Red Skelton jokes on hospitals and doctors – a variety of jokes on hospitals, hospital gowns, and doctors from his opening monologue on The Red Skelton Show
Hospitals
- You know, talking about hospitals, I was in the hospital, four years ago, I had a little operation. Nothing trivial. Seven doctors removed my wallet!
- You wanna know something? I reached a decision. You hang around a hospital long enough, they’ll drive you nuts! You know, with me it’s not a drive, it’s a short putt to begin with!
- With the nurses, they mean well, bless their little hearts, but they drive you batty, you know. “Wake up, wake up, wake up! Time for your sleeping pill!”
- I had this one nurse that took a liking to me. She’d come in and fluff up my pillow, and come in, put another pillow and fluff it up, few minutes later come in with another pillow … At the end of the day I was standing up in bed!
- And my morning nurse, I’ll never forget her, there was something about her …. I don’t know what it was. I know what it was, I just don’t like to think about it! She was the … I never saw such a crowd of people in one person all my life! She came in this one morning, and she’s wearing a dyed mink coat … And it died a terrible death! She would walk in and, great big, she had a little medal, used to say “Angel of Mercy”. I used to look up at that thing and think to myself, “Oh, boy. If this angel had wings, she’d look like a Boeing 707”! She’s walk n and she’d say, “Well, how are we today? Did we have a good night’s sleep? Did we have our breakfast? Shall we have our bath?” Oh, we almost fainted on that one! (source: The Red Skelton Scrapbook 66)
Hospital gowns
- And they way they give you a bath in the hospital, isn’t that awful? This nurse gave me a bath in bed, the idiot, and I fell out of the pan!
- Hey, and one night I got real cold through the night, and I got up and put on a big angora sweater. and one of those gowns they give you that tie in the … They ain’t made for tall people, boy! You ever notice people around hospitals, they walk around and say “Hi”. For a long time, I thought everybody was weak. [pantomimes holding the gown together]. You wave like this [one arm up] and you’re dead, boy! Anyway, I put on this air conditioner and this angora sweater, I get back into bed and I go to sleep. Now when I wake up, some idiot’s shaving my sweater! (source: The Red Skelton Scrapbook 66)
Doctors
- And the old doc, I wasn’t too sure about him, either! He’d walk in and say, “Oh, it’s three o’clock. I wonder what time it is?”
- He’d take his stethoscope and say, “Now cough. Cough again. Now, cough again. Now cough real hard. Tell me, how long you had this cough?”
- But this old doc saved my life, you know. Last summer I had an asthmatic attack, and I sent for him, and he didn’t come.”
- And around hospitals, the silly conversations you hear going on at night. I heard these two doctors talking. One of them says, “Why, this is the strangest cae I’ve ever seen. It’s all head an no body.” The other one says, “Yeah, what are we going to do about it?” The other guy says, “We send this beer back first thing in the morning.” (source: The Red Skelton Scrapbook 66)