Hope and Randall Joke at the Forum

"I feel like the Ayatollah Khomeini in a massage parlor," the man said. The audience of 550 people in the kennedy School of Government's Kennedy Forum hit the floor. Bob Hope had come to Harvard.

"A school for politicians gives new meaning to a B.S. degree," he quipped.

"Harvard was turning out Presidents when the Governor of Georgia was an alligator," he joked.

"John Updike, T.S. Eliot and Walter Lippmann all learned to write here--I can't wait to read the graffiti," he cracked.

"At other colleges, kids have to pay lots of money for drugs--here, they invent them," he mugged.

"Seven people from Harvard signed the Declaration of Independence. Three are still teaching here," he droned on. The truth is finally out.

A smiling, slick, charming and aging Hope stood in front of the crowd at the taping of the fifth segment of his upcoming two-hour televesion special, "Bob Hope on Campus."

His monologue trampled on everyone from Timothy Leary to Teddy Kennedy to Jimmy Carter. And then he and guest star Tony Randall took on Dolly Parton.

Get It?

Hope: "Some of today's hits are as subtle as a side view of Dolly Parton."

Audience laughter. Pause.

Randall: "I get it."

Hope: "I'm glad somebody's getting it."

Audience roar.

But that part won't ever make it on the air, thanks to the magic of tape editing. When the two actors, dressed in colonial costume for a sketch, made a mistake, they just started all over again.

"Don't anybody look at the cards," he cautioned the crowd before the taping. "We only use the laughing shots of the audience."

His political jokes went over big. His Radcliffe jokes ("Harvard is where young men come to learn about the wonders of the world--but enough about Radcliffe") went over like lead balloons.

"This is the first three-decker sandwich I've ever played." Hope said about the Forum, which his production crew labelled "intimate."

He talked more about politics and insulted everybody he could think of.

On Henry Kissinger: "Between Lesley and Wellesley, Henry Kissinger learned something that later proved very useful--shuttle diplomacy."

On Timothy Leary: "Harvard's great contribution to the space program."

On the Pope: "They loved him at the White House--finally, a Catholic who wasn't running for something."

On Ted Kennedy: "Ted now has protection but it wasn't easy to find Secret Service agents who could play polo."

On Ham Jordan: "Born with a silver spoon in his nose."

The show, which will include scenes shot at Indiana State University, the University of Florida, the University of Alabama, Colgate, Harvard and the University of Southern California, will be aired November 19 at 9 p.m. on NBC