Mr. Vernon, who was born in New York as Ralph Verrone and attended City College, began his comedy career in the early 1950's after a stint in the Air Force. After many years of performing in small nightclubs around the country, the comedian Steve Allen discovered Mr. Vernon in a club in Windsor, Ontario, in 1963, and asked him to appear on his late-night television show, ''Celebrity Talent Scouts.'' Other television appearances followed, including with Jack Paar, who said, ''Of all the new comedians, this is the funniest that I've heard.'' Blended Humor and Satire

In the mid-1960's, Mr. Vernon's career took off, as he played such well-known clubs as the Hungry i in San Francisco and the Blue Angel in New York, and became something of a regular on Arthur Godfrey's radio show and, on television, on ''The Ed Sullivan Show,'' ''The Dean Martin Show'' and the ''Tonight'' show with Johnny Carson.

In his television, club and Las Vegas performances, Mr. Vernon frequently played the hapless loser, whose deadpan routines often combined self-deprecating humor and imaginatively offbeat social and psychological satire. In one routine, the portly comedian described himself as someone ''who spends his time at parties in the room with the coats and whose idea of a good time is to go down to the bus terminal and pretend I'm going somewhere.''