Funny: Part 2 Wogan: The Best Of

'It was a show that went out three nights a week, live...'

Mr Wogan, you're on...

'..with a live audience and everyone who is anyone dropping in,

'the great and the good, the bad and the ugly

'and they called it Wogan. Ha! I never knew why.

'So, if you're sitting comfortably,

'I'll show you something I made earlier.'

God knows what they'll make of us in 25 years' time.

Welcome. Now, today we're hoping to put a smile

on your crusty old features

with some big names from the world of comedy

who dropped by over the years and tickled our funny bones.

They include John Cleese,

Joan Rivers,

Ronnie Barker,

Rik Mayall

and Bob Hope.

We're starting with two men who found huge success

as a great comic duo

and then even greater success branching off on their own.

Here they are, back in the days when they seemed to be joined at the hip,

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

Could you give us a picture of your working day?

How does your day...?

Not a photograph, no, just a sort of mental picture.

-I mean, basically, how do two people write together...

-Yes.

-..is the endless question...

-That's what he's asking.

Oh, yes, that's right.

Does one person hold the pencil

and the other person write, as it were?

-Who writes the music?

-Does one person pace up and down? That kind of thing.

Well, we have this thing of sitting in front of different desks.

Very important, different desks.

And essentially what happens is, you know,

I'll write something and get fed up with it and give it to Hugh

and he'll give me what he's doing - we swap work, essentially.

Are you sensitive to criticism from each other?

Do you boldly criticise each other? Because you are chums.

We are chums, but we don't boldly criticise each other, we have...

We basically say exactly the same thing -

whether we think it's great or terrible,

we say, "That's great!"

Yes. GENTLE LAUGHTER

But you can say, "That's great!" Or you can say...

-LOWER PITCH

-.."That's great."

-There's a very big difference.

-There is.

-And you're sensitive to that?

-Absolutely.

-Yes.

We criticise ourselves...

I mean, I'll write something and say,

"Hugh, this is completely awful, terrible, worst thing ever written,

"but perhaps you can do something with it.

And he'll say, "No, it's brilliant, it's not as bad as this."

And he gives me what he's written

and I say, "Yours is brilliant, mine is awful",

-and it goes on like that - feeble, really.

-Awful, yes.

Do you ever find yourselves, now you've worked together for so long,

do you find yourselves writing the same lines, doing the same stuff?

-Independent of each other?

-Er...

BOTH: Sometimes.

-Oh, you see? Isn't it incredible? Amazing.

-Extraordinary.

Can't be just coincidence.

There's some kind of extrasensory thing going on.

-That's right, and we often finish our own...

-Um, sentence...

-I was going to say breakfast.

-Oh, breakfast... LAUGHTER

-Yes.

-It is uncanny.

And you're also going to be seen as Jeeves and Wooster again?

-Series three of that?

-This is true, yes.

-Yes. That's very good fun to do.

-It must be great.

Dressing up in those clothes and everything.

Great clothes, great cars and everything.

And also, because we don't write it,

the scripts arrive in beautiful brown envelopes and they're great,

you don't have to worry about what you say, just read it out.

-Well, you learn it, then read it out, people would notice...

-LAUGHTER

-That would be shoddy, frankly, it would be shoddy.

-Yes.

But that is great fun, it really is.

I noticed, however, that the pair of you are really slipping in

to the old Des O'Connor-Bruce Forsyth syndrome, aren't you?

-Hello?

-Appalling thing to say.

-LAUGHTER

-No, no, no.

-I have lawyers, you know.

-Be fair.

-Be fair - you've got an album from the series coming up.

-Oh.

-Oh, yes, I see, yes, I see.

-Yes, referring to the album.

More bum than Al, I think, in this case...

Are you singing?

-Yes, there is singing.

-Who's singing?

-Hugh's singing.

-I do a bit of singing.

-Do you?

Hugh's got a wonderful, Hugh is musically brilliant.

I'm sorry, but he is, and he refuses to come out about it.

And I'm outing him now. LAUGHTER

He can play anything, he really can.

Mouth organ, saxophone, piano and guitar and I am hopeless.

What do you do? Do you tap dance in the background?

No, well, there's some dialogue written.

It's not just songs, there's bits of dialogue in it.

I sprechgesang, as I believe it's called,

you know, like Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady -

I sort of speak, but I have Van Gogh's ear for music.

I must say, it sounds as if it's not going to work.

LAUGHTER

-Yes.

-The surprising thing is it does.

TERRY LAUGHS

-Are we overselling it?

-Yeah.

-No...

-It's a cracking, well, they've also taken the period, I mean,

the actual '20s and '30s dance tunes of the day

were just fabulous stuff, you know,

and the arrangements that they got, you know, your foot is tapping.

-Is it?

-Not now.

-No.

But it will be when you put it on your CD player,

-as I'm sure you will.

-Grand.

Now, you published a novel.

-Yes.

-A slim volume this year and achieved some acclaim...

Yes, most extraordinary. I don't know how it happened, it's very peculiar.

You don't expect these things to occur at all

and it seems to be well received and selling very well and I keep

thinking there must be another book of the same name by someone

also called Stephen Fry because it's very, very hard to believe.

There's something very permanent about a book.

It's very different from a television series.

You go into a bookshop and you actually see it there, physically.

But now you can talk on the same level

as you can talk to people like Clive James, can't you?

No, no, I don't think so.

I hope I've written a bit higher than that.

I don't want to sound vain,

but I hope we've peaked at a few hundred feet, base camp three.

Have you any ambitions at all? I suppose you're jealous, aren't you?

-Deeply jealous, yes, it's maddening.

-Tish!

No, well...I think if I ever did it...

If I ever did it, I don't think I'd have the nerve

to do it under my own name.

-Would it be sexy, racy stuff?

-Oh, lots of sex.

Masses of sex in it, obviously.

I thought, well, I may just pretend that I've already

done that under another name and I may just pretend...

Better sexy and racy than sexist and racist. Isn't that a lovely thought?

-Nicely put.

-To take into 1992.

-What a lovely way to finish the interview.

-Lovely, lovely way.

-Thank you very much.

-Huge pleasure.

-Yes, and you.

-Not at all.

APPLAUSE

Now, half of one of television's funniest ever double acts.

Only half. I don't want you to peak too soon.

But I'm sure there'll be no complaints,

because it's the bigger Ronnie,

appearing without his little chum, but I asked about him anyway.

What about this Corbett person that you work with?

-He's a man, he's a man.

-Is he?

-A man, yes.

-How do you get on with him?

-Eh?

-How do you get on with him?

-I just throw me leg over.

Let's have the truth.

Well, I just...

I take him out in the morning, fit him up

and work through the day,

put him back in the box and that's his part.

No, we get on very... We have a lovely time.

We're rehearsing very hard, we've been rehearsing all today

with those lovely ladies and 12 more and we're working hard.

-Do you fight over scripts?

-No.

-Do you have disagreements?

We have exactly the same sense of humour. Exactly.

We don't even have to ask each other whether a line is funny.

Well, you do, you say,

"So, what shall we cut here? That line?"

"Yes. That's out, that's out."

"That's good." "Yes, that's fine."

Then we'll cut down to here. We are identical. It's amazing.

It's a very fortuitous meeting,

it was a very fortuitous meeting with David Frost all those years ago.

Is there a danger, when you're working,

that because you're writing your own stuff

and virtually producing it, as well, that you can become self-indulgent?

Yes. There is a great danger

and I think you have to fight it when you can.

Obviously, bits slip through.

Eventually, if I look at a thing three months later, I think,

well, those very words - "We were self-indulgent there."

But you do try and fight it, you've got to.

It's for that reason that I hate now that people know that

I write the scripts, because they used not to know.

I used to write under a pseudonym that no-one knew

and it was wonderful then because they just...

You got their true opinion.

A script came in and I pretended I had never seen it before

and we sat and read it and someone said, "That's not bad."

I said, "It's pretty good. Put it in the pile and we'll do that."

And another one would come in, that I'd written,

sent in through my agent in various ways and they'd say,

"Oh, he's let us down this time, that's rubbish."

I'd read it and say, "Rubbish, throw it away."

I would be glad to do that, you see,

because the decisions were being made for me.

I was being judged on my work, truly.

I didn't have to worry about people trying not to offend me.

Now, I bring in a script and they say, "Yes, very good, very good."

And I wonder whether they mean that. They might not.

They're too worried to offend me to say so.

Can you be dispassionate enough about your own work

to reject it yourself?

Well, I don't think that's possible.

If you've just written a script,

you don't write things you don't like,

you don't write in, "Right, I'll put a bad line in here", do you?

You write...everything that's in the script...

You read it through and say,

"Maybe that's too long, I'll take it out."

When you look at it, you think,

"That is as good as I can make it. That's how I want it."

But it may not necessarily be good enough.

You're saying yourself, "That is fine."

But other people look at it in the same...

"Well, he thinks that's funny but it isn't really."

You can't judge your own work, really.

I have to rely on people being as honest as they can.

How much longer do you think the Two Ronnies can run?

SIGHING: Um...

I don't know - six, seven, eight...

..days?

No, I don't know. I think it can go on as long as...

You've got to stop it just before people want you to stop it,

-that's the thing.

-How do you know?

-Exactly.

It's like stop before you hear the bang, when you're backing a car.

You have to stop before you hear the bang and that's what you have to do.

But nobody is nobody is able, are they?

No, no, but you can get a slight slide,

little tiny feeling of something a bit stale.

Traditionally, when that begins to happen to great comedians,

comics or comic acts or actors,

they take the money and go to the other side.

The other side, yes. I don't think it helps, does it?

It doesn't make a bit of difference which side you're on.

It's the writing, it's the scripts, it's the people you work with.

The actors you work with. Of course, the directors matter.

If you go over and find a terrible director,

the show won't be as good, but I think people go...

When they go, they change the format, as well.

But if you do a comedy show and you throw out your writers and say,

"I'm going to ITV," you go over and get a new lot of writers.

We're going to do it all different, we're not going to sit there

and have news items and all that and a musical bit at the end.

Throw all that out. We've these new writers.

Then you can go - zump! - like that.

You think the same format should be sustained?

If you're going to continue with The Two Ronnies,

you should have the news at the beginning,

a little bit and then various sketches

and the same format sustained?

I think we were...unluckily lucky.

Unluckily lucky. I mean...what do I mean?

Unluckily fortunate.

Luckily, we were unfortunate.

No, unfortunately, we were lucky - that's it, yes.

Because we hit on a very good format for episode one of series one

and if you've got a good format, you do think you ought to change it

and we've been thinking, "Shall we change something?"

But then you try and change it and think,

"Well, that's not better, that's worse."

So, in other words, if you're onto a good thing, stick to it

until someone suddenly says it's not so good or it's slightly good.

May I mention - I'm sure I can mention now to you, lovely friends -

Morecambe and Wise?

Now, you see, I think...

People have said to me,

"Morecambe and Wise isn't what it was when it was on the BBC."

I don't know why they say that. I think it's exactly the same.

I think when you move, people also expect you to be much better,

not just the same, and if you're just the same,

it seems to them as if you've gone down.

I don't think...I think they are exactly as good as they ever were.

But I think it's a very dangerous thing to move about.

Why move about, honestly? It's lovely here, isn't it?

-Don't you like it here?

-I like it here.

-Sunny, look at it.

Mind you, it's the day before yesterday.

It is, yes. By today, it'll be pouring with rain.

I like you because you're a very well set-up man.

-Fat, you mean.

-Like myself.

You know this latest thing about keeping fit

and we've all seen Harry Secombe.

Harry Secombe, now, has lost 4st.

He weighs exactly the same as me now. 14st 10.

He's the same height as me,

but I now look twice as big as him, don't I?

We're the same...

-Can I stand up?

-Stand up.

-I mean, may I stand up?

I know I can, I haven't been drinking.

What a fine figure of a man.

But you see, I look twice as big as Harry, don't I?

"Hello, folks!"

That's Eric Morecambe's saying.

Do you think if you did lose weight...?

-Oh, my feet - eh?

-Put them up here.

Do you think if you did lose weight...

LAUGHTER

..that you'd lose some of your charm and popularity?

Er...well, I wouldn't lose any of my charm.

I might lose a little popularity, I suppose, yes.

How many knots have you got in these?

Sir John Notts, they are.

Whatever happened to him?

He, er...are looking for holes in my socks?

Argh! RONNIE LAUGHS

I was letting him tie them together, I thought he was going to tie the two together.

You see, I was playing feed.

Are you a funny man at home?

No - I never go home, no.

Sometimes I'm funny.

I make my wife laugh, but she'd laugh to see a pudding crawl, as they say.

That's the essence of a happy marriage,

as long as you can make your wife laugh.

Well, I made her laugh the first night.

It wasn't all merry banter and manly joshing.

Wogan was awash with this song as well as story.

Take young Phil Collins, for example.

# I need love, love

# Ooh, to ease my mind

# And I need to find time

# Someone to call mine

# My mama said

# You can't hurry love

# No, you'll just have to wait

# She said love don't come easy

# But it's a game of give and take

# You can't hurry love

# No, you'll just have to wait

# Just trust in a good time

# No matter how long it takes

# How many heartaches must I stand

# Before I find the love to let me live again?

# Right now the only thing that keeps me hanging on

# When I feel my strength

# You know it's almost gone

# I remember Mama said

# You can't hurry love

# No, you'll just have to wait

# She said love don't come easy

# It's a game of give and take

# How long must I wait?

# How much more must I take

# Before loneliness

# Will cause my heart, heart to break?

# No, I can't bear to live my life alone

# I grow impatient for a love to call my own

# But when I feel that I

# I can't go on

# When I feel my strength

# You know it's almost gone

# I remember Mama said

# You can't hurry love

# No, you'll just have to wait

# She said love don't come easy

# It's a game of give and take

# You can't hurry love

# You'll just have to wait

# Just trust in a good time

# No matter how long it takes

# Now break

# Now love, love don't come easy

# But I keep on waiting

# Anticipating

# For that soft voice

# To talk to me at night

# For some tender arms

# Hold me tight

# I keep waiting

# Ooh, till that day

# But it ain't easy

# No, it ain't easy

# My mama said

# You can't hurry love

# No, you'll just have to wait

# She said love don't come easy

# It's a game of give and take

# You can't hurry love

# No, you'll just have to wait

# She said trust in the good times

# No matter how long it takes

# Now break. #

APPLAUSE

Now, an old appearance from a Young One in his prime.

The late Rik Mayall, no less, who, back then,

was at the forefront of a new wave of humour

they called alternative comedy

and they didn't mean it as an alternative to laughter.

APPLAUSE

Er, hi.

Hi, er, my name is Rik.

LAUGHTER

What?

What is it?

What is it? What's going on?

You're a pretty nutty bunch, aren't you?

I'm pretty nutty, as well, I don't care what I do.

I broke a teacup in the dressing room just now, just like that.

I mean, it was an accident and everything

but I didn't report it or anything.

I'm just mad, mad!

Knowing me, it's a bit like being on the road with the Who.

Actually, in fact, one of my friends said that to me the other day.

He said, "Hey, Rik,

"knowing you is a bit like being on the road with The Who, isn't it?"

I said, "With the who?"

Straight off that top of my head.

I hadn't planned to say it or anything.

It was mad, I don't care.

HE BLOWS RASPBERRIES

Can you see all right at the back?

Well, what are you doing wearing glasses then?

Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?

Because it was dead.

No, we're all potty - I'm potty and all my friends are potty as well.

In fact, the other night, right, we were all in the pub together

and...well, I was in a different pub

because they told me the wrong pub to go to as a joke.

And...

That's true.

But I found out where they were because I went to Timmy's

and paid his mother to tell me where they were.

I went along and as soon as I got in there, they all said,

"Oh, God, it's Rik. We're going to a party and you're not invited."

And they all ran away.

I chased after them and they jumped onto the bus

and I couldn't quite catch up.

I was running alongside the bus

and they were throwing cans of lager at my head

and swearing and everything and telling me that nobody liked me.

It was brilliant.

And then, I chased them for about five miles

and we got to the house where the party was

and it was my house.

They said, "You're still not invited."

And they went in and they smashed it all to pieces.

And I had to pay.

It was brilliant. We do loads of jokes like that all the time.

Anyway...

I wasn't going to do this.

But seeing as you're all such fascists,

as a special treat,

I'm going to bring down the state tonight.

And that is why I've written a poem - pretty heavy poem, actually.

And, er...

AUDIENCE MEMBER LAUGHS

And shut up, please.

It's easy to laugh, isn't it?

Shut up, shut up!

It's an angry poem I've written and it's called Thatcher.

And I'm working on it at the moment.

THATCHER!

That's about as far as I've got with it at the moment.

APPLAUSE

Oh, shut up, shut up!

Lastly tonight, I'd like to recite the whole of my last novel,

which is called "Cliff Richard, 1,000 Glorious Years."

-Rik?

-Yes?

-Shut up.

Sorry, Terry.

If only they were all so obedient. I don't think he meant it, anyway.

That would never work on John Cleese.

He's taller than me, for one thing. He's taller than anybody.

Here we find this comedy giant holding forth on British humour.

A subject he knows, well, a fair bit about.

Yes, I reckon that we're taught very early on that it's extremely

important to feel embarrassed most of the time

and then hide that embarrassment.

When I was young, I used to have enormous fun

exploiting that on tube trains

because I used to do terrible things.

I used to...

Do all this for about four minutes, quietly.

And I'd already pick someone in the corner of the carriage

and just at that moment, I'd go...

And I'd look straight at him, you know, and he'd be looking.

The English are wonderful, aren't they?

They must never ever admit that anything is going on

that's making them uncomfortable.

I remember when we were shooting

And Now For Something Completely Different,

years ago, and there was a bank robber sketch

which Eric Idle had written

and I was fully dressed as a bank robber.

I had the black trousers, I had the black and white stripes

and the little mask and a great big bag marked "SWAG."

And after we finished the sketch, I saw it was 2:55

and I had to cash a cheque, you see.

I went into the bank...

I chickened out the mask. I took the mask off

but I did have the bag saying "SWAG"

and I remember, I eventually got to the front of the queue

and the cashier looked up and said, "Yes?"

Absolutely nothing.

I said, "I'd like to cash a cheque, please."

"Right."

No recognition that anything was going on.

That's what makes the British unbeatable, I'm sure.

It's that pretending that nothing has happened.

Absolutely. When you get a drunk in the Tube, you know?

He's lying like this.

I'll try not to do an Irish accent.

He's doing all that and cursing and saying terrible things

and everybody's sitting there reading the frozen pea advertisements.

Memorising them by heart.

I just... not showing by the merest flicker.

That's what you parody or that's what you've traditionally parodied.

Are you a great observer, then, of human nature

or an observer of people in the street?

Do you put it in your memory and use it later

or is it spontaneous?

I'd love to say yes. I think I'm better.

I reckon I always really worked in stereotypes

and I think in Python, we always worked in stereotypes

but I think my observation is getting a little bit better now.

Yes, I think so.

When you get a character that you decide to parody,

do you have someone in your mind that you've seen on the Tube?

It's usually the flimsiest idea,

absolutely the flimsiest little notion.

It sometimes starts from a single line.

I remember I rather liked a sketch I wrote about a merchant banker

in Monty Python and it all came

because I had been introduced to one at the party

and he had done that marvellous thing about shaking hands with you

without looking at you, which is the ultimate squish.

When they say, "Would you like to meet Terry Wogan?

He goes...

And, you know, afterwards, I was really cross

because he'd squashed me so much

and I have this line in my mind in which he somehow said,

he said, "I forgot my name at the moment

"but I am a merchant banker."

Somehow, that was his essence much more than his name.

Just kind of based on that one silly little line, a whole sketch came.

It is game playing, isn't it?

That's the public school thing of you must try and get on top

-because otherwise you'll be crushed to death.

-I don't know.

I think it depends on...

I think it may depend on the school you may go to.

If you go to Harrow or Eton, maybe you're taught to be on top

but I think where I went, I wasn't taught to be on top,

I was taught to be jolly nice and awfully apologetic

and absolutely not annoy anyone at all

and apologise three times in every sentence.

I remember being in America about two years ago

and I was trying to think what it was about Americans

that I liked and didn't like and comparing with the English.

I just sat down at a dinner table and there were a lot of English

and a lot of American all mixed up and at one point,

an Englishman actually wanted the salt.

Being English, he didn't say, "Would you pass the salt?"

He said, "Erm... Sorry.

That's it, yes. "Sorry" is how you ask for the salt.

It's true, I think we were all trained to be vastly apologetic

and not be pushy at all.

Well, like I've done with you, you see.

If I was sitting up properly, I'm up there.

Well, that would look too damn arrogant, so I sort of go...

You notice how I slid down to join you.

Something interesting could develop.

In one bound from one performer who's caused outrage in his time,

to another who caused it all the time - Joan Rivers.

"Can we talk?" was her favourite catchphrase.

A rhetorical question.

She could talk the hind legs off a donkey.

In this case, the ass was obviously me.

Have you any idea why you've been a star for...well,

a couple of years in the States?

A megastar, very big star.

Why has it taken us so long to cotton on to you, do you think?

Well, I always wanted to come over here and work here

but I don't like airlines so I decided to walk.

No, I was always scared to come over.

I never thought they would think I was funny here

because I wanted them to like me so much.

So, you don't want to do something sometimes and then fail.

Finally, last year, my husband...

We had a record, and they bought the record over first,

and when the record did well, called Can We Talk, came over here,

they said, "Now you can come over."

I let the record go first to break it in.

Your kind of humour, do you have to have people like you?

Because your humour is kind of abrasive and sharp, isn't it?

I think...I don't know if they have to like it.

They have to know you're kidding. Does that make sense?

If you're going to say outrageous things,

they've got to know that it's just being silly, not being mean.

There's a big difference.

Your problem is the problem that British comedians

would have in the States -

understanding the vernacular, understanding your basic humour.

And also having people find you.

Benny Hill is a tremendous hit in the States

and he's a tremendous hit because he went on a little tiny programme

in a little crummy station and everyone kept saying, "Look..."

He didn't come on saying, "Here I am."

Some stars come on - "Here you are" - and they go...

Julio Iglesias. Did he come on...? Well.

He came to the States, "Here I am, wow, wow, wow",

and we were all went...

You know, you don't want to come on like, "Take a look."

If they took a look, they'd panic.

You're also known as the meanest bitch in America.

Victoria Principal called you that.

No, she was talking about you.

No, my husband called me that. No, I just talk about things.

I call the shots as I see them.

I say things that you say in private. Does that make sense?

I say things in public that other people will see something

and say it to a friend on the telephone.

Yeah, but doesn't that make you very unpopular?

No, because it's the truth.

Also I'm not hanging out with these people.

But you must meet them occasionally in a social context in Hollywood.

You must meet, sometimes, the people you've been nasty about.

-Liz Taylor.

-What I did say about Elizabeth Taylor wasn't true.

I said she's fat. Is Elizabeth Taylor thin? Is she here?

Look for a woman in Orson Welles' designer jeans.

I mean, the woman is fat.

The woman is fat.

I called her up, as a matter of fact and said, you know,

"If I'm upsetting you, let me know."

She was eating lunch so what she said was...

MUFFLED SPEECH

Have you ever met her?

-Yes - she's fat.

-What did she say to you?

She doesn't talk, her mouth is always full. She's like...

SHE MAKES EATING SOUNDS

What about Bo Derek? That poor innocent.

-Did you ever meet Bo Derek?

-Never.

-Did you ever to Bo Derek?

-Never.

Give me a call.

She's the most beautiful woman, but she's not the brightest.

She has trouble with concepts, as most beautiful women do,

because most beautiful women are usually dumb,

I really believe this.

The more beautiful a woman is, because God divides.

If he makes you gorgeous, he makes you stupid, thank goodness.

No, it has to be fair, right?

Bo Derek does not understand the concept of Roman numerals.

She thinks you fought World War 11. She's just confused.

She saw a sign that said "Wet Floor".

She did. The woman is...confused.

But she's gorgeous. I'd rather be dumb and beautiful.

Joan Rivers. A tongue like an adder. A wit like a razor.

Let's have a burst of the brilliant Blondie at her very peak.

Debbie Harry.

# I want to dance with Harry Dean

# Drive through Texas in a black limousine

# I want a piece of heaven before I die

# I want a pair of pink high heels

# That catch the lights up on the Ferris wheel

# But what I really want I just can't buy

# Here comes the 21st century

# It's going to be much better for a girl like me

# Cos I want everything I can

# But most of all, I want that man

# I want that man

# I want to move like what's his name

# I'll keep the money You can have the fame

# Everything that's yours will soon be mine

# Yeah, I want to be the Queen of the USA

# You could send me roses every other day

# But what I really want I just can't buy

# Here comes the 21st century

# It's going to be much better for a girl like me

# Cos I want everything I can

# But most of all, I want that man

# I want that man

# Hey!

# I want to be kissed from head to toe

# By that man in the very back row

# But he won't even look me in the eye

# Ah, I want his love to rain right down on me

# I want him to be king of all my dreams

# But what I really want I just can't hide

# Here comes the 21st century

# It's going to be much better for a girl like me

# Cos I want everything I can

# But most of all, I want that man

# I want that man

# I want that man

# I want that man

# I want that man

# I want that man

# I want that man

# I want that man

# I want that man... #

Well, I can no further in this pantheon of wit

without including that wizard of the one-liner, Bob Monkhouse.

We did many a game show together, from the Golden Shot

to Celebrity Squares, but then, he was king of the game show.

One of the problems, if you'd allow me to speak about it,

of Family Fortunes, which is a great game,

is that you do require five intelligent members of a family.

How many families do you know?

Five intelligent people.

You can find a bright mum, a bright dad,

a smart son-in-law, a clever auntie.

You're going to have loony uncle Ernie

dribbling at the end of the line, the one that says,

"Don't ask him anything." You know...

"What's the capital of Germany?"

"G." "Oh, God!"

We had a family - listen, we had some great families on the show

but sometimes they arrived in refrigerated trucks.

They came up and we had a family -

and I mean no offence whatsoever by this, this is fact,

no ethnic or racial offence -

we had an Irish family on who were...

Look, it's St Patrick's Day.

Yes, it is, so therefore, in the name of St Patrick

and by all that's holy, this is the truth.

We had a family from Northern Ireland

called Thicke.

It was the family name.

T-H-I-C-K-E. We said to them, "Please, it's too cheap a joke.

"You're nice people, you've applied to be on the show. Please."

The son-in-law's name was Wilson, we called them the Wilson family

and they came from Newtownards, I think.

And there was a woman in the group

and she was...I mean, really, unbelievable.

Now and then, you'd get those people

who talked straight out of left-field.

We had a question.

"We asked 100 people, 'Name something pink.'

"What do you think 100 people said? Name something pink."

"I said my cardigan."

LAUGHTER

"Erm...good answer, good answer. Let's see if it's up there."

We finally went out, you're not going to believe this, but it's true,

this is in the first series.

I think people have forgotten the disasters we had.

We had asked 100 people nationwide, this is in the survey,

"Name something which is deserted in the wintertime."

The top answers were a nudist camp, a swimming pool,

the beach, you can make them up.

So we got the five top answers.

A couple of answers had come up and I came to this woman again.

I like this and the audience will like this.

I said, "Name something deserted in wintertime."

She said, "My cousin, Elsie."

LAUGHTER

And the audience laughed like the audience is laughing now

and she said, "It wasn't funny."

"Christmas coming up and five children in the house."

I mean, where do you put yourself?

Our final blast from the past comes from another Bob, Bob Hope,

who Bob Monkhouse once wrote jokes for.

Now, Hope was no ad-libber.

He was always very open about employing gag writers

but he'll always be one of American comedy's all-time greats.

You're a man of enormous stature in America -

and you're pretty tall here -

but how come you never went for political office yourself?

Well, the money wasn't right.

No, I told...

In fact, Wednesday night, I'll be - no, Thursday night -

I'm going to be with the President at the Washington Convention Centre

and I'm going to say that about him, you know,

because a lot of people ask me that and since he's been a hit,

a lot of people in show business are thinking about going.

In fact, they asked me to, but I told them the money isn't right

and besides, my wife wouldn't want to move to a smaller house.

APPLAUSE

Show business, show business is the aristocracy in America, isn't it?

-Right.

-Show business are the aristocracy there.

Well, I think, Reagan would like to be royalty.

In fact, I know he's hoping for a promotion but...

They are. Especially as he's done a lot for us

and a lot of people are thinking of running for that office,

like Charlton Heston.

Charlton Heston?

Well, he played Moses, you know.

He led the people out of Egypt, so Reagan would probably make him

Director of Transportation, I think.

Your signature tune is Thanks For The Memory.

What are your fondest memories of show business?

God, I've had so many.

Any one that stands out? Being in all those movies.

Fantastic memories of this wonderful place over here, where I was born.

-Really.

-What about the movies?

What's the one you had the most fun making?

I don't know, I think the Road pictures, we had more fun

because Bing and I were just wild and trying to top each other

and it was sensational.

You know, seven weeks of that was just too much.

But I enjoyed making all the movies. I enjoyed it.

How long since you made your last movie?

-About 12 years.

-What was that one?

Well, I've been so wrapped up in...

I've been on television for 35 years and with my...

And then you take the show on the road, don't you?

All over the place, you know.

Is there any possibility that you're ever going to retire?

I don't know. How do you spell that?

It's probably got something to do with money again.

I'll tell you something. It's so exciting.

Show business is so exciting. I don't think...

I wouldn't live if I wasn't in show business.

I wouldn't care about it, because it's marvellous to just sit here

and see, you know, these marvellous people.

It's a sensational thing.

Do you remember the very first day that you went into showbiz?

-What was the beginning for Bob Hope?

-I sure do, I sure do.

It's kind of sad, the first time I was on the stage.

I bombed quite a bit, I was the bomber of the day.

-You know.

-You managed to pick yourself up.

When you look back and think about that,

you get a great kick because I've been so lucky in show business.

Can you possibly stay there for a minute?

Because we do have something to celebrate.

I know you'll claim that you're still a slip of a lad,

but I'm leaving you again now, sir.

But I shall return, as MacArthur said.

Where are we going?

I'll be back, Bob, don't worry.

-I'll return, Bob.

-What happened?

I've got a birthday cake.

APPLAUSE

Come down and join me.

Come down and join us for the birthday cake.

-You'll see.

-Where do you get small candles like that?

Hang on.

You know something?

Where do you get those little candles?

I'm not much good at this, Bob, lighting things,

so I'm not going to bother trying to light all 35...

-We weren't able to light this up.

-I love that, the golf course.

-The golf course.

-Wonderful, wonderful.

Reminds you of the several that you own.

Have we got enough puff to let it go?

I'll tell you, if you really put the big candles on,

you'd have enough icing to skate on, I'll tell you that.

That's pretty.

We hope that you'll take it with you and our good wishes, as well,

because golf has always been tremendously part of your life,

-hasn't it?

-It sure has, it's been great, you know,

and it's a game you can play forever.

It doesn't make any difference, how old you are, you know,

you just get out there.

We have a fellow at our club, must be 92,

and he plays every day and he can't see very well.

So the pro said, "Take Charlie with you."

He's the same age but he can see real good.

So he put Charlie in the cart, hit the ball down the fairway, turned to Charlie.

He said, "Do you see it?" Charlie said, "Uh-huh." He said, "Where'd it go?"

Charlie said, "I forgot."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So, once again, the old clock on the wall has beaten us.

I hope you've enjoyed looking back as much as I have.

Join me for more next time.