I was never a Skelton fan, at any stage of his career. The variety show he hosted was not very good ("two seagulls, Gertrude and Heathcliff"--yecch) and his earlier movies were just dumb. My favorites from the olden days were Bob Hope and George Burns. Abbott and Costello had some good routines. Jonathan Winters could be very funny. Later, Rodney Dangerfield and George Carlin were very good. Steve Martin had a good standup act. Today, there's more money to be made writing scripts for someone else. The material in The Simpsons alone could have fueled several good standup careers.