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| "Thanks for the Memories" -- Bob Hope turns 100 |
| 2003-05-07 |
| by Mark Steyn Just a sample -- go read the whole thing. If you only remember one thing about him, itâs this: Bob Hope has made more people laugh than anyone in human history. Heâs the only comedian to have been, over the years, the Number One star in radio, in film, and then television, at a time when each of those media was at its highpoint. The Road pictures with Bing Crosby were the highest-grossing series in movie history till James Bond came along, his six decades with NBC hold the record for the longest contract in showbusiness, and his TV specials for the network remain among the most-watched programmes of all time. Plus heâs logged some ten million miles, playing up to 200 live performances a year until into his nineties. . . . Much of what we now take for granted as the modern comedy monologue â the delivery, the structure, the subjects â comes from the template developed by Hope. Larry Gelbart, the creator of "M*A*S*H", who wrote for the comedian in the early Fifties, remembers being on tour with him in England and standing in the wings in Blackpool with a local girl heâd picked up. Hope told a joke about motels and the girl fell about. âDo you have motels around here?â Gelbart asked. âNo,â she said. âDo you know what a motel is?â he asked. âNo,â she said. âSo why are you laughing?â âHeâs just so funny.â She has a point: by that stage, audiences were so attuned to the self-confident rhythm of his act that they laughed at the right spots without knowing quite what the joke was. . . . Steyn eschews his usual smartassery to deliver a moving and sensitive tribute to a great entertainer--one who spent a good part of his career bringing joy and laughter to our armed forces overseas. Thanks for the memory Of candlelight and wine, castles on the Rhine The Parthenon and moments on the Hudson River Line How lovely it was! Thanks for the memory Of rainy afternoons, swingy Harlem tunes And motor trips and burning lips and burning toast and prunes How lovely it was! Happy Birthday, Bob. |
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