The jokes that made Ken Dodd a timeless favourite 

Sir Ken with one of his famous Diddy Men characters in 1994

Sir Ken Dodd, master of tickling sticks, Diddy Men and tattifilarious comedy, reduced fans to helplessness with his bucktoothed grin, a shake of the through-a-hedge-backwards hair and a cry of ‘How tickled I am’.

Hands on hip and in full command of his audience, he would demand: ‘Do you give in?’ and later say of a particularly successful show: ‘By heck, we took no prisoners that night.’

Dodd, who died at the age of 90 on Sunday, continued to perform right through to his later years, bringing the energy and stamina of a man half his age to his manic routines in theatres up and down the land.

Here MailOnline looks at some of his funniest jokes…  

– ‘I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for 18 months. I don’t like to interrupt her.’

– ‘Men’s legs have a terribly lonely life – standing in the dark in your trousers all day.’

– ‘It’s ten years since I went out of my mind. I’d never go back.’

– ‘The trouble with Freud is that he never played the Glasgow Empire on a Saturday night after Rangers and Celtic had both lost.’

– ‘You think you can get away, but you can’t. I’ll follow you home and I’ll shout jokes through your letterbox’ – when he was still going strong at a show as it approached midnight.

– ‘I’ve seen a topless lady ventriloquist. Nobody has ever seen her lips move.’

– ‘Do I believe in safe sex? Of course I do. I have a handrail around the bed.’

Some of Sir Ken's shows could last more than five hours. Pictured on the Thank Your Lucky Stars programme in the mid-1960s

Some of Sir Ken’s shows could last more than five hours. Pictured on the Thank Your Lucky Stars programme in the mid-1960s

– ‘It’s a privilege to be asked to play here tonight on what is a very special anniversary. It is 100 years to the night since that balcony collapsed’ – Addressing people in The Gods at a provincial theatre.

– ‘The French didn’t object to British beef in 1940.’

– ‘Honolulu: it’s got everything: sand for the children, sun for the wife, sharks for the wife’s mother.’

– ‘Age doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese’, on approaching his 80th birthday.

– ‘Doctor, ‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m approaching 50.’ ‘From which direction?”

– ‘How do you make a blonde laugh on a Sunday? Tell her a joke on a Wednesday.’

– ‘How many men does it take to change a toilet roll? Nobody knows. It’s never been tried.’

– ‘Fifty-five years in show business, ladies and gentlemen. That’s a hell of a long time to wait for a laugh.’

– ‘Tonight when you get home, put a handful of ice cubes down your wife’s nightie and say: ‘There’s the chest freezer you always wanted’.’

Pictured: The veteran comic holding his famous white and blue 'tickling stick' surrounded by his Diddy Men

Pictured: The veteran comic holding his famous white and blue ‘tickling stick’ surrounded by his Diddy Men

– ‘My act is very educational. I heard a man leaving the other night, saying: ‘Well, that taught me a lesson’.’

– ‘Love makes the world go round, or it does if you are a man over 50.’

– ‘My dad knew I was going to be a comedian. When I was a baby, he said, ‘Is this a joke?’.’

– ‘So this fellow tells the doctor, ‘Every time I sneeze I feel very sexy.’ The doctor asks, ‘What do you take?’ ‘Pepper’.’

– ‘I used to think I was marvellous in bed until I discovered that all my girl friends suffered from asthma.’

Tickled: Dodd with his infamous blue and white sticks

Tickled: Dodd with his infamous blue and white sticks

– ‘An official went to ask my big Auntie Nellie to come off the beach because the tide was waiting to come in.’

– ‘The man who invented cats’ eyes got the idea when he saw the eyes of a cat in his headlights. If the cat had been going the other way, he would have invented the pencil sharpener.’

He also even came up with a few quips regarding his famous tax fraud trial…

‘They stole that idea from me’ – Referring to the Inland Revenue and self-assessment of income tax.

‘I told the Inland Revenue I didn’t owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside.’

‘In the 1800s, one of the MPs in London decided to introduce tax. In those days it was 2p in the pound. I thought it still was.’

‘I thought it would be a good idea to go into politics. Maybe I am a little old. but you know, I’d love to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That way I’ll be united with my money.’

‘Good evening, my name is Kenneth Arthur Dodd, singer photographic playboy and failed accountant.’

When asked by the trial judge what it felt like to have a hundred thousand pounds stashed in a suitcase in his attic, Dodd replied: ‘The notes are very light my lord.’

 



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