Word: handley
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ITMA, Britain's most popular radio comedy show, stands for "It's That Man Again." That Man is Tommy Handley, a middle-aged British radio comedian whose unabashed puns, silly syllogisms and noisy sound effects have given him a weekly radio audience that reportedly numbers 18,000,000. Only BBC's famed newscast has more listeners...
Although Americans may wonder why (Bob Hope, who was born in England, confesses: "It's too fast for me"), ITMA doubles up its British listeners. Puns like "Farewell to the night shifts of Dover" or "the lease lend the soonest mended" are a Handley trademark. So are topical quips like "I haven't laughed so much since Errol Flynn captured Burma." ITMA's rapid-fire cacophony of explosions, whistles, popguns, yawps, quacks and trambells draws enthusiastic letters from Continental listeners, who can't understand English, but find the sound effects screamingly funny...
...timing, intonation and repetition which made Jerry Colonna's "Who's Yehudi?" funny to U.S. audiences is a rough U.S. equivalent of ITMA's appeal. Like Fred Allen, Jack Benny and Bob Hope, Handley has a stock set of characters who repeat nonsense lines which English listeners love to wrap into their own conversation at apt moments. A visitor to England would probably need to know ITMA to understand ordinary street, pub and Army humor. Examples...
...Frederick Handley Page, managing director of Handley Page, Ltd., producer of big bombers—Knight Bachelor...
Coach Paul Sweet of New Hampshire, whose team has lost to Maine 22-34 and to Rhode Island 15-54, will enter Captain Roland Kimball, Howie Atwell, Dick Emery, John French, Earle Handley, Roy Holmes, Wayne Lorwy, Truxton Perry-Smith, Joe Pushee, and Jim Sleeper...