To me Comedy means things, words and people that are fun.
Like Spike Milligan – see the documentary 
I told you i was ill.
These are on this web page:
Some of the things on other web pages:
Hoffnung, a cartoonist, tubist, impresario, broadcaster and public speaker was aged just 33 at the time of this performance. Sadly he died of a brain haemorrhage the following year. Although he wasn’t very prominent on television, Gerard Hoffnung was a very talented comedian. If you’ve heard his Address to the Oxford Union (1958) before, you’ll know how funny he is; if you haven’t, just listen once (and twice, and again and again and again)! It was recorded on 4th December 1958, and someone has put it onto YouTube. There are several recordings; this, in three parts is the full monty:
Part 1, introductory part including jobs he’d done Part 2, featuring the famous Bricklayer’s Story “Respected Sir” Part 3, with the very funny letters from foreign hotel managers (“...there is a French widow in every bedroom, affording delightful prospects...”)Be sure to listen to him; you won’t be disappointed, I guarantee!
If it’s just the Bricklayer’s bit you want, there’s this version with fairly good sound reproduction.
Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett had a long-running comedy series back in the 1970s. Their sketches were always funny, in my opinion, and many are on YouTube. Ronnie Barker’s adeptness while playing with the English language was wonderful. And Ronnie Corbett’s armchair monologues were usually very funny. But their Four Candles/Fork Handles was many people’s favourite.
After Ronnie Barker died, Ronnie Corbett faded somewhat, but is now, in his 80s, thriving. In 2010 he starred in an 80th birthday special with Harry Enfield. The Blackberry sketch, mocking our current obsession with gadgets, was excellent.
Polari is a form of slang that is said to date back to the 16th Century. It is a mixture of French, Italian, Cockney and many other languages. (“Pollari” is also the Finnish word for a cop [a police officer]). It has been used by various groups over the years for ‘secret’ or private, discrete communication between its speakers, to evade understanding by others, notably the police (a bit like TLAs). These groups include prostitutes, criminals, sailors, and most recently gays. The language was popularised in the radio programme Round the Horne by ‘Julian’ and ‘Sandy’, two very camp characters played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams.
Wikipedia has a good entry on Polari, including a small glossary or dictionary of Polari words. And, unless your religious prejudices are too sensitive, take a look at the Polari Bible, a full ‘translation’ of the King James’ Version by the Manchester Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It includes Psalm 23:
Fantabulosa, don’t you think? Mmm, please yerself then!
The Final Rip Off; this recording contains lots of their familiar sketches, some musical – there’s The Lumberjack Song, Henry Kissinger, Sit on my Face, Spam...
You can find plenty of their sketches on YouTube and on DVDs.
Life of Brian is pretty good, and caused a lot of controversy when it was first released as a film, especially from the religious set. But probably most people’s favourite is the Dead Parrot sketch.
And now for something completely different... Check out Monty Python – Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook.
Frankie Howerd was better known for Up Pompeii, but watch this! It is in five parts, the first four are on YouTube, but the fifth is too bawdy for them (rated 18+, Parental Control disabled), so there’s another web site for it.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 (too raunchy for YouTube; it seems that you need to tick the “I am over 18” button)“Oh no, missus! Oh no! Titter ye not!” – the amazing thing is that after two minutes, he has barely said anything coherent, yet has the audience in roars of laughter.
...was the headline, which seemed to me to be almost a bad attempt at a pangram (‘The Quick Brown Fox...’, etc.), or something from the Daily Star, like ‘Elvis’s Face Seen on Moon’; but it seems that there’s something about rotting apples in Sweden that appeals to these animals, especially if alcohol is being produced. (Alcoholic drinks are so expensive in the Nordic countries!) I hope the elk’s hangover wasn’t too bad.
You may have been misled by seeing the picture of a sport mishap in the “Comedy” block on my Home page, and directed your web browser to come here. Fear ye not! There are falls by the dozen to be found.
[The picture on the right is just daft]
See also Fun & Recreations and Money.
This section contains some spoof works of art (the ‘real thing’ can be found through my arts web page). There are also some newspaper cartoons that amuse me.
⇐ Simpsons: Dalí’s Persistence of Memory
(by Matt Groening)
Dalí’s iPhone ⇒
⇐ Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam
from the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican
Michelangelo’s David ⇒
after a stay in America
See also Michelangelo’s Original Creation of Adam and David
and see also the Flying Spaghetti Monster
In 2012 The Drum launched a ‘Fauxlympics’ competition for spoof ads. One of the winners for Durex’s Performa condoms managed to fool Adweek who chose it as one of their ads of the day with loads of praise to Durex.
