64 000 question bob monkhouse biography meaning

"When I was at school and I said I wanted to be a comedian, everyone laughed at me. Well, they're not laughing now."

Robert Alan Monkhouse (1 June 1928 – 29 December 2003) was a British stand-up comedian, prolific Game Show host and comedy writer. He rose to prominence in The '50s and was still going strong more than four decades later (joking that his 70th birthday celebration programme was actually a hastily re-titled funeral celebration). This became Harsher in Hindsight as he died only a few years later from prostate cancer in 2003, at the respectable age of 75 but only shortly after his older friend Bob Hope, whom he had spent years writing for. After his death, CGI technology was used to allow his image to star in PSAs raising awareness of prostate cancer - these were praised for being one of the first examples of such a "resurrection" that didn't slip into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. invoked

As well as hosting over 30 British game shows, he also worked as a comedy actor, although in his more serious roles he tended to get typecast as the villain - he joked that "I'm always cast as the sort of man who would keep his cocoa warm by burning down an orphanage", and cited Sylvester Le Fley from Jonathan Creek as an example.

He was also a fan of silent films and possessed an extensive obscure film collection, as well as a vast library of archive TV shows, which was examined after his death and found to contain many programmes that no longer existed in the official archives.

He also kept records of every joke he'd ever told, in large notebooks. When these books were stolen (and later recovered) the theft was jokingly attributed to "the Thief of Bad Gags".

Tropes:

• Always Someone Better: Jokingly claimed to Lily Savage that Jim Bowen of Bullseye (UK) was a bigger game show-host guru than he would ever be.
• Catchphrase: He began every show with the ironic phrase at the top of this article. Also, in a non-verbal example, whenever he walked down t

Hi and a very Happy New Year to the Beyond The Title audience and I hope 2024 brings you health, happiness and success! I’m thrilled to welcome you to this incredibly special edition of Beyond The Title. The Sherlocks among you would have already realised that I’m not Josh Barry. For those of you that haven’t realised that yet, you either need your hearing checked or get out of the bath! I’m the star of stage and screen Harriet Thorpe and for this podcast I’m going to be Josh’s voice and speak his words about his comedy hero, inspiration and idol. If you listened to Josh’s podcast with Iain Lee on Television Centre then this follows a similar structure.The 27th December 2023 marked the twentieth anniversary of a momentous moment in the history of British entertainment: the sad death of a comedy pioneer, a TV icon and one of the sharpest minds to ever grace British television (and that’s not three people!). 

Listen to the full episode below

There are just a handful of stars who, only by the very mention of their name, have the ability to excite an audience. In the case of our subject, I think it’s partly the smacking of the syllables: Bob Monkhouse, you can really accentuate the consonants so an M.C. would find it very satisfying to announce his name. But beyond that, they were excited because they knew that they were about to witness a performer right at the very top of his game. You felt safe watching him, because for most of us, he’d be a constant face on our television screens for all of our lives. Bob Monkhouse was a star from the TV Variety days of the early 1950’s to the multichannel landscape of the new millennium. Always embracing new fads, fashions and stars of entertainment, Monkhouse totally epitomised everything I love about comedy and remains arguably one of the most important and influential figures in post-war entertainment.

In a moment, I’m going to tell you why I believe t

Last week | Weaver's Week Index | Next week

At the start of this year, we took the decision to spend a few Weeks on the history of game shows. Over the course of the year, we've looked at Backdate and Today's the Day, First Class and Four Square, and an obituary for The Weakest Link. And we found two from the Bob Monkhouse archive, huge in their day, but now barely remembered. The $64,000 Question, and a Christmas edition of Bob's Full House.

Then, in the summer, we learned that Challenge TV were going to repeat the whole series of Bob's Full House. The result is that, though the programme we're about to review is 28 years old, older than many of our readers, we must put out a SPOILER warning. If you don't want to know what happens on the Christmas edition, move right along to the Only Connect review.

Bob's Full House

BBC1, 26 December 1984

So, we've had Final Score, ten minutes of football and racing results, seeing if Tottenham Hotspur can remain top of League Division I. We've had the Plummeting News with Jan Lemming. And, at 5.15 on Boxing Day evening, it's time for Bob's Full House. "Four contestants compete for substantial prizes, and Bob Monkhouse exercises his gift for wisecrackery", according to The Times. "Your Boxing Day bingo boy," according to the announcer, and our Bob is straight into a discussion of the Christian feast of Leftover. Not that Bob's taking part: he had the in-laws around yesterday, and they took apart the turkey in three minutes. Saved his wife the bother of cooking it.

Joining us this week are four people from the caring services. There Muff – Myfanwy to her mother, a nurse from Cardiff. Bob is from the London fire brigade, Angela is from the Order of St John – they run the voluntary ambulance service, and Clifton comes from the RNLI. Just for t

Good Game Guides - Articles

This Good Game Guide provides a primer on how game shows have developed in Britain from the beginning of television to the present day.

The early days

The BBC began the world's first high-definition, regular TV service from London in 1936. It wasn't until two years later that any form of game show appeared. In fact, the very first game show ever shown was very possibly the worst ever.

Spelling Bee was broadcast on 31st May 1938, transmitted live from the BBC studios at Alexandra Palace. Hosted by Freddie Grisewood, the panel of guests were asked to spell a series of words. And that was it. The host was bedecked in schoolmaster garb as a way of adding kudos to what was otherwise a light-hearted quiz - a technique that countless other shows would use throughout the century. It was not until the late 80s that children were treated as young people rather than schoolkids.

Television closed down during the Second World War, and even when the service returned most of the programmes shown throughout the rest of the 1940s were largely forgettable.

1950s

The first game show whose name still means anything to anyone is What's My Line?, which ran on the BBC from 1951. It was another simple panel game, nevertheless it ran in numerous different versions on two different channels through to the mid 90s. The programme was the first US import of a Goodson and Todman show - many more were to follow.

The BBC's monopoly was broken in 1955 when the government decided that a commercial station (ITV) should come into being. Its two defining characteristics were that it would carry commercials and be formed from a number of local companies. This localised nature led to some game shows being shown in some parts of the country but not others, a situation which still exists today. Since the content of such programmes is frequently non-dependent on the area in which