Here is a look back at some of the most memorable jokes produced by Galton and Simpson, the celebrated comedy writers, following the death of Ray Galton at the age of 88.
– “You dirty old man!” – Harold Steptoe, Steptoe And Son
– “Watch it, mate, or I’ll have you, with a punch up the bracket.” – Tony Hancock, Hancock’s Half Hour
– “When I’ve got my decent clobber on I’m completely classless. Providing I don’t open my mouth I could pass for anybody.” – Harold Steptoe, Steptoe And Son
– “Friends all over the world. None round here but friends all over the world.” – Tony Hancock, Hancock’s Half Hour
– “I had foot-rot, malaria, I was wounded twice. I had three doses of dysentery. Oh God. They were the happiest days of my life.” – Harold Steptoe, Steptoe And Son
– “Ain’t it pathetic, your faith in the healing powers of a cup of tea! […] the Englishman’s panacea! Mother just died? Oh what a shame, have a cup of tea. Just been run over? Never mind, have a cup of tea. I have been offered tea for disasters, funerals, operations, floods, wars, Dunkirk, the Blitz, coronations, piles, hysteria, hunger marches and insomnia. Nice cup of tea in one hand and thumbs up to the camera in the other… Britain can take it! Well they can have it.” – Harold Steptoe, Steptoe And Son
– “You are morally, spiritually and physically a festering fly-blown heap of accumulated filth.” – Harold Steptoe, Steptoe And Son
– “You are a dyed-in-the-wool, fascist, reactionary, squalid little, know-your-place, don’t-rise-above-yourself, don’t-get-out-of-your-hole complacent little turd.” – Harold Steptoe, Steptoe And Son
– “He’s walked off with my wine gums! Oh dear, oh dear. If you can’t trust a blood donor, who CAN you trust?” – Tony Hancock, Hancock’s Half Hour
– “That wasn’t a lobster that poisoned you, you swallowed your own venom.” – Harold Steptoe, Steptoe And Son.