The Morecambe and Wise Joke Book (1979)

Book Review from 2009

It’s the seventies so it must be another joke book - just like the rest, and indeed it is.

The book contains a short introduction which breifly introduces double acts and cross talk, as supposedly written by Ernie. There then follows a collection of scripts most, if not all, taken from the ATV series.

Some of the scripts have been edited to fit the book format, as visual gags are no use on paper. An example of this if the 'Nervous Flyer' routine. Eric is nervous of flying and Ernie is trying his best to both calm him down and scare him.

The television version has a air hostess who leans over Eric to give Ernie a drink and giving Eric an eye full of cleavage at the same time. Obviously this would be hard, if not impossible to re-create in words. The scripts ignores the visual humour and concentrates on the one-liners and cross talk.

"A friend of mine was like you - took the boat instead. Terrible shame."
"Why, what happened?"
"A plane fell on it.."

The range of scripts covers many subjects and is interlaced with large black and white photographs.

This is where this particular book differs from other script books. The pictures are not taken all from the associated sketches.

Instead we get a mixture of shots, some from the films such as The Intelligence Men, some from TV Commercials, some promotional shots and even some behind the scenes.

Some of them we have not seen before such as the shot of Ernie in bed holding a cup of Ovaltine. Maybe this was a promo shot when they were presidents of the Ovaltinies in the late 60s and 70s, or maybe a sketch yet to be released to home media.

It would be hard to recommend this book as there are so many other script books about, so we would just say it's one for the collectors only.


© morecambeandwise.com 2009


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