A segment in an episode of the BBC’s The Repair Shop was reportedly pulled after a TV production employee took offence to a ‘sexist’ handwritten joke.
The hardback archives of Bob Monkhouse’s handwritten joke books dating as far back as the 1960s were brought in for repair by the late comic’s adopted daughter Abigail Williams and his old writing partner Colin Edmond.
In a tribute to the beloved entertainer who died in 2003 aged 75, footage of the restoration was due to be aired this year.
But ‘woke’ BBC bosses are said to have decided to axe the segment after a member of the production company Ricochet complained that one of the jokes was sexist.
‘A production employee stumbled across a joke – no doubt written in the 1960s – and took offence, believing it to be sexist,’ a source told The Sun.
‘They flagged the problem, and a “collective decision” was made to cull the whole thing.
‘Experts waiting to lovingly restore the historical joke books were disheartened. And Bob’s loved ones, who had agreed to participate in the show to talk passionately about his life, were at a loss. This has to be the corporation’s most embarrassing decision yet.’
The joke journals were filled with thousands of pages of handwritten gags, illustrated cartoons and doodles.
He started working on them in the early 1960s and was still using them before he died.
Bob always carried a couple of his joke books with him so he could add any fresh observations or lines as they came to him.
He called the books he kept with him his ‘running files’ and he stored them in a suitcase he referred to as ‘the silver bullet’.
It was the two volumes of ‘running files’ that went missing in 1995, which led Monkhouse to go public about their existence and offer a reward for their return.
Monkhouse was distraught about the theft and after six months had given up hope of ever seeing them again.
They were eventually recovered when his agent received a mysterious phone call 18 months later.
A meeting was arranged, the books were handed over and a reward of £10,000 was paid – after which the police, who had been monitoring the exchange, swooped and arrested the men.
After his death they were stored in suitcases under Mr Edmonds desk, who was gifted them in Bob’s will.
They contained cartoons of topless women and jokes that might be seen as sexist today.
Previously Mr Edmonds said: ‘They are of their time. There are things that were acceptable in the Seventies which one wouldn’t dream of saying today.’
By the time Bob started the books he was already a huge television star, presenting quiz shows such as The Golden Shot and Sunday Night At The London Palladium.
Before he found success on TV he had been a regular on BBC radio, where he had performed and written jokes for the likes of Arthur Askey, Dean Martin and his great hero Bob Hope.
He moved into television in 1952 with sketch show Fast And Loose, which was later followed by My Pal Bob and appearances on Candid Camera and What’s My Line?, which eventually led to him being offered The Golden Shot.
Edmonds was a young boy watching those shows with his family, and he already knew he wanted to be a comedy writer.
When he was 16 he started posting jokes he had written to comedians.
The BBC told The Sun it was a ‘production decision’ to axe the Bob Monkhouse Repair Shop show, which the corporation ‘supported out of consideration for all viewers’.
A Ricochet spokesperson said: ‘Making decisions on which items to repair and include in the programme is part of the normal production process. These decisions are based on a range of factors.’
