|
"Brucie" is one of the most famous British celebrities and considered a national treasure. He came to fame with Sunday Night at the London Palladium, a show so popular that evening church services were rescheduled around it. Brucie finally got his knighthood in 2011 after many years of people asking to give him one.
He was the original host of The Generation Game. In the United States, he was the host of Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak on ABC. He is currently the host of the British version of Strictly Come Dancing.
Such a Long Runner that many a Hilarious in Hindsight chuckle may be provoked by reading or hearing people describe him as an old-fashioned has-been...in books or shows created in The Seventies. Naturally, he has outlasted all the people making such comments. Amusingly, his age was lampshaded in an episode of Play Your Cards Right, in which a question posed to 100 funeral directors was "If introduced to Bruce Forsyth, would you give him your business card?" One of the contestants agreed with Brucie that the question was scandalous, before jokingly offering 98 as his answer (it was actually 73).
He has numerous catchphrases, which are usually completed by the audience:
- "Nice to see you, to see you..." to which anyone in the general vicinity responds, "Nice!"
- Taken to ridiculous levels in the BBC's coverage of the 2010 general election. Bruce was being interviewed along with other TV personalities, while behind them the camera looked down into a hall full of election workers counting votes as the background. Of course, Bruce declared that he 'couldn't have his back to an audience', shouted "Nice to see you, to see you..." down at them only to have them all look up from their ballot boxes and shout "NICE!"
- "A cuddly toy!"- Always one of the prizes on the conveyor belt from The Generation Game (continuing even after he left.)
- "You don't get anything for a pair, not in this game!"- Play Your Cards Right (Once established, he became a Phrase Catcher for this one: he said the first part, the audience responded with the rest.)
- "Didn't he/she do well?" - Also from The Generation Game, though became generally attached to him and morphed into a single in the '70s.
- [Explains the scoring system, by which you get points, and...] "What do points mean?" to which the audience responds "Prizes!" (This one was often borrowed by Humphrey Lyttelton of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, even though on that show the points meant nothing and there were no prizes.)
Brucie has the distinction of being married to Wilneia Merced, the 1975 Miss World.