hand.
I’ve occasionally entertained myself by pulling out an ancient joke or two. (E.g. when I was interacting with a doctor: patient says “I want a second opinion!” Doctor says, “I think you’re ugly, too.” Probably Henny Youngman.) If you’re lucky – as I was in that case – the victim isn’t so familiar with the joke as to be unable to get a chuckle out of it.
I think that’s Rodney Dangerfield?
The “take my wife, please” joke was only ever funny in the context of all of his jokes that led up to it: “Take my mechanic – he <joke about his mechanic>, or take my doctor – he <joke about doctor>, etc., etc., or take my wife… please! <plays the violin>” In that context, it’s really not too bad.
Youngman’s cameo in Goodfellas always bugged me for that reason. It’s literally the first thing out of his mouth at the Copa when he’s introduced. When I saw that movie in my teens, I knew something was off.
Some site says this is Youngman, so I withdraw my Dangerfield claim.