GAC-General Artists Corporation-management · Public domain

Henny Youngman built a career on the one-liner at a time when most comedians favored long, shaggy-dog stories, cramming dozens of jokes into a fifteen-minute set with no wasted words. His signature line — 'Take my wife... please' — became one of the most quoted jokes in American comedy. He punctuated his routines with bursts of violin playing, and columnist Walter Winchell crowned him 'the King of the One-Liners,' a title that stuck for the rest of his career.