To
comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories --
has always been precious, worthy of protecting and
preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could
last years as it was performed on tour across the
country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might
be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used
new material not only for his weekly radio series,
but also for the several live charity appearances
he made each week. In the beginning of his career,
Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and
comic routines from popular humor publications, or
commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers.
Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over
one hundred writers to create material, including
jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example,
for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers,
divided the writers into teams, and required each
team to complete an entire script. He then selected
the best jokes from each script and pieced them together
to create the final script. The jokes included in
the final script, as well as jokes not used, were
categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets
in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office
next to his residence in North Hollywood, California.
Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his
personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live
appearances or television and radio programs.
The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000
pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according
to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation
in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. |
Annie Leibovitz.
Bob Hope in his joke
vault.
Photograph, July 17, 1995.
Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197)
Jokes from Bob Hope's
Joke File
December 15, 1953
Typed manuscript with
holographic notations
Page 2 - Page
3 - Page 4
Page 5 - Page
6 - Page 7
©Bob Hope Enterprises
Bob Hope Collection
Motion Picture,
Broadcasting,
and Recorded Sound Division
|
Library
of Congress