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Fantastic Tim Vine one-liners
A whole buch of jokes by Tim Vine, plus the story of how they were nicked... by a dead man?
Editors note: Please see the e-mail we recieved, below, regarding these jokes. They were formally accredited to Tommy Cooper (we can kinda see why). They are in fact the work of a Mr. Tim Vine (another British Comedian). Us Brits. we are a talented bunch.
"He said 'I'm going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in a library.' I thought 'That's a turn-up for the books."
"And the back of his anorak was leaping up and down, and people were chucking money to him. I said 'Do you earn a living doing that?' He said 'Yes, this is my livelihood.'
"So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me "Can you give me a lift?" I said "Sure, you look great, the world's your oyster, go for it.'"
"You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said 'Parking Fine.' So that was nice."
"So I went down my local ice-cream shop, and said 'I want to buy an ice-cream'. He said Hundreds & thousands?' I said 'We'll start with one.' He said 'Knickerbocker glory?' I said 'I do get a certain amount of freedom in these trousers, yes.'
I went to Millets and said 'I want to buy a tent.' He said 'To camp?', I said [butchly] 'Sorry, I want to buy a tent.' I said 'I also want to buy a caravan.' He said 'Camper?' I said [campily] 'Make your mind up.'
So I went to the dentist. He said "Say Aaah." I said "Why?" He said "My dog's died.'"
"Now, most dentist's chairs go up and down, don't they? The one I was in went back and forwards. I thought 'This is unusual'. And the dentist said to me 'Mr Vine, get out of the filing cabinet.'"
"So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said 'Who's speaking please?' And a voice said 'You are.'"
"So I rang up my local swimming baths. I said 'Is that the local swimming baths?' He said 'It depends where you're calling from.'"
"So I rang up a local building firm, I said 'I want a skip outside my house.' He said 'I'm not stopping you.'
"Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother Colin. Or my younger brother Ho-Chan-Chu. But I think it's Colin."
"So I was in my car, and I was driving along, and my boss rang up, and he said 'You've been promoted.' And I swerved. And then he rang up a second time and said "You've been promoted again.' And I swerved again. He rang up a third time and said 'You're managing director.' And I went into a tree. And a policeman came up and said 'What happened to you?' And I said 'I careered off the road.'
Hello there,
With reference to the "Tommy Cooper" jokes on your site. I'm sure you would be very interested to discover that all of the gags apart from the first 4 on your "Fantastic Tommy Cooper one-liners" page are actually not Tommy Cooper's material. You will find no recorded or written evidence of any of those gags being performed by Tommy Cooper. They are in fact original material written by the very funny British comedian TIM VINE. Tim is a very good friend of mine and a big name on the comedy circuit in the UK. He won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Festival in 1995 for the TIM VINE FIASCO. He has been likened to Tommy Cooper by other great comedians such as Bob Monkhouse. He has alsobeen on TV over the last few years compering shows such as Whittle (Channel 5), Fluke (Channel 4) and Housemates (BBC1). There was an article about this very subject in the comedy seciton of the London magazine TIME OUT last week.
Unfortunately, at some point over the last few years, someone ripped Tim's gags off at a gig, put them in a (now well-known) email and credited them to Tommy Cooper. I received a copy of this myself and am attaching it to this email for reference. You will note that the sad individual who performed this act of plagiarism even transcribed the words "Mr Vine" in one of the jokes - bit of a give-away.
It is in some ways flattering that people can think that Tim's material is in fact Tommy Cooper's. However, it is also sad that great British talent is also suffering as a result. The reason for writing this email is merely to ask you to attribute the material to the right person.
The Tim Vine Website is currently under construction and will be up and running shortly. It will be at www.timvine.com. It will also feature an article about the plagiarism of Tim's gags.
I hope you appreciate the comments in this email and the reason for writing it. We all enjoy comedy - Let's make sure the talent behind it is correctly credited.
Thanks very much,
Karl Hampson.
"He said 'I'm going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in a library.' I thought 'That's a turn-up for the books."
"And the back of his anorak was leaping up and down, and people were chucking money to him. I said 'Do you earn a living doing that?' He said 'Yes, this is my livelihood.'
"So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me "Can you give me a lift?" I said "Sure, you look great, the world's your oyster, go for it.'"
"You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said 'Parking Fine.' So that was nice."
"So I went down my local ice-cream shop, and said 'I want to buy an ice-cream'. He said Hundreds & thousands?' I said 'We'll start with one.' He said 'Knickerbocker glory?' I said 'I do get a certain amount of freedom in these trousers, yes.'
I went to Millets and said 'I want to buy a tent.' He said 'To camp?', I said [butchly] 'Sorry, I want to buy a tent.' I said 'I also want to buy a caravan.' He said 'Camper?' I said [campily] 'Make your mind up.'
So I went to the dentist. He said "Say Aaah." I said "Why?" He said "My dog's died.'"
"Now, most dentist's chairs go up and down, don't they? The one I was in went back and forwards. I thought 'This is unusual'. And the dentist said to me 'Mr Vine, get out of the filing cabinet.'"
"So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said 'Who's speaking please?' And a voice said 'You are.'"
"So I rang up my local swimming baths. I said 'Is that the local swimming baths?' He said 'It depends where you're calling from.'"
"So I rang up a local building firm, I said 'I want a skip outside my house.' He said 'I'm not stopping you.'
"Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother Colin. Or my younger brother Ho-Chan-Chu. But I think it's Colin."
"So I was in my car, and I was driving along, and my boss rang up, and he said 'You've been promoted.' And I swerved. And then he rang up a second time and said "You've been promoted again.' And I swerved again. He rang up a third time and said 'You're managing director.' And I went into a tree. And a policeman came up and said 'What happened to you?' And I said 'I careered off the road.'
Hello there,
With reference to the "Tommy Cooper" jokes on your site. I'm sure you would be very interested to discover that all of the gags apart from the first 4 on your "Fantastic Tommy Cooper one-liners" page are actually not Tommy Cooper's material. You will find no recorded or written evidence of any of those gags being performed by Tommy Cooper. They are in fact original material written by the very funny British comedian TIM VINE. Tim is a very good friend of mine and a big name on the comedy circuit in the UK. He won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Festival in 1995 for the TIM VINE FIASCO. He has been likened to Tommy Cooper by other great comedians such as Bob Monkhouse. He has alsobeen on TV over the last few years compering shows such as Whittle (Channel 5), Fluke (Channel 4) and Housemates (BBC1). There was an article about this very subject in the comedy seciton of the London magazine TIME OUT last week.
Unfortunately, at some point over the last few years, someone ripped Tim's gags off at a gig, put them in a (now well-known) email and credited them to Tommy Cooper. I received a copy of this myself and am attaching it to this email for reference. You will note that the sad individual who performed this act of plagiarism even transcribed the words "Mr Vine" in one of the jokes - bit of a give-away.
It is in some ways flattering that people can think that Tim's material is in fact Tommy Cooper's. However, it is also sad that great British talent is also suffering as a result. The reason for writing this email is merely to ask you to attribute the material to the right person.
The Tim Vine Website is currently under construction and will be up and running shortly. It will be at www.timvine.com. It will also feature an article about the plagiarism of Tim's gags.
I hope you appreciate the comments in this email and the reason for writing it. We all enjoy comedy - Let's make sure the talent behind it is correctly credited.
Thanks very much,
Karl Hampson.
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