I think my problem is that the only scenes I've seen him he was already hugely famous and it didn't seem like he was giv
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vinidici — 14 years ago(November 28, 2011 07:23 AM)
Bob Hope will be remembered and revered for decades more to come and maybe even into the next century (airports, hospitals, streets, military complexes and vehicles, etc., named after him) and beyond, as long as film and recordings of his TV and radio work are preserved.
Whatever you do, DO NOT read this sigACKKK!!!
TOO LATE!!! -
phillipsdan83 — 12 years ago(December 28, 2013 08:39 AM)
Hope was funny in his younger days. But it shouldn't be glossed over that after the early Sixties, he put less effort into his movies, and as he aged and lost his timing, his final few NBC specials were painful to watch.
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ConDeuce — 11 years ago(July 23, 2014 08:02 AM)
Count me among the many who used to think Hope wasnt funny at all. He was a comedian from my parents generation (born in the 1920s, came of age during WWII). Theyd often watch him and his movies but since I was from a very different generation (born in the 60s) I was too above it all to even give the guy a chance. What I did see of Hope was his stiff TV specials in the 70s and 80s and I could not understand why the guy was a star.
Then I happened to be flipping around the channels one day and I came upon My Favorite Brunette and it was a revelation. Hopes line delivery is priceless. I an someone who loves great funny lines from movies. I collect them like others collect stamps and My Favorite Brunette has a ton of them. I recall Woody Allen admitting that he mimicked (or stole) Hopes line delivery and this is apparent from watching My Favorite Brunette. Hope delivers deadpan lines in the face of deadly serious characters just like Allen did in Bananas.
No one could have achieved the superstardom that Hope did without being really talented and entertaining at some point in their lives. I think Hope reached a peak in the 40s but (as others have already pointed out) by the 60s, 70s and 80s, he was essentially performing more on his reputation than on original material. People like my parents fondly remembered the truly funny Bob Hope and simply watched is TV specials more as a kind of remembrance than for its entertainment value. -
bfitzgerald1968 — 11 years ago(August 17, 2014 07:48 PM)
Bushrod, you are not alone. Why this "legend" was foisted upon us decade after decade, can only be explained by the conservative mentality of the entertainment establishment, who routinely served us pure vanilla whether it was funny or not. There was something smug about the man. The photo of Hope wearing top hat and tails as sat in his vaulted basement with his collection of jokes that he did not write, struck me as extremely odd. He was the All American Star and the anonymous folks who wrote his lame material were employees. It was a facade perpetuated by a television era where we only had 3 or 4 channels and one of them was showing Lawrence Welk. Let us hope that, in the after life Leslie Townes Hope is an accountant.
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metalman091 — 11 years ago(August 17, 2014 10:24 PM)
Bushrod, you are not alone. Why this "legend" was foisted upon us decade after a decade, can only be explained by the conservative mentality of the entertainment establishment, who routinely served us pure vanilla whether it was funny or not.
Because Hope was a legend. He was extremely popular on radio, movies and television. He was one of the top ten box office stars of the 1940s and early 50s.
I wonder how you would describe George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Red Skelton, Milton Berle, Danny Kaye or Eddie Cantor. Were they all vanilla?
And while Hope could be a slave driver, he did acknowledge the efforts of his writers. ALL of them fondly recalled his kindness and loyalty and they all remained loyal to him. Hope, like the others mentioned, had writers, but he was able to come up with his own material as well. -
bfitzgerald1968 — 10 years ago(July 06, 2015 03:06 PM)
All of the folks you mentioned were a lot 238funnier and entertaining than Texaco Bob Hope. Even Bing Crosby was better than this "great man." Popularity is no sign of extraordinary talent. The Garth Brooks era is a case in point.