36 best Chic Murray jokes: the most hilarious quips and one-liners from the Greenock-born comedian

A trailblazer for modern Scottish comedy Charles “Chic” Murray was famed for his wicked one-liners and his distinctive look

Never seen without his bunnet and a bemused expression on his face, Chic Murray is regarded as a founding father of stand-up comedy, earning the title of the Comedian’s Comedian in 2005.

Drawing on life in Scotland and domestic life, the working-class comic from Greenock, who sadly passed away in 1985, was cut from the same cloth as Billy Connolly, practising his comedy routines while working at an Inverclyde shipyard.

Here are some of the best examples of his razor-sharp jokes and one-liners.

My father was a simple man; my mother was a simple woman; you see the result standing in front of you, a simpleton.

It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.

After I told my wife that black underwear turned me on, she didn't wash my Y-fronts for a month.

She had been married so often she bought a drip-dry wedding dress.

We were so poor; the ultimate luxury in our house at the time was ashtrays without advertisements.

The police stopped me when I was out in my car. They told me it was a spot check. I admitted to two pimples and a boil.

I met this cowboy with a brown paper hat, paper waistcoat and paper trousers. He was wanted for rustling.

I rang the bell of this small bed-and breakfast place, whereupon a lady appeared at an outside window. “What do you want?”, she asked. “I want to stay here”, I replied. “Well, stay there then”, she said and closed the window.

I dreamt I was forced to eat 25lb of marshmallows. When I woke up, my pillow was missing.

A Scot is a man who keeps the Sabbath, and everything else he can lay his hands on.

If something’s neither here nor there, where the hell is it?

If it weren’t for marriage, husband and wives would have to fight with strangers.

It was raining cats and dogs, and I fell in a poodle.

I felt as out of place as a left-handed violinist in a crowded string section.

A luxury meal was prairie sandwiches – two slices of bread with wide-open spaces between them.

I got up this morning. I like to get up in the morning; it gives me the rest of the day to myself. I crossed the landing and went down stairs. Mind you, if there had been no stairs, I wouldn’t even have attempted it.

I took my father on a coach trip last summer.We were halfway there when the driver lost control of the coach, it flew down a hill around a bend and crashed through a brick wall. I wasn’t hurt but luckily my father had the presence of mind to kick my head in.

My girlfriend’s a redhead; No hair, just a red head.

My parents never understood me; they were Japanese.

We’ve got stained glass windows in our house; it’s those damned pigeons.

A neighbour put his budgerigar in the mincing machine and invented shredded tweet.

Kippers: fish that like a lot of sleep.

I first met my wife in the tunnel of love. She was digging it at the time.

I was out walking the other evening. This fellow accosted me, and asked if that was the moon up there in the sky. I replied that I had no idea, as I was a stranger there myself.

There’s a new slimming course just out where they remove all your bones. Not only do you weigh less, but you also look so much more relaxed.

I won’t say I was slow developer, but our teacher was quite pleased to have someone her own age in the class to talk to.

My sister wanted a cat for a pet… I wanted a dog, so they bought a cat and taught it to bark.

She’s a classy girl though, at least all her tattoos are spelt right.

The boat was so old; it must have been launched when Long John Silver had two legs and an egg on his shoulder.

My mother was so house proud that when my father got up to sleepwalk she had the bed made by the time he got back.

My wife went to a beauty parlor and got a mudpack; for two days she looked nice, then the mud fell off.

I went to the butchers to buy a leg of lamb. “Is it Scotch?”, I asked. “Why?” the butcher said in reply. Are you going to talk to it or eat it?”. “In that case, have you got any wild duck?”. “No”, he responded, “but I’ve got one I could aggravate for you”

So there I was lying in the gutter. A man stopped and asked ‘”What’s the matter? Did you fall over?” So I said “No. I’ve a bar of toffee in my back pocket and I was just trying to break it.”

It was a pretty posh place. They were so used to fur coats that two bears strolled in and ordered lunch and nobody even noticed.

This friend of mine had a terrible upbringing. When his mother lifted him up to feed him, his father rented the pram out. Then, when they came into money later, his mother hired a woman to push the pram - and he’s been pushed for money ever since.

My father was from Aberdeen, and a more generous man you couldn't wish to meet. I have a gold watch that belonged to him. He sold it to me on his deathbed. I wrote him a cheque for it, post dated of course.