A fellow named Kevin Boury sent me a long e-mail that raises some good points I'm seeing discussed on the Internet. I'm going to excerpt a chunk and then respond to them below…
Bob Hope never made me laugh. Ever. And that is what I consider to be the best judge of whether someone is funny, not a roomful of grinning audience members who don't want to shout that the emperor has no clothes. After all, McDonald's is a popular eatery, but I would not call what they serve "food" (let alone good). People don't want to admit that what they paid money for is, in fact, a substandard product.
Anyway, just had to chime in because I actually found this Hitchens article to be right on the money. I have never read his work before, but what I read in your blog seemed to dismiss his current work based mostly on his older pieces. I would like to see a Bob Hope fan such as yourself answer his question "What is your favorite Bob Hope gag?"
I think a line could be drawn for a comic between material they deliver well and whether or not they write their own material. Even the article you cite in Mr. Hope's defense indicates that he was never far away from his writers. His appearances with Johnny never seemed to indicate that he was able to make humorous off the cuff remarks. Extemporaneous he was not!
If you didn't find Bob Hope funny, fine. I'm not out to argue with you or anyone that he was; only that I think it's wrong to not recognize that to a lot of people of the last century, he was. It's just like — to invoke another of these unavoidable food analogies — I can't stand cole slaw. I think it's the most repulsive thing human beings put voluntarily into their mouths. But if you want to enjoy the stuff, be my guest. It in no way threatens me to admit that others do. My main problem with the Hitchens piece was that its subtext was, to convert it to the cole slaw analogy, "I hate cole slaw so anyone who thinks it's good is just plain wrong." I could respect and perhaps even write a detailed criticism of the many ways in which Bob Hope was deficient as a performer and maybe as a human being, as well. But that's not what Hitchens did, nor does it take into account that in the pantheon of show business, Hope was a little more than just another stand-up comedian to be judged wholly on his monologues.
I'm afraid I don't buy your McDonald's comparison. For good or ill, McDonald's has a helluva lot of steady customers. They don't go back over and over again rather than admit they're buying a substandard product. They like Big Macs and cheap burgers and drive-thru convenience. And people did not feign laughter at Bob Hope for 70-some-odd years because they didn't want to admit he wasn't amusing them. Too many other comedians fell by the wayside during those decades because at some point they stopped amusing audiences. You can't sustain a career or even a fast food joint for any length of time unless in some way, people are genuinely satisfied with what they're getting.
"What is your favorite Bob Hope gag?" is a somewhat unfair question since Hope was so imitated that quoted lines often sound stale. Moreover, when he was at his best, the joy was in the cumulative effect of his timing and attitude, rather than any one single joke. I mean, I can't name a favorite Laurel and Hardy gag, either. It just amuses me to watch them in action. In the case of Hope, I liked the kind of snotty but cowardly character he played in his best films. I liked the way he'd get up at the Oscars and say something like, "Welcome to the Academy Awards — or as we call it at my house, Passover." But really, I liked the delivery, not the gags themselves. It's like quoting Groucho's "This morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. What he was doing in my pajamas I'll never know" without taking Groucho's delivery into account. The joke itself is just a small part of it. "This is an ex-parrot" isn't particularly funny except when uttered by John Cleese in one specific context. I think my favorite Hope moment on film was the dance on the table with Jimmy Cagney in what was otherwise one of Bob's weaker films, The Seven Little Foys. And no, the scene wasn't funny, nor was it really supposed to be. But it showed Bob off as a great performer, which is what I believe he was.
I thought Hope was usually funny and spontaneous when he was on with Carson and as I said in my piece, I watched one of those spots about eight feet away from the two men. Yes, he was dependent to a great deal on his writers, as were just about all the comedians of his generation. I was surprised to see Hitchens include Berle in any list of better comedians, since Berle freely admitted everything he said was written by others and that he just "remembered well." Would you like to name some great comedians of film and television who didn't spend a lot of money on writers? I sure can't think of too many. The first one who comes to mind is Woody Allen, who has often cited Hope as his hero. One of the things that was different about Hope (and which makes it hard to single out a "best gag") is that most comedians had five routines and they'd do them each ten thousand times. Hope had ten thousand routines and he'd do them each five times.
Bottom line for me is that if he didn't make you laugh, he didn't make you laugh. If you name your 20 favorite comedians, there'll probably be someone on there who didn't make me laugh and that wouldn't mean you were wrong. Within the world of comedy, there's room for the guy who only makes some people laugh. It would be a shame if we homogenized taste in this world to the point where you're only a great entertainer if you manage to entertain absolutely everyone.