The monologue that the viewer saw was a string of thirty to thirty-five gags — setups followed by punchlines — delivered rapidly. They covered the major news events of the day with particular
emphasis on politics, sports, celebrities and pop culture. Though he was born in England, he grew up in the U.S., so much of the material concerned how Americans lived.

The initial step in building the monologue was choosing the topics which had to be current and able to remain fresh until the show aired — usually several days following its taping. If an important event was scheduled
— a playoff game, say, or the opening of a major movie — we’d
write alternate lines covering all eventualities.

We would submit a list of topics from which Hope chose the ten or
fifteen he thought had the strongest comic possibilities. Over the next few days, we would churn out ten to twenty lines per topic and working hours at a time on the jokes took a fair amount of stamina. I would play a tape of Hope delivering lines just to get his rhythm, turning on the recorder whenever ideas were slow to come.

After awhile, the jokes would seem to flow automatically as though I was simply writing down what Hope was saying. My wife, Shelley, would hear me chuckling at the keyboard and say, “Laughing at your own jokes
again?”  And I’d say, “No. Hope’s.”

Interestingly, Edgar Bergen claimed that when he was writing routines for his partner Charlie McCarthy, he'd often let Charlie deliver the line he preferred, as though Charlie's "actual" voice had been removed from the equation.  (It's admittedly a weird experience when it occurs.)

Hope loved being inundated with lines and we tried not to disappoint.  But despite this plethora of material, woe to the scribe who skipped a topic. His phone would ring with an inquisitive comedian at the other end: “What happened? Didn’t get my list?”

Of course, the material had to complement the rapid delivery that he had so carefully developed on stage. He leaned toward particular setups, punchlines and a unique cadence that, over the years, became identified with him alone. (Perhaps the reason impressionists seldom attempted to imitate him.)

The monologue might begin with a definition gag that would sound
something like this:
*  Hey, it’s great to be here in Pasadena. You know what Pasadena is — that’s Beverly Hills on Medicare.

Or, the joke could be in the form of a translation:
*  Here we are in beautiful, tropical Tahiti. Tahiti is an ancient Polynesian word meaning, “Forget the sun tan lotion, did you bring the American Express card?”

The monologue would most likely contain one or two “list jokes” where the final item is the payoff:
* Here in Las Vegas, if you see a guy running naked through the
lobby, he’s either a streaker, a loser, or his wife arrived a day
early.

And no monologue was complete without a “that was just” joke:
*  I went to see “Star Wars” and couldn’t believe all the weird,
alien creatures with purple hair; green, slimy skin; and pods
for eyes. And that was just waiting in line to get in.

Also effective was the “but enough about” setup:
*  This is quite a ship — round-the-clock partying, booze flowing
like water, girls hanging from the chandeliers — but enough
about the captain’s quarters.

Every word produced by the writers was delivered directly to Hope, which was uncommon in television. On most variety shows, a head writer would review the material and present only what he considered the best of the lot to the star. I had apprenticed on The Dean Martin Celebrity
Roasts and there, head writer Harry Crane was the final arbiter of all material that appeared on the show.

But Hope wanted to see  verything himself, so he never employed
a head writer. There could be someone on the crawl with a “Writing Supervised by” credit, but his job was only to make sure that all the writers got the assignments and the results of their labors got Hope.

Next, he would go over our submissions, checking off the lines he liked. If he approved a joke, he accepted it “as is” — that is, he never reworded a gag or returned it for a rewrite. Once accepted, the line would be retyped by his secretary exactly as the writer had submitted it.  The importance of this to a joke writer cannot be overemphasized. Hope
knew from experience that we consider our setups and punchlines nothing short of poetry — each having a distinct structure and rhythm, every word carefully chosen (including punctuation.) 

Adding or deleting even one word, or relocating a comma can irrevocably destroy a line. Which is why, by the way, most experienced comedy writers avoid quoting their own material in press interviews — the possibility of being only slightly misquoted is enormous and the result can be disastrous.

Throughout his career, Hope took pride in his ability as an editor
and understood that his talent was in choosing rather than rewriting jokes.

And he saved every line, storing it in his voluminous joke files, divided up by subject, for later review. It wasn’t uncommon to hear a line he had passed on seasons before crop up in a monologue. To Hope, jokes were currency whose value might not be fully appreciated until later.  He knew instinctively that a line could mature — like a bond.

That’s not to say we could recycle jokes. Hope’s comedic antennae
could identify an old line faster than a carnival barker spots a rube.  Whenever he suspected someone was sending something through a second time, he’d read the line aloud and say, “This has the distinct odor of nostalgia about it.”

Over the next several days, he would winnow down the original
submissions to a workable 125 to 150 jokes that would be sent to his longtime cue card man Barney McNulty to print.  These were the survivors, the lines the studio
audience would hear.

At a pace of roughly three to four gags a minute — including laughs and applause — the entire routine would take him thirty to forty-five minutes to deliver.

Following the taping — literally before the applause had died down — he would be in the control room for playback, carefully checking his delivery as well as the audience’s reaction to each joke. As he went along, he’d make his picks. From paper to home screen, it was a long, tedious
process but one on which he never took any shortcuts.

The monologue was truly his baby, and it had to be just right.  

[Excerpted from THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Behind-the-Scenes-Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag Writers by Robert L. Mills
Published by Bear Manor Media. Copyright 2009.]