How do you know how much Bob Hope paid for his jokes, How do you know if Henny Youngman didn’t do the same thing.
I guess we have different tastes but Bob Hope certainly was far more popular.
It doesn’t matter to me how much who paid for his jokes. I know that Hope did buy his jokes. I also know that “more popular” never ever means better, and in fact more popular among comedians means to me appealed to the lowest common denominator. Scatology, etc. (I don’t mean Hope, whose jokes were just square and lame.) But Bob Hope the standup never made me laugh, and never made laugh the guys that sat next to me in various taverns.