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Two for the road BOB HOPE
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flo6 //ope a/ie? friend in The Road to Morocco.
Bob Hope is the man who adapted the principles of the assembly line to the production of humor. He turns out a standardized product — topical wisecracks — in a rapid-fire stream. There is nothing very elegant about the product; it lacks the intricate charm of humor that is carefully handcrafted to express a highly individual point of view. But it is a miracle of sheer volume, and in each string of gags there is usually at least one that has a seemingly accidental perfection.
Like a machine, Hope maintains a perfectly neutral relationship with his environment. It exists only to provide him with "material" which he efficiently and unemotionally processes. It is impossible to tell from his jokes what — if anything— he really values or really loathes. He lays about him with a fine impartiality. His sallies are completely without passion. Ironically, he is therefore able to get away with more cruelty in his wit than a comedian who invests his humor with a more personal feeling.
So far as his public is concerned, Hope is a man without roots or human ties. No major celebrity of our time has more successfully separated his public existence from his private
life. His sketchy biography tells us he was born in England, grew up in Cleveland, entered show business as a dancer, spent long, lean years in the lower levels of vaudeville, switched to comedy somewhere along the line and achieved his first success in Broadway musicals. Radio — a medium that was made for his style — was next; then movies, starting with The Big Broadcast of 1938.
Undoubtedly his finest hour occurred during World War II, and it is possible that when the definitive social history of that war is written, Hope will be recognized as representative of what was best in America's response to crisis. With no thought of a cost-plus contract, he put his joke factory to work for the government, providing his special brand of civilian-type humor for men who were suddenly, shockingly not civilians any more but who welcomed a reminder that they had been and wanted to be again. Hope has never explained why he undertook his program of good work. Like his humor, it simply came to exist, a surprising beau geste from a man who has managed the remarkable trick of being funny without ever revealing his true self.
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Bob Hope and friend in That Certain Feeling.