Master of the quickfire one-liners
13 April 2012
Bob Monkhouse was known as the king of the quickfire gag. Here are a few examples of his jokes:
They laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian ... They're not laughing now.
- Real happiness is when you marry a girl for love and find out later she has money.
- I want to die like my father, peacefully in his sleep, not screaming and terrified, like his passengers.
- My mother tried to kill me when I was a baby. She denied it. She said she thought the plastic bag would keep me fresh.
- I'm not saying my wife's a bad cook, but she uses a smoke alarm as a timer.
- I'd never be unfaithful to my wife for the reason that I love my house very much.
- Hot? Teenagers were having their bodies pierced just for the ventilation.
- The last time I was in Spain I got through six Jeffrey Archer novels. I must remember to take enough toilet paper next time.
- People always say: "You're a comedian, tell us a joke." They don't say: "You're an MP, tell us a lie."
- A tom cat hijacked a plane, stuck a pistol into the pilot's ribs and demanded: "Take me to the canaries."
- What's a geriatric? A German footballer scoring three goals.
- If New Age travellers love to travel, why do they moan when the police move them off?
- How can we expect a politician to believe in the wisdom of the people when he knows it was the people who voted him in?
- What do gardeners do when they retire?
- Where do the homeless have 90 per cent of their accidents?
- When the inventor of the drawing board messed things up, what did he go back to?
- I spilt some stain remover on my sleeve. How do you get that out?
- Bob was even making jokes right at the very end when he addressed an audience about the impact of his cancer: "I saw a specialist who asked me: 'Are you familiar with the phrase faecal impaction?' I said I think I saw that one with Glenn Close." He added: "I can still enjoy sex at 74. I live at 75, so it's no distance."
