His podcasts and tweets are just so try-hard.

On the other hand how can you top the Ministry Of Silly Walks etc. Being expected to be funny is probably worse than being expected to write a good song.

Discuss.

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I can now see where Michael Jackson got the idea for his moonwalk...

When I was a kid, I always found him Deeply Creepy.

Of course he shamelesly pinched Max Wall's act

However he did have a period when he was regarded as a fantastically funny man, mainly by music journos, when Stiff put out a single by him (England's Glory?) I believe on the basis that Ian Dury endorsed him as the embodiment of a dying music hall tradition.

are you all so down on Mr Wall? admittedly I've just watched the clip without any sound on as I was listening to the Archers, but apparently his Waiting for Godot with Leo McKern in the late 60's was stupendous.

in their Rock'n'Roll Circus in the early 70s at Bradford St George's Hall. He got booed off. The MC pleaded with the audience to give him a chance, all to no avail I seem to remember jugglers and support from Hackensack - who weren't much better.

..genius.(The blog title was referring to comments on Mr Pastry)

at a theatre in London in the mid-70s.

He did one half as 'Professor Wallofski' and the other half as him normal comic self. Yes it was dated, but at the same time brilliant in its way, sad and funny. I'm was glad at the time that I had the chance to see him - funny walks, piano playing, laconic humour and all.

It was theatre as much as anything, not conventional stand-up. Like Frankie Howerd (for example), it was much more about his persona, delivery and comic timing than about the material itself.
He was warming, rather than belly-laugh funny. It was worth paying just to see the sideways pained expression he affected when telling his gags and that dry nasal delivery - classic.

a comic no longer thought of as funny, how about Arthur Askey - a man who made a little go a very long way - mainly a few well-known catchphrases.

This seems to have been common in the 1940s/50s 'She Knows You Know', 'Eeh it's agony Ivy', 'You Lucky People', and even later on - Norman Vaughn's cringe-making 'Dodgy, Swinging', Bruce Forsyth etc.

The Fast Show was spot-on both with its 'Arthur Andrews' sketch and also the formula of sketches based around a stock phrase, for which the audience would wait, expectantly.

Some of the older people I worked with during his later lifetime were of the opinion that he had never been funny, but that his longevity in the business had conferred some sort of 'comedic great' status on him rather like Tommy Trinder, the 'Crazy Gang', Arthur English, Charlie Chester and similar comics.

I was searching for the Bee Song but this will suffice to show his talents - seems to be a male equivalent of Gracie Fields and appropriate for the times. A poor man's Norman Wisdom, the king of slapstick comedy acting.

did anyone actually find him funny?

No.man Col..r and the old mic.o.hone cutting out trick - funny the first time mate but to make a career out of it...?!

Charlie Chaplin, surely the most overated "funnyman" of all time.