Ken Dodd: 17 of his funniest one-liners

12 March 2018

Comedy legend Sir Ken Dodd, who has died at the age of 90, was the irrepressible master of quick-fire one liners that left audiences in stitches. Here are some of his best:

1. "My dad knew I was going to be a comedian. When I was a baby, he said, 'Is this a joke?'"

2. "I love my girlfriend, my girlfriend loves me. She loves my hair, she loves my eyes, she loves my teeth. She loves my teeth because I'm the only person that can peel an orange through a tennis racket."

3. "I haven't spoken to my mother-in-law for 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her."

4. "My act is very educational. I heard a man leaving the other night, saying: 'Well, that taught me a lesson.'"

5. "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."

6. On his famous tax fraud trial: "I told the Inland Revenue I didn't owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside."

7. On his marathon live shows: "You think you can get away, but you can't. I'll follow you home and I'll shout jokes through your letterbox."

8. "Do I believe in safe sex? Of course I do. I have a handrail around the bed."

9. "I'm a sex symbol - I am a sex symbol for women who don't care."

10. "I do all the exercises every morning in front of the television - up, down, up, down, up, down. Then the other eyelid."

11. "I did 25 minutes running on the spot this morning - I had my braces caught in the banister."

12. At the Royal Variety Performance: "This audience tonight represents the creme de la creme. That's French for evaporated milk."

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13. On approaching his 80th birthday: "Age doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese."

14. "Did any of us in our wildest dreams ever think we'd live long enough to see the end of the DFS sale?"

15. "I wanted to take the dog to obedience class but it wouldn't go."

16. "Did you hear about the shrimp that went to the prawn's cocktail party? He pulled a mussel."

17. "So it turns out that if you bang two halves of a horse together, it doesn't make the sound of a coconut."

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