Line #34 Creator/KenDodd


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kendodd_5.jpg]]
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3	->''"There's one thing about my shows, folks; you always go home in the daylight!"''
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5	Sir Kenneth Arthur Dodd OBE (8 November 1927 – 11 March 2018), was a veteran variety entertainer, singer and comedy legend from UsefulNotes/{{Liverpool}}. One of the last music hall greats, the inventor of the 'tickling stick' (feather duster) was also renowned for his old jokes; He'd been carting some around since the 1970s.
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7	Commonly known throughout the UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdom as "Doddy", Dodd was most famous for his longevity – the length of his career (1954 to 2017), the comedian's 42-week span of his record-breaking run at the London Palladium in 1965, but (most of all) for the duration of his performances, which regularly ran for 3 to 6 hours. He performed in every theater in the country, several times over, throughout his life.
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9	He was also a surprisingly accomplished singer in the 1960s, his most famous hit being "Happiness", and was well versed in Shakespeare.
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11	Ken received an OBE in 1982 and a knighthood in 2017 for services to entertainment and charity.
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13	Doddy continued working up until Christmas 2017, when his health worsened and he spent six weeks in hospital for a chest infection. Despite being discharged in February, he passed away in March. He married his partner of 40 years two days before he died... as a final two fingers to the Inland Revenue, as there's no inheritance tax on estates left to a spouse.
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15	!! "What a beautiful day for listing Ken Dodd's tropes!"
16	* BritishTeeth: His protruding front teeth became one of his trademarks.
17	* BornInTheWrongCentury: Deliberately styled himself after court jesters, three centuries late.
18	* CommonLawMarriage: He and his eventual wife Anne Jones were fiancés for forty years.
19	* LittlePeople: The Diddymen are a WainscotSociety in Knotty Ash, sometimes represented by marionettes and sometimes by small childen, but always wearing hats that almost double their height.
20	* LongRunners: Making his stage debut in 1954, Ken performed for six decades (until December 2017).
21	* MadLibsCatchphrase: "What a beautiful day! What a beautiful day for [insert wild, weird, rude, reckless, or otherwise energetic activity here]!"
22	-->"What a beautiful day! What a beautiful day for running into a nudist camp blindfolded and trying to shake hands with everyone!"
23	* MessyHair: Evident.
24	* MiningForCookies: The Diddymen work in a jam butty mine.
25	* NothingButHits: [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8719454.stm This BBC article]] discusses the 'Unswinging Sixties' after Radio 2 played a chart of the best selling music of the decade. Music including Ken Dodd, Engelbert Humperdinck, Frank Ifield, The Seekers, and Rolf Harris.
26	* OopNorth: Ken was born, lived and died in Knotty Ash, Liverpool.
27	* RapidFireComedy: Ken Dodd has stated several times that he's always after a joke rate of "7 TPM", or seven titters per minute. He won Guinness' World Record for world's longest ever joke-telling session: 1,500 jokes over 3.5 hours (7.14 jokes per minute)
28	* SelfDeprecation: Lots. He made jokes about his unconventional looks, his comedic ability, and his aquittal for tax evasion.
29	-->"I wasn't a pretty baby. They put shutters on me pram."
30	-->"Werewolf movies, honestly. Who'd pay to see a man with wild hair and big teeth!"
31	-->"Comedy's in me blood. I wish it was in me act, but there you go."
32	-->"After the show I'll give you a copy of my new book; Teach Yourself Accountancy..."
33	* TheCameo: He had cameo roles in ''Series/DoctorWho'' (the Tollmaster in [[Trivia/DoctorWhoS24E3DeltaAndTheBannermen "Delta and the Bannermen"]]), and in Kenneth Branagh's film version of ''Hamlet''. He played Malvolio in Shakespeare's ''Twelfth Night'' on stage in Liverpool in 1971.
34	* TongueTwister: "Star" of one of the classic actors' elocution exercises, "Ken Dodd's dad's dog's dead".
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36	------
37	--> "Ken Dodd's Dad's dog's dead... and so is Ken Dodd"

Context Creator / KenDodd