Was Henny Youngman ever really funny? Of course not. Which is why he’s so frigging funny. It’s the staleness of the jokes, the completely tossed-off manner of his delivery (as if he were pre-bored on the audiences behalf) and constant lack of invention and relentless recylcling of material that somehow add up to the Henny magic. Above is a few minutes of Henny on a 1980s Canadian TV variety show called ‘Bizarre’ which was hosted by John Byner. I chose this clip specifically because of the band participation in his act, something I’d never seen. The guys in the band are cracking up. Is it because they know the secret of Henny’s success? Or perhaps being Canadians they’d never heard so many jokes about bad marriages…