JOKERS WILD

18 MARCH 1974

Yorkshire Television for ITV

Emcee: Barry Cryer

Panel: Leslie Crowther, Chic Murray, Bob Todd, Jon Pertwee, Lance Percival, Johnny Hackett

(landladies, history, insects, the army, parrots, mothers-in-law, business, art)

ANNOUNCER: It’s ‘Jokers Wild,’ with the country’s top comedians battling it out to see who knows all the jokes. And keeping them in line, it’s Barry Cryer.

BARRY CRYER: Thank you. Welcome, welcome to, yes another edition of ‘Jokers Wild,’ in which two teams of comedians battle to see who knows the most jokes. And they battle for this, our ‘Jokers Wild’ trophy, a life-sized model of one of Bob Todd’s Carmen rollers. Let’s get down to business and meet our two teams on this occasion. Will you welcome captain Leslie Crowther, with team Chic Murray, and the aforementioned Bob Todd? The aforementioned. And thirsting for victory, captain Jon Pertwee, Lance Percival, and Johnny Hackett. They know there’s a list of subjects, high, medium and low scores. They don’t know what’s coming out of the box. Let’s find out as we start the game as I press the button for Leslie Crowther. Leslie, what can you make of, if you’ll pardon the expression, landladies?

LESLIE CROWTHER: What can I make of landladies?

BC: Yes indeed.

LC: That’s a very interesting question.

BC: It’s a family show.

LC:  Well, of course, there are all sorts of true theatrical stories about theatrical landladies. You know, and we used to go out on tour. Doesn’t happen now because there aren’t any theatres left. More’s the pity. But an actor stayed at some digs somewhere up north here and he went to the loo because, you know, he wanted to. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go, you know what I mean? He went because he felt a sort of…  Anyway, so he’s up there, you see, and he’s minding his own business and -- you big heathen! -- and he pulls the chain as one does after the performance and the system went [makes a plumbing noise]. Nothing. It just… It’s happened to you, hasn’t it? So he tried it again, and it went [plumbing noise]. So nothing. Suddenly he heard the landlady’s voice from downstairs saying, “Are you up there, Mr. Raleigh?” He said, “Yes, my dear, I am.” She said, “It’s no good doing that. You have to surprise it.”  

BC: Leslie, that was a noble effort. Five points. That’s a scrooge, miserly term. Five points you’re ahead. Jon, come on, Jon Pertwee, see what you can do with drinking.

JON PERTWEE: I presume that Toulouse Lautrec has finished?

BC: Before -- I think Jon’s signaling but I was going to do it anyway -- before he’s even started his story I’ll give him two points for that.

JP: Yes, quite right.

BC: Two points for that.

JP: Quite right.

BC: And the…

JP: Joke?

BC: The subject was in fact drinking.

JP: There was a very butch explorer and he was walking along with his pet lion on a chain. Nothing to do with your story, Mr. Crowther. And he went into a jungle bar and sat at the bar and he said, “I’d like to have a triple scotch and a Zulu for my lion.”

BUZZ

BC: Interruption. Interruption by Lulu. No, Zulu. No, Chic Murray. Chic Murray, sorry.

CHIC MURRAY: Well, Jon’s talking about someone who took a drink. I know someone who took a fair drink, and he went into the bar at the zoo, and when he come out again he saw the elephant for the first time. He said to the keeper, ‘What’s that?’ Keep said, ‘It’s an elephant.’ He said, ‘It’s got two tails.’ The keeper said, ‘No, the other tails a…’ He said, ‘Listen. It hasn’t got two tails. It’s got… The one you think’s a tail is a trunk.’ He said, ‘What good’s that?’ He said, ‘Well, in parts of the, well, the Indian.. comes from… where the elephant comes from in India, it’s used for lifting logs.’ Fellow says, ‘There are no logs here.’ Keeper said, ‘It does seem a pity, yes.’

BC: You smooth-talking devil. Two points to Chic. Two points to Chic. And meanwhile we go back to Mr. Pertwee. This is ridiculous. Anything to do with…

JP: As I was saying when I was so ineffectually interrupted, this very butch explorer with his pet lion at at this bar and ordered this triple scotch and a Zulu for his pet lion, and he downed the scotch very quickly and the lion inhaled the Zulu equally quickly, and this went on for about an hour and a half, triple scotches and Zulus, and he said, “I like another Zulu for my lion.” And he said, “I’m so sorry, bwana, but we have no more Zulus. Would a Pygmy do?” He said, “Don’t be a twit. You know how nasty he gets on shorts.”

BC: Four points to Jon. Seven - six. Let’s see what happens as we move to Chic Murray, our interruptee of a moment ago. Chic, what can you make of history?

CM: History’s, of course, in the past, as people know. American history has always intrigued me, especially…

BUZZ

BC: Interruption by Johnny Hackett.

JOHNNY HACKETT: American history, he said?

BC: Yes.

JH: Well, I’ve heard that, you know, through all this big scandal in the States now about Watergate they’re going to rewrite George Washington’s speech. It’s going to be, ‘I cannot tell a lie. It was the axe that cut down the cherry tree.’

BC: Oh. Satire lives. Three points to Johnny Hackett. Three points.

LANCE PERCIVAL: What was so good about it was I didn’t understand it.

BC: Sorry, Lance.

LP :What was so good about it was I didn’t understand it, really.

BC: Definitely three points then. Back to Chic Murray, back in the mists of American history.

CM: And during the war against the American Indians, General Custer of naturally very well-known to those who knew him, oh yes, so he’s leading his company of horse across the wherever he was going and then a sound because of the stillness of the day, they could here [imitates horse hooves sound], and then another fellow said to Custer, “General, there’s a rider coming fast.” [Imitates horse hooves sound and neigh]  ‘I’m looking for General Custer.’ ‘I’m General Custer.’ ‘General, there’s Indians everywhere. You never seen so many Indians. There’s Crow, there’s Blackfeet, there’s ‘Pach, Sioux, and Big Chief Sitting Bull himself.’ ‘Well, that’s why we’re here. To get Indians.’ ‘Yup, and he said he’s going to get the man with yellow hair. And you’re the man with yellow hair.’ He said, ‘I know that.’ He said, ‘Where are these Indians?’ He said, ‘They’re coming, the broad hill now general.’ ‘Thousands of Indians. Thousands.’ ‘What are you going to do, General?’ ‘Miller, sound the alert.’ [Imitates trumpet sound]. Bugles! ‘Oh, general! Repeaters!’[Imitates repeaters] ‘General, surrender. We’re going to be beat, you know that.’ ‘What do you make of these Indians?’ ‘I just don’t know what to make of them. One minute they’re singing and dancing, and now this.’

BC: Oh, dear. A better example of Sitting Bull I have yet to hear. Four. Four miserly points. Let’s put Leslie’s team two ahead and go to Lance Percival. Lance, what can you make of -- now here’s possible high scores -- insects.

LP: Insects. Shouldn’t have done that. Are daddy-long-legs insects? Daddy-long-legs are insects?

BC: Oh, sure. Yes.

LP: Right. Daddy-long-legs. This is meant…

BUZZ

LP: No, it wasn’t.

BC: Interruption. Interruption by Daddy-Long-Legs himself, Leslie Crowther.

LC: Well.. Well… Shut up! Wasn’t daddy-long-legs at all.

BC: Ah, .

LC: No, it’s fleas. These two fleas performers in a flea circus. Very good fleas, they were. Excellent, you know. They… Top of the bill, and they’d just done in the flea circus two shows -- a matinee and an evening performance, and a midnight matinee for the pros, you know, all the other animals, and they were very tired. And they were sitting in their dressing room taking their makeup off, you know, these two fleas. Ridiculous, isn’t it? And they don’t even wear makeup. And these two fleas were sort of taking their makeup off, and one said, ‘I’m half tired. Aren’t you?’ He said, ‘Yeah. Three shows. Ridiculous.’ He said, ‘Do you want to walk home or shall we take a dog?’

BC: Two. Two points. Two points to Leslie. Back to Lance. Anything to do with your story? No, yours is daddy-long-legs.

LP: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. [Writing] ‘Or shall we take a dog?’

BC: Got that one down? Yes.

LP: Yes. Yes.  Daddy-long-legs. Now this is meant for all the fathers in the audience and the prospective fathers in the audience, and any of the lads in the back who are sweating it out. It concerns daddy-long-legs and it concerns a little boy talking to his rather dignified father, and the little boy says, ‘Oh, look, Daddy. Look, Daddy, there’s two daddy-long-legs there kissing each other. Ha ha ha ha ha.’ ‘Yes. Quite right, boy. Two daddy-long-legs kissing each other. Very observant. Well done.’ ‘Yes but after you told me the other day about the birds and the bees and all that -- pfft -- rubbish, surely one of them’s got to be a mummy-long-legs, isn’t it? The other one’s a daddy-long-legs, if they’re kissing each other? Isn’t that right? Ha ha ha.’ ‘Yes, quite right. One’s a mummy. One’s a daddy. I can’t tell from here which is the mummy and which is the daddy, but one’s the mummy, one’s the daddy, yes. Quite right.’ ‘Yeah, well, she… I looked it up in the dictionary, and there’s no such thing as a mummy-long-legs, so they must be both daddy-long-legs kissing each other. Ho ho ho ho ho.’ ‘Oh, they are, are they? Oh, both daddy-long-legs kissing? Yes, well we don’t want any of [mimes smashing the daddy-long-legs] that sort of thing around.’

BC: This will get them at it. Five points to Lance Percival, nudging Jon Pertwee’s team one point ahead, and this is where we stop our game for one minute -- literally sixty seconds -- and ask one of our comedians to step out here in front of our audience and see how many laughs he can get in that sixty seconds. His subject is contained in an envelope buried in our audience. I know who’s got the subject: Hillary. I’m going to see her now. I shall now approach Hillary, who’s got the envelope. You start opening the envelope, please, and you’ll find the subject in there on a piece of paper, and we’ll find out what it is. Are you nervous? [Hillary nods]. Oh, don’t be. You’ve seen envelopes before. Now then, open the paper. What’s the subject, love?

HILLARY: The army.

BC: Say it again.

H: The army.

BC: The army. And it’s a member of Jon Pertwee’s team. Gentlemen, will you confer?

JP: I’ve been volunteered, sir.

BC: Ah! And so it is volunteer Mr. Jon Pertwee on the subject of the army for one minute, starting now.

JP: There was a captain and he was instructing his men on the art of guard duty and he said, [stuttering] ‘Now, now men,’ he said, ‘now men…; Don’t laugh at people’s afflictions! He said, [stuttering] ‘Now, men, what I want you…; Be quiet! He said, [stuttering] ‘Now, to business. The slightest…’ Shut up! [stuttering] ‘The slightest sound…’ [stuttering incoherently] Listen to what I’m saying! [stuttering] ‘At the slight sound of oncoming, you are to raise your gun, you are to announce in a loud, clear voice, “Halt! Who goes there?” And if he seems to take a long time answering, for God’s sake don’t shoot. It might be me.’

BC: Thank you. Thank you. We’ll be back with Jon Pertwee’s single score and more of the game in just a minute. See you then.

[Break]

BC: Welcome to part two of ‘Jokers Wild.’ At the end of part one Mr. Jon Pertwee got, there we so many laughs going on I couldn’t really tell. I counted about twenty, but, [stuttering] allowing [speaking normally], I would say that’s equal to the course record of fifteen. Fifteen. Fifteen definitely. Les Dawson at home has now stormed out of the room, and we… And you should see him storm out of a room! Back to Bob Todd with your entry into the game, Bob. Let’s get back to the game with possible high scores. Parrots.

BOB TODD: Parrots? Parrots!  [coughs] Parrots?

BC: Yes.

BT: I’m glad you mentioned that, because there was this little man in a bowler hat who used to go to London every day and he commuted down a little road and into the station and every day all the other men in the bowler hats went down, and one day, he noticed that a pet show had opened in the arcade just before the station, and he had a look at it and as he got near the station, he saw that there was a big perch outside with a very battered parrot sitting…

BUZZ

BC: Interruption by Jon Pertwee.

JP: Parrot. Yes. Would it be the story of the lady whose pipe burst, and… I mean, the lady’s pipe burst and she phoned up the plumber and she said, ‘Would you come round at one because my pipe has burst?’ The plumber said, ‘Yes, madam, I’ll be round as soon as I can,’ and she couldn’t wait any longer than an hour and he still hadn’t turned up, so she left, and she left the door open, and the plumber came along, you see, and he knocked the door, and knocked the door, and the parrot, the lady’s parrot, said, ‘Who’s that?’ He said, ‘It’s the plumber, madam,’ and the parrot said, ‘Who’s that?’ He said, ‘It’s the plumber, madam!’ And the parrot said, ‘Who’s that?’ And he said, ‘It’s the p--’ and he fell over and died of a heart attack. And when the lady came back an hour and half later, she found the plumber dead on the floor, and she rushed over to him, and she said, ‘Who’s that?’ And the parrot said, ‘It’s the plumber!’

BC: Oh, I’ll give that three. Let’s make a real needle match out of it. I’ll give that three. But we return to Bob Todd, back in the aviary. Bob, yeah, well, was that your joke?

BT: No, that was about a plumber, that joke. No, no, no.. And as I was saying, no, and he was walking down to the station approach and there was this old parrot sitting on a perch, and just as he got opposite, the parrot ignored everybody else, but as he drew level, the parrot went, ‘Nose picker.’ Swear at him. He got on the train. He thought, ‘I’ll try it again tomorrow morning.’ As he walked past, the parrot ignored everybody else. As he got level with the parrot, the parrot went, ‘Nose-picker.’ So the following day on the way to the station he called in the shop. He said, ‘Every time I come into this damn shop of yours, that parrot says, “Nose-picker” to me.’ And the bloke said, ‘I’m awfully sorry. I’ll fix it. Don’t worry about it anymore.’ Next morning, going down to the station, he saw the parrot still sitting on the perch, but he had a big sticking plaster round his beak. He thought, ‘Ha, ha, ha. That’s fixed him.’ But as he got level with the parrot it went: [mimes picking his nose].

BC: Winner of the Mary Whitehouse trophy, Bob Todd, with four points. Let’s get level pegging. Four points. Johnny Hackett, what can you do with -- oh dear -- mothers-in-law?

JOHNNY HACKETT: Oh, mothers-in… I’ve got a beautiful mother-in-law. She’s a lovely woman. I bought her a present for Christmas. She went to pieces over it. It was a little hand grenade. And… Actually, and, brothers-in-law or sons-in-law never get on with mothers-in-law, and this is a perfectly true story. There was such a couple in Liverpool and they couldn’t agree with anything. They were going over one day, over the Mersey on the ferry, you know. That’s a river that divides Liverpool from Birkenhead. Funny place, actually.

BC: Got it.

JH: And…

BC: It has to, really.

JH: It does, yes. He says to her in his inimitable way, he says, ‘Look at that girl’s hair. Someone’s cut it with a knife.’ And his mother-in-law said, ‘No, scissors.’ And he said, ‘No, knife.’ She says, ‘Scissors.’ So here we go again. He says, ‘Knife.’ She says, ‘Scissors.’ So, in exasperation, he picked her up and threw her at the boat into the river, and she’s sinking, and he’s saying, ‘Knife!’ She says, ‘Scissors.’ ‘Knife!’ She’s going down for the third time. As she’s going down, he says, get the last word out, after all these years, he says, ‘Knife!’ She put her hand up and she went, [mimes scissors].

BC: I’ll make that a fiver. Five to Johnny Hackett. I like a ferry story now and again. Back to Leslie Crowther.

BT: Talking of ferry stories.

BC: I’m awfully sorry about that. Back to Leslie Crowther. Leslie: business.

LC: Show business.  A deft twist.

BC: Yes. Clever lad.

LC: My agent last Christmas went on a skiing holiday and, poor devil, there was an avalanche and he was stuck halfway up Mont Blanc, which is a mountain, and suddenly, and you know, was up to there [indicates his neck] and don’t make a wave in snow, and he was crying for help as one does, going ‘Oi vey! Oi vey!’ here. And they hear his cries for help in the village below. And they sent out a search party. They’re going [yodels]. It’s a very bad echo. And he hears the sound and he says, ‘Who’s there, already?’ Or even ‘Who’s there already, already?’ They said, ‘International Red Cross.’ He said, ‘I’ve already given.’

BC: Let’s keep it even there. Four points to Leslie. Twenty-one twenty-two. Gentlemen, into our quickies. We go to each of our teams with a subject. Gentlemen, any order. Jokers wild, literally. Leslie Crowther’s team, the subject: art. Any offers? Any offers, gentlemen?  Any offers?

BUZZ

BC: Captain Leslie.

LC: Yeah, art. I was talking to a fellow the other week, and I said, ‘Are you interested in art?’ He said, ‘Yes. I’ve got a wonderful collection of paintings at home. I’ve got them all in my lounge. I’ve got in the lounge in the heights. I’ve got a Botticelli nude

And I’ve got a Gaugin nude, and I’ve got a Titian nude, and I’ve got a Picasso nude.’ And I said, ‘Good heavens. Are you a connoisseur?’ He said, ‘No. I’m a dirty old man.’

BC: Anyone for any more on this side?

BUZZ

BC: Chic Murray.

CM: My father was a painter, and I remember one day a woman coming into the house. Quite a few women used to come into the house, I remember. He was a preacher, he was a sort of lay preacher, I think he was. So this woman said, ‘Mr Murray,’ she said, ‘I would like you to paint me in the nude.’ And he hesitated just for a moment. He said, ‘Well, I shall,’ he said, ‘but as long as I keep my socks on, I’ll have to get somewhere to put my brushes.’

BC: Come on , now. Any more? Any more? Any more from Leslie’s team? No? No, Bob? No, Bob? Right. I’ll give the…

BUZZ

BC: What happened then? Jon Pertwee’s team, coming to you in a moment. A team score of six points, Leslie Crowther’s team. Jon Pertwee’s team, the same subject, art. Jon buzzed first, I think.

JP: Did you hear the story about the ultra-modern artist who tried to cut his ear off with an electric razor?

BC: Any more, gentlemen? Any more? Lance Percival.

LP: Modern artists. When Picasso, many years ago, was burgled, he was asked to draw -- His house was burgled, I mean. He was asked to draw a picture of the burglar for the police, and the next day they arrested two sardines, a corkscrew, and a dustbin lid.

BUZZ

BC: Johnny Hackett.

JH: Rather big American gangster. New York. You know, big mafia chief. Says, ‘Come in. I want you to see I’ve got some paintings by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Cole Porter.’ So the fellow said, ‘They can’t be.’ He said, ‘They’re composers.’ He said, ‘They paint for me.’

BC: Right. Wrap it up now. I’ll give you the same score, six points, and as I look at the scoreboard it is a win for Jon Pertwee’s team. Will you say goodbye for now to captain Jon Pertwee, Lance Percival, and Johnny Hackett, and commiserate upon this occasion with captain Leslie Crowther, jolly Chic Murray, and Bob Todd. I’ll ask winning captain Jon Pertwee to collect our trophy. My name’s Barry Cryer. See you again soon. Bye for now. Jon?