Morecambe and Wise

Morecambe and Wise were a famous British comic double act comprising Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. The act lasted four decades until Morecambe's death in 1984.

Catchphrases and Visual Gags

Some of the duo's catchphrases include:

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• "What do you think of it so far?" (said by Morecambe, who would use a prop—such as a statue or stuffed toy—to answer: "Rubbish!")
• "More tea, Ern?" (a pun on "tea urn", a vessel for serving hot drinks used in workplaces at the time)
• " short fat hairy legs" (said by Morecambe of Wise)
• "You can't see the join!" (said by Morecambe of Wise's alleged wig)
• "The play what I wrote" (said by Wise of his literary works)
• "Arsenal!" (said as a stifled cough by Morecambe, and dating from a famous sketch in which Wise is an incompetent 'Mr Memory' unable to remember anything without unsubtle prompting from Morecambe)
• "He's not wrong, you know!" (said by Morecambe)
• "Wahey!" (said by Morecambe after what he considers is a particularly good joke)
• "He's still got it, you know" (said by Morecambe, referring to himself, after what he considers a particularly good joke)
• "You can say that again" (said by Morecambe after anything which could be construed as innuendo; he also said "Pardon?" in a similar way)
• Making fun of the singer and entertainer Des O'Connor in various disparaging ways

Additionally, there were many repeated visual gags:

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• The duo dressed in overcoats and cloth caps, about to leave the stage at the end of the show
• Morecambe affectionately slapping Wise's cheeks
• Wise's hair supposedly being a wig (also the catchphase said by Morecambe: "You can't see the join")
• Morecambe deliberately making his glasses wonky
• Morecambe pretending to bully people, usually the star guest, by grabbing them by the collar and pulling them to his face
• Morecambe reading The Beano, eating crisps, smoking a pipe etc
• Wise appearing on stage and Morecambe joining him from behind the stage curtain but being unable to find the opening and then trying to fight his way out
• The duo's dance at the end of each show, which would see them exiting the stage by skipping and putting alternate hands behind their heads and backs
• Fake title sequences for Wise's plays which satirised current events or popular personalities of the time
• Visual jokes about Luton Town F.C., a football club of which Morecambe was a director.
• Eric's prop getting progressively longer during dance sequences
• Eric would throw a pretend ball in the air and catch it in a real paper bag, watching the invisible ball during its supposed flight and making a sound as though the ball had landed in the bag.