Talk:Tommy Cooper

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[edit] "Just like that"/recorded video

If you watch clips on YouTube of Tommy, you'll hear him say "Just like that" on quite a few of them, so surely that means they've been recorded? 90.212.187.30 (talk) 16:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Messing up Tricks

I read that the idea of messing up the tricks came form his first public performance in which he completely mucked up due to nerves. can someone confirm? -- Tarquin 13:21, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That's the way I heard it. I'm sure there must be some biographies somewhere that will confirm it. - Lee M 13:27, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Negative View

Upon reading Tommy's Wikipedia entry I was struck by the fact that the comedian who I have always believed to be the funniest man of all time was actually not the nicest person to know. Notably his supposed treatment of Billy Mayo. Still I'm sure my view wouldn't bother him too much. And as he said himself many times as he came out of his 'Disappearing Box' on stage, "Christ It's dark in there " !! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kent Pete (talk • contribs) 03:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I was surprised too: but I don't know whether to trust any of it. The whole sections on drinking, mistreating his wife and meanness contain no citations at all. Can anyone help here?--Robbie251 (talk) 11:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tim Vine

What are these commonly mis-attributed quotes doing here? Surely a section on Tommy Cooper shouldnt have one-liners from another comic?

Couldnt these be in the form of a link to the Tim Vine section?

If they're not even attributed to Cooper then they're not worth repeating. I'm surprised that even needs to be said. Send 'em over to Wikiquote. And for god's sake, credit them to the right person. A quotation, by definition, ceases to be a quotation if no one actually said it. -- Krash 16:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed material

Very few - if any - of the following lines attributed to Cooper are actually his. Most are from a modern English stand-up, Tim Vine, whose one-liner style is very similar to Cooper's. Still, they're worth repeating...

  1. Two aerials meet on a roof - fall in love - get married. The ceremony was rubbish but the reception was brilliant.
  2. Man goes to the doc, with a strawberry growing out of his head. Doc says "I'll give you some cream to put on it."
  3. "Doc, I can't stop singing "The green green grass of home"." "That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome." "Is it common?" "It's not unusual."
  4. A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only clingfilm for shorts. The shrink says, "Well, I can clearly see you're nuts."
  5. A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet. "My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?" "Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him." So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth. Finally, he says "I'm going to have to put him down." "What? Because he's cross-eyed?" "No, because he's really heavy"
  6. Guy goes into the doctor's. "Doc, I've got a cricket ball stuck up my backside." "How's that?" "Don't you start"
  7. "Doctor, I can't pronounce my F's, T's and H's." "Well you can't say fairer than that then"
  8. Two elephants walk off a cliff...... boom boom!
  9. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.
  10. So I went to the dentist. He said "Say "Aaah"." I said "Why?" He said "My dog's died.'"
  11. 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."
  12. 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."
  13. So I rang up a local building firm, I said "I wanna skip outside my house." He said "I'm not stopping you."
  14. 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."
  15. 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 Cooper, get out of the filing cabinet.'
  16. 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."
  17. Two cannibals eating a clown. One says to the other "Does this taste funny to you?"
  18. Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off.
  19. You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said 'Parking Fine.'
  20. Tommy Cooper was in a taxi and when he got to the end of his journey and paid his fare, the cabby sat there waiting for his tip. Tommy gave him a tea bag and said, "Have a drink on me."
  21. A man walked into the doctor's, The doctor said "I haven't seen you in a long time." The man replied "I know, I've been ill"
  22. A man walked into the doctor's, he said "I've hurt my arm in several places." The doctor said "Well don't go there any more."
  23. I had a ploughman's lunch the other day. He wasn't very happy.
  24. You know those mange-tout? They're really nice, but I couldn't eat a whole one.
  25. My dog was barking at everyone the other day. Still, what can you expect from a cross-breed?
  26. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.
  27. I bought some HP sauce the other day. It's costing me 6p a month for the next 2 years.
  28. I went to the butcher's the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf. And he said, "No, the steaks are too high." This unsigned comment was left by User:Krash
HaHa, some of those are quite funny, RIP Tommy...Zanusi 19:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nationality

British seems to be the best description of Cooper's nationality as he had ties to both Wales and England. Although he was born in Wales and had one Welsh-born parent his family moved away to England when he was three and he spent most of his performing career based in other parts of the UK, notably London. His mother was from the West Country and his west country accent was part of his persona. So definitely a mixture.

I have checked Wiki-style guidance and the like and there is no simple rule for determining UK nationality issues - attempts to define such rules seem to have foundered on lack of consensus. It therefore comes down to balancing up the factors that apply in any particular case. I hope this is what I've done.

I'm noting all this here because there is an anonymous user who seems to be trying to remove the terms "British" and "United Kingdom" from a lot of articles for POV-related reasons. This article seems to be one of those affected. The culprit often uses phrases such as "as per consesus" in edit summaries - which is a bluff as there simply is no such consensus. Circusandmagicfan 18:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

Source now added. "Circusandmagicfan" forcefully depopulated the English Magicians category without any consensus or any attempt to discuss the matter, which is against Wikipolicy. Upon trying to then push to remove the category, a consensus was met that the English, Scottish & Welsh descriptions were better - no bluff here. If anyone is POV pushing, it is "Circusandmagicfan".
172.142.42.42 17:31, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
No. The outcome was to keep the English, Scottish and Welsh categories for use where appropriate - there was no consensus that people have to be sub-divided firmly into English, Scottish and Welsh. Indeed to call the outcome "consensus" is stretching the term - there was frankly very little participation in that debate. Furthermore the question in that case related to sub-categories within the field of magic. The overall question of a general policy for Wikipedia as a whole remains unresolved. An attempt to create Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(United_Kingdom-related_articles) failed through lack of consensus.
For other recent debate on this subject it is worth looking at Talk:United_Kingdom/Archive_11#Nationality. I would say that if there is any consensus at the moment it is reflected there. In some cases the identity of an individual is rooted in more than one of the constituent countries of the UK and the description British is more appropriate (as I would argue it is for Tommy Cooper). Furthermore, on passports there is no such thing as formal English, Scottish or Welsh nationality - the nationality section in a passport will say "British Citizen".
I deeply resent the way that the anonymous poster above has described my actions in a past dispute. I concede that at the time I was naive because I was new to Wikipedia and I did not understand the correct protocol concerning categories. I followed the advice in WP:BOLD. It is simply a lie to say I made no attempt to discuss the matter - I made concerted attempts to discuss it (for example through long, reasoned posts on the talk page for WikiProject Magic). The difficulty is that the individual who opposed me rarely posted anything in reply except for blunt instructions and did not seem interested in any debate. It does seem to be an individual with a definite agenda but it is difficult to say more because (as above) this person hides behind anonymous IP addresses (see also other people's observations at Talk:United_Kingdom/Archive_11#Nationality).
Circusandmagicfan 20:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan
I've just discovered that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies) currently states: "There is no consensus on how to define nationality for people from the United Kingdom, which encompasses constituent countries". Apparently there was extensive discussion about the question back in October/November 2007, but no clear resolution.
(I was unaware of this until after the debate was closed and archived so I was unable to participate - had I been aware I would have agreed with the line that "British" is a reasonable default unless there is an uncontested view that either "English", "Scottish" or "Welsh" is obviously more applicable).
As far as I can see it remains a matter for debate on a case by case basis. In this case the matter is not uncontested. There are sources that support both the designations "British" and "Welsh" (and possibly even some evidence that he is claimed by people in the West County of England as one of them). In such circumstances the default nationality of "British" seems to apply.Circusandmagicfan (talk) 18:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

[edit] Anglo-Welsh

I still prefer this as it removes the need for a 'roots' sentence. Rothorpe (talk) 15:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd compromise on Anglo-Welsh if others support that. It feels a bit clumsy and it's not a term I've seen used widely but I suppose it is at least technically accurate. My objections are against the various anonymous and arbitrary attempts to change the description to "welsh", which is misleading. I don't object to the recognition of Cooper's Welsh roots (which I hope my last edit made clear), but he also had equally strong roots in the West Country of England (where he grew up, where his accent came from, where his mother was born).Circusandmagicfan (talk) 13:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

Agreed, except that I don't find the expression clumsy. He was certainly no Dai Llewellyn, that's for sure... Rothorpe (talk) 14:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC) - Well, now it's been changed back to Welsh again, so I shall try this again. Rothorpe (talk) 00:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)