Benny Hill: A Centenarian Celebration

January 21, 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of Benny Hill's birth. Now, of course, when you do the math that means he was born January 21, 1924. His name at birth was Alfred Hill but he changed it when he got into show business and began going by the name of Benny Hill. It's long been reported that he chose that first name because it was associated with one of his comedy idols, Jack Benny. I've written numerous blog entries over the years about Benny Hill and my appreciation of his comedy and the television programs for which he starred in. This blog entry is a bit different because it happens to deal with the remembrance of his birth 100 years ago. Benny's half hour edited programs which first saw airing in the United States in 1979 have been running on Antenna TV for over a year now. The current schedule has them airing from 12:30am until 2am early Sunday morning. The programs had aired on Antenna TV in the past. When the episodes began airing on Antenna TV, originally, it marked the first time that those episodes had aired on American television since the early 1990s. The half hour, edited Benny Hill episodes had become a phenomenon in the United States through local syndication. The programs were syndicated by Don Taffner and by the early 1980s those fast paced half hour episodes were airing all over the country. The most common time of the day in which local television stations were airing the programs were in the late night time slots but mostly they aired at various times in the over-night time slots. As cable TV was starting to become more and more commonplace with 24/7 time slot offerings there needed to be something to place in those over-night time slots. Some local stations chose to air movies...other stations aired long form commercials or reruns of sitcoms...and a large number of the stations that didn't choose either of those options opted to air, instead, Benny Hill. 

Benny Hill had been entertaining British audiences on television since the mid 1950s. He was with the BBC for over a decade prior to moving on to Thames Television in 1969. The relationship with Thames TV lasted almost 20 years... from November 1969 until April 1989. I come across an article about Benny's 100th and it's so good that I decided to share a link to it in this blog entry. You can read the remembrance/celebration when you click HERE. 

It's a very good overview of his career.. and something that should never be forgotten is that Benny's fans have never, ever, stopped loving his style of comedy and entertainment even during the time in the mid 1980s when the British media didn't hide their feelings about his TV specials. The "suits", in other words the executives, turned their backs on Benny Hill in 1989 but the fans never did. The attacks by the British media and those within the alternative comedy scene, with most of their criticisms laced with innuendo and ignorance, played itself out in the newspapers and magazines of the day. Ironically the most well known and massively popular comic export from Europe, Benny Hill, had become toxic in his home country...yet the international market, especially the United States, continued airing the half hour programs even while the British media was on the attack. 

Benny Hill passed away in April of 1992. He had previously starred in a TV special titled Benny Hill's World Tour: New York!. The special aired on the USA Network in 1991 but it had been recorded in 1990 at his usual studio in London. The exterior shots and some other footage of Benny in New York City were taped on location here in the United States but the sketches and songs were all recorded in London. The 'World Tour' series of TV specials was meant to be a comeback for him where Benny would focus on the culture and entertainment of select cities across the globe and satirize, celebrate, or spoof the culture of those cities but unfortunately only the first special was ever recorded and aired. Among the mail found at his house on the day his body was discovered was a contract for a series of comedy specials for Central Independent Television. This contract, it's been speculated, would certainly have been for the remaining 'World Tour' series of comedy specials that never materialized due to his death. 

Benny Hill: 1924 - 1992

Benny Hill: Going Back to April 20th 1992...

I was going to begin this blog entry with a familiar greeting by Fred Scuttle, one of Benny Hill's famous characters, but I don't know if the phrase is copyrighted or not. We're a few days away from April 20, 1992...a sad day for millions of Benny Hill fans around the world. It was on that day Benny Hill passed away. Those who knew him personally may have expected it...but in the years since a lot of us fans have become aware of Benny's final weeks. There's been a lot of essays and commentary about his death in the last 30 years...and I'd say there's been a heavy dose of commentary circulating about him within the last 10 years. The video hosting site, YouTube, came along in 2005 and within 5 years video content from around the world had been accessed tens of millions of times, combined. Benny Hill videos...specifically his comedy sketches, comedy monologues, and Hill's Angels features...gained an entirely new audience. There had been a market established for Benny's comedy on VHS tape and on DVD...but with YouTube it enabled the content from those VHS and DVD releases as well as full episodes of his hour long television specials to be readily available. All a person needed to do is simply type in Benny's name in a YouTube search box and the results are nearly endless. Benny was chased off of television in 1989...after 20 years at Thames TV. Prior to his association with Thames he worked at the BBC. His television specials at the BBC were titled The Benny Hill Show. Highlights from his BBC programs have been issued on VHS and DVD...they're in black and white and can be accessed online. In the BBC episodes some of his supporting players were usually Jeremy Hawk, Patricia Hayes, and Rita Lloyd. 

It's been reported that his first performance to a mass audience was on a radio series, Variety Bandbox, in 1947. Benny made his television debut in 1950. He appeared regularly on the BBC airwaves throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In 1956 he starred in the comedy movie, "Who Done It?". He had a radio series, Benny Hill Time, for 2 years (1964-1966) and 26 episodes in total. He headlined a couple of television specials for ITV and ATV during his long association with the BBC but the most significant change happened in 1969 when he joined Thames Television. It's with this company that Benny became an international comedy star. His hour long television specials would be sprinkled throughout a calendar year...in most years he would deliver 3 or 4 one hour specials. His television specials became events and much anticipated. His supporting cast in the first decade of the Thames specials were Henry McGee, Bob Todd, Jackie Wright, and some faces familiar from his BBC years like Patricia Hayes and Rita Lloyd. In 1979 the syndicator, Don Taffner, brought Benny Hill to American television screens...and from America to television screens all over the world. Taffner conceived the idea of selling half hour installments of Benny's comedy to local television stations across America. An editing team carefully pieced together numerous half hour episodes using the footage from Benny's hour long television specials for Thames TV.

These half hour episodes aired practically all over the world in late-night time slots or in pre-dawn, early morning time slots. Benny also added a collection of female dancers to his show around this same time and he called them Hill's Angels. The dancers also doubled as comedic foils for Benny. As the 1980's progressed and the edited half hour Benny Hill programs were spiking local television ratings, becoming increasingly popular in various non-English speaking territories (thanks to a lot of pantomime sketches), the comics in his own homeland were on the verbal attack...and by 1989 with mounting pressures from British comics, critics, and feminist groups (collectively a very loud minority of people), Thames TV canceled the Benny Hill television specials. The last television special aired on May 1, 1989. The half hour episodes were still airing around the world...including America. 

Due in large part to the success that the half hour shows were still having in America the syndicator, Don Taffner, asked Benny if he would do another television special and that he'd handle the distribution. They hit on a concept called Benny Hill's World Tour. The television specials would spotlight a different major city/town in nearly every country on the planet. The first, in this proposed World Tour series of specials, spotlighted New York City. The USA Network bought the broadcast rights and Benny Hill's World Tour: New York! hit the airwaves on May 30, 1991. It was his first comedy special since 1989. Unfortunately, Benny's health began to decline as the year went on...in February 1992 he suffered a mild heart attack. He declined further medical treatment (a bypass) and experienced kidney failure and he passed away on April 20, 1992. His body was discovered by his long-time television producer, Dennis Kirkland, several days later. Several people had called Benny's house and there were no answers for several days. The lack of reply caused great concern, obviously, and with the help of the police Dennis Kirkland was able to get inside Benny's locked house where they found him sitting in front of the television in his favorite chair, non-responsive. 

The memorials and outpouring of grief was almost immediate once the news broke. It was revealed that among the mail in Benny's living room was a contract awaiting his signature...a contract for a series of new television specials for Central Independent Television. Apparently, and I'm just guessing, but this was the company Benny would've worked for on the World Tour series of television specials...with syndication rights perhaps held by Don Taffner. Nobody outside of a few has ever seen the actual unsigned contract so any number of us over the decades have made wild speculations as to what it may have contained. Benny Hill reruns have been scarce on television since the early 1990s. In the last 20 plus years BBC America and Antenna TV have aired variations of Benny's show. BBC America aired edited hour long episodes whereas Antenna TV in 2011, and added again to the line-up this year, air edited copies of the half hour edited programs. Antenna TV has been airing the half hour episodes in program blocks from 12am to 2am early Sunday morning. So, as I mentioned earlier, Benny Hill is always going to be there...ready to be discovered by successive generations of people. 

Benny Hill: Happy Birthday!!

Well, now, we've gotten to January 21st and the birthdate of the comedic genius, Benny Hill. Happy birthday to the late Benny Hill!! 

Everyone has their idea of what a 'comedic genius' is...I think that Benny is a genius because of his ability to be innovative with visual comedy in the early days of television. Some may shrug that off as irrelevant and take the cynical attitude of "well, it wasn't like someone else wouldn't have figured it out...". As a visual comedian I rank Benny Hill along side the likes of Ernie Kovacs and Red Skelton. I'd say that Benny was like a combination of those two...with a stage name inspired by Jack Benny. 

Benny Hill was born Alfred Hill on January 21, 1924. His upbringing was that of most in his era...and for entertainment it was radio or live theater. In numerous on-line biographies and documentaries on Benny it's reported that live theater had a profound influence on Benny...and as a kid he'd see the comedians on stage and loved the idea of causing other people to laugh. He also took note of the emcee's of these theatrical performances and the sea of girls that would come out on stage and dance and have a fun old time. He remarked that the emcee always tended to be surrounded by a lot of beautiful women and that the comic made the people laugh...so, in a lot of ways, Benny combined two of those elements from British Music Hall theater into one and became: Benny Hill! The hallmarks of the Victorian Music Hall traditions that were still being performed during his childhood obviously played a huge role in the style of comedy he would gravitate to. Benny's affinity for this style of comedy put him at odds with 'contemporary' British comedians several decades later...but nevertheless there was an audience for it and millions would tune in to watch his television specials. His television career began in the 1950s and he taped a lot of comedy specials for the BBC.

This is a publicity photo from one of his early television specials...surrounded by a collection of beauties. It's been documented that television made Benny Hill a legendary entertainer...someone that became a popular entertainer exclusively through television rather than having a lengthy run in the theater or in radio. Benny had a spotty presence on BBC radio...but it's generally viewed that the greatness of his comedy wouldn't arrive until the visual medium and television. He was an under-rated master of pantomime. He could be hilarious with no dialogue whatsoever. So many of his most recognizable sketches are the non-verbal routines. These are largely recognizable for several reasons. The main reason they're recognizable is because of how great they're executed/timed and how they're a throwback to the sped-up silent sketches of the Keystone Kops and silent movie comedy in general. He was a big fan of Charlie Chaplin. It's a legendary anecdote now but when Benny visited Chaplin's residence he was shocked, stunned, and highly emotional upon discovering that within the personal collection of Charlie Chaplin were dozens of Benny Hill recordings on video tape. Benny's visit to the Chaplin estate happened in the late '70s following Chaplin's 1977 death. Benny's television programs on the BBC throughout the '60s featured many sight-gags, patter songs, and topical comedy. His inventiveness with the camera enabled him to appear on screen with himself...not once...but three or more times in the same scene. In the days of early television production this trick was performed through the use of covering part of the camera lens to block out certain areas and then, in post production, splicing all of the separately recorded images together to appear as if all images of Benny are appearing at the same time on screen. 

He invented a character named J. Arthur Clinker...world's fastest film maker. Benny once remarked that Clinker wrote the story in the morning, cast it during the afternoon, and filmed it in the evening and it's ready for viewing. The character probably was created as a vehicle for Benny to showcase sped-up or slowed-down camera footage and the haphazard approach of patching unrelated scenes together to create a film. One sketch featured the characters not speaking in-synch with the audio. The Clinker productions were always filled with errors, blunders, bizarre camera edits, and all kinds of other visually jarring activity. Benny may have been spoofing the reputation of Ed Wood.

Benny Hill's comedic seeds were sown in the brief appearances on BBC radio as well as his semi-regular appearances on BBC television in the early to mid '60s. He hit the 'big time' when he joined Thames Television in 1969. The company would be his home for the next 20 years. His legacy and impact took shape during his decades at Thames Television. He continued his appreciation for silent comedy and tackling British celebrities of the time period...one of his frequent spoofs happened to be newscasters and game show hosts. In the BBC years Benny's main comic foil was Jeremy Hawk. Benny's main character, Fred Scuttle, came with him to Thames Television. Benny's comic foil eventually became Henry McGee. Patricia Hayes appeared in several of Benny's early Thames Television specials. She was a hold over from the BBC era. Rita Webb, another ensemble member from the BBC years, also made some appearances on the early Thames Television specials. Benny's television specials were sporadic...the show wasn't on every week or every other week or every month...the specials would show up whenever they were completed and they were treated as television specials...garnering millions upon millions of television viewers. In the photo above Benny Hill is portraying Oliver Hardy and Sue Upton is portraying Stan Laurel in a sketch from the late 1980s. Benny's core ensemble throughout much of his Thames Television years consisted of Henry McGee, Bob Todd, Jackie Wright, and Jon Jon Keefe. 

In 1979, during it's 10th year in production, the series got a new producer/director named Dennis Kirkland. The series also added an all-girl dance group called The Hill's Angels. The most notable of the Angels happened to be Louise English and Sue Upton. In addition to the production and aesthetic changes in 1979, Don Taffner, an American television syndicator, began distributing half hour syndicated versions of Benny's television specials. These specials hit the American television airwaves, slowly at first, but the demand was so high that numerous half hour programs were created to fill all of the time-slots on local television stations as cable television and network television stations began popping up and staying on the air all night long rather than signing off at Midnight with a test pattern airing until 5 or 6am. The half hour programs that aired, first, on American television beginning in 1979 were edited versions of his hour long television specials. Some of those half hour episodes featured sketches taken from several of his hour long specials...meaning that in a single half hour episode Benny could age 5 to 10 years from sketch to sketch. These half hour episodes would become internationally popular...heavy emphasis placed on his silent sketches. The non-verbal comedy in those sketches was obviously helpful. 

Benny's television specials for Thames Television came to an end in 1989. A cave-in to political correctness brought the curtain down on Benny's harmless, whimsical comedy. It was a win for authoritarianism and a loss for comedy. The half hour shows were still airing all over most of the planet...and they continued airing...except in Benny Hill's home country. The accusations of sexism and the condemnation of 'contemporary' British comics in the late 1980's was too much for Thames Television to ignore, apparently. Don Taffner, in the meantime, arranged for Benny and the gang to star in another comedy special. The special, Benny Hill's World Tour: New York, was taped in 1990. The exterior scenes were shot in New York. USA Network aired the comedy special in May of 1991. Benny's syndicated programs were still airing in many television markets...and there was talk of Benny putting together a series of future television specials using the World Tour concept. He passed away, however, in April of 1992 at the age of 68...and reportedly among the papers found in his house was an unsigned television contract which called for the production of new comedy specials. 

This is by no means a detailed overview of his life/career...some out there may find my style of writing incoherent and grammatically challenged...be that as it may Benny Hill was a comedic genius...his work is on video hosting sites for millions of people to discover. In a 2007 poll of the Top-50 Greatest Television Stars conducted by ITV, Benny Hill was ranked 17. I think that was an incredible showing particularly in Britain and particularly nearly 20 years after he passed away. So much hate was written about him during the final years of his television career and so much hate-filled rhetoric directed at Benny has spewed forth since 1989 that having him rank at 17 in a public poll of the 50 Greatest British television stars in 2007 was something of a revelation. It shows me that the public, if you really think about it, was never truly offended by Benny Hill's comedy. The hate and criticism came from special interest groups rather than the public at large. Why is it wrong to cater to special interests? It's wrong because special interests only reflect the views of a small group who share a single interest...it's wrong to cater to the whims of a faction but instead try to reflect the interests of a public as a whole. I'm going to close this blog entry with a funny song and dance from Benny Hill and Jackie Wright...it's wonderful...

Benny Hill: 'National Smile Week' sketch...

As we're a day away from celebrating the birthdate of the legendary Benny Hill I was searching the video clips and came across a sketch uploaded a couple of days ago. It's a sketch from the January 13, 1988 special...it's the closing sketch called National Smile Week. It's one of his sped-up sketches...no voices...the only thing a viewer hears is the accompanying music and the sound effects. In the sketch you'll practically all of Benny's familiar co-stars as well as some of the Hill's Angels. There is also a kid in this sketch...in case you're not familiar, during this point of his television career, he incorporated children of the stage crew and his co-stars and they were billed on-screen as Hill's Little Angels. The concept of the sketch is to take a look at people, at random, going about their day with smiles on their faces regardless of the misfortune and chaos going on around them. This being a 1988 sketch means Jackie Wright, the little bald guy, isn't among the ensemble. He retired due to illness in 1983. Johnny Hutch, a somewhat similar looking actor, filled in for Jackie and you'll see Johnny in this sketch...he, too, doesn't lose his smile in spite of the bad luck that comes his way. As you can see in the screen cap, Benny is all smiles during this particular scene. Earlier in the sketch he encounters an elderly woman, Hill's Angel Sue Upton in disguise, and he gets car exhaust and fumes blown in his face...but he remains smiling. An image from that scene is in the thumbnail below...

Tomorrow marks the birthdate of the legendary British comedian, Benny Hill. I don't want to get into a lot of other details too soon...I've posted blog entries about him in the past and no doubt the blog entry I write tomorrow will probably cover a lot of information that can be found in the previous blog entries but with a 2021 time stamp. I'd read one of those blog entries that I'd written...I included several photo collages of Benny and I included my own facial expressions, too...sort of a comparison between the two of us as far as comical expressions for the camera are concerned. I don't think I'll be including any of that this time around but I may. I was snapping photo's of myself with my web-camera the other day and I was making some of the most silly, ridiculous faces I could think of...perhaps they'll be in a future blog entry on Benny Hill's birthday tomorrow!?! I don't have those kind of prop teeth to make it appear I'm forever grinning as Benny's wearing in the sketch. I made a collage a couple of minutes ago while simultaneously writing this blog entry. I multi-task. The collage is a side-by-side photo of Jackie Wright and Johnny Hutch.  

 

Benny Hill: The Master of the Sight Gag...

Benny Hill; 1990

Hello all! I wrote a Benny Hill-themed blog entry back in early  January and I'm back with a follow-up. Benny's birthdate is coming up soon...the actual date is January 21. We're a few years shy of  celebrating the 100th birthdate of the late Benny Hill in 2024 and if  I'm still active on-line in 2024, and why wouldn't I be, I'll be  celebrating the occasion on this blog! I title this blog entry not  necessarily to do any kind of in-depth dissection of Benny's famous  visual comedy but more or less to highlight that how photo's can be  powerful and sometimes misleading. In this screen cap we see Benny performing one of his classic routines where he does the  dropping of the handkerchief bit. Typically Benny would be  walking along minding his own business and he'd see, one by one, "good looking men" drop their handkerchief and some woman would stop, pick it up, and go off walking with the man. Benny, after taking note, would then drop his handkerchief in the hopes a woman passing by would hook up with him but you see how the woman reacted...she picked the handkerchief up, blew her nose on it, and handed it back to him. 😄 

Benny Hill was a master of the sight-gag. He could manipulate the camera, for example, and have his image appear side-by-side-by-side. Camera tricks were also employed when the process of undercranking was used...time lapsed images often appeared on camera...a flower perfectly erect would wilt downward in seconds...he would also use the camera to speed up, edit, or dramatically slow down the pace of a sketch. The most internationally known use of the camera happened to be what's called The Benny Hill Chase. This is something that happened at the end of most episodes of the half-hour syndicated versions of Benny's show. A sketch would begin calmly but through a series of comical blunders and errors Benny would find himself being chased by practically everyone to the tune of Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax". This sketch was typically sped-up and in pantomime to mirror the silent comedy that Benny was partially influenced by. Benny performed so many non-verbal sketches...typically sped-up with bouncy music...where the humor came with the visual gags. 

He would have words painted onto buildings that carried on a conversation with each other. A written statement found on the side of a brick wall, in graffiti style, might read: "I've not even begun to fight!!" and then the camera would show a sign just below that reads: "You could've fooled me!" with an image of a beaten up person laying on the ground. One of his recurring jokes happened to be the poster board where there was usually a series of 5 or 6 sentences written on a large poster board next to a door...Benny would then open the door and covering everything on the poster except the first letter in each sentence. It would usually spell out a double-entendre word. One of the ways that photos can be misleading is that they're a snapshot...and based upon the person using the photo it can either be a tool of publicity or a tool of deception.

Benny's comedy is all over the internet. If you look for it you're going to find a lot of his comedy sketches from all time periods of his career. The bulk of the sketches that appear on the internet were uploaded by fans and those who are simply curious or intrigued by Benny Hill. The material has all been issued on DVD and so there's rarely anything that shows up on-line that hasn't already appeared on a DVD somewhere. I like the fact that his comedy continues to be discovered. A photo like the one off to the left is of Benny and what were billed as the Hill's Angels. This dance group shown up in Benny's television specials in 1979. In the half-hour syndicated episodes that aired all over the world there are some installments where it's heavy with Hill's Angels dance numbers. Benny's half-hour syndicated programs, which aired all over the world starting in 1979, were edited versions of his hour long television specials from England. The Benny Hill Show that we seen on American television throughout the '80s and into the early '90s during the late-night/over-night hours were half-hour glimpses into Benny's comedy. If you have his full, hour length programs on DVD or if you've seen them on-line you'll see a lot more variety than what's on the half-hour versions. However, those half-hour versions of his show are what brought Benny Hill international fame. The photos of Benny and the Hill's Angels are used as a tool of deception. They're designed to make you think that's all Benny's show was all about...and it wasn't. If you know your Benny Hill history and are familiar with the various documentaries and taped remarks from Benny himself then you'll know how much he loved the British Music Hall tradition of entertainment. In a lot of his shows he put on large, highly choreographed song and dance presentations not unlike the kind one would find taking place in the music hall venues at the turn of the century. A big production and lots of dancing women and the comedy of it all were heavy influences on his distinctive style. Benny's use of dancing women, songs, patter, and sight gags, goes back to his years at the BBC and even prior to that on his earliest of television specials in the '50s. The Hill's Angels, however, weren't officially christened until 1979. Benny joined Thames Television in 1969. 

I know why those Hill's Angels photos are used...it draws a person's eyes...and in television as well as the internet you want the viewer's/reader's eyes. Those photos are like hundreds that are all over the internet. Do I think some people watched his shows just for the Hill's Angels? Probably! Do I think that there's some people who think that's what his show was all about? I'm sure there are those who think that way and having so many publicity photos on the internet of Benny surrounded by a collection of women goes a long way at further perpetuating that image. Am I going to set people straight once and for all and admonish those who misunderstand Benny's comedy? 

Let's look at this rationally. Do those four guys really look that terribly threatening or controversial? Come on...take a look. We have Henry McGee standing next to Benny Hill. In front we have Jackie Wright and Roger Finch. Bob Todd was also a familiar presence but isn't in the photo. The show's producer, the late Dennis Kirkland, had that sentiment that I'm echoing. I, too, don't feel that those four entertainers should send anyone into fits of anger, rage, and hostility. They're perfectly harmless. Jackie Wright, as you can see, became famous for the sped-up sketches where he'd get the top of his head patted on and in many cases, slapped, to the sound of rapidly strung together tapping sound effects. He was part of Benny's Thames TV specials until 1983. Health problems caused his 'retirement' from Benny's show and he passed away in 1989, ironically, the same year Thames TV canceled Benny's show following a 20 year run with the company. Anyway, after Jackie stepped away from the show in 1983, they tried a look-a-like for several television specials. Henry McGee was the straight man and the show's announcer. Henry had a flair for comedy, though, and would get a chance to play bizarre characters, too. Henry's talent was being able to have a perfect reaction to whatever Benny happened to be doing. There are numerous routines where Henry is acting as the interviewer to one of Benny's characterizations and in a decent number of those sketches Henry could get laughs by just holding a facial expression or get a laugh with a twitch or raise of an eye. Benny's television specials were much more than eye candy.   

I'll be writing another blog entry spotlighting Benny Hill in the days ahead...most likely on his birthdate. I'll close this blog entry with a clip of Benny and one of those sight gags I was explaining earlier in the blog. This one is the poster board gag where a series of lines are shown on a board and the visual punchline at the conclusion...

Benny Hill is still one of Comedy's Masters...

I've written several blog entries about one of my all-time favorite British comedians, Benny Hill. I continue, every so often, to watch video clips on YouTube from his various television specials. I feel that my discovery of Benny Hill in the late 1980s mirrors a lot of other people my age...if they're like myself I discovered him in the summer months when I'd watch television in the late night hours. School was out in the summer months and so I didn't have to go to bed in order to wake up in the morning for school...and so I discovered one of Benny's television shows at some point after midnight. Later this month is Benny's date of birth. He was born January 21, 1924. His comedy programs go back to the 1950s on the BBC...at one point he was appearing on BBC radio. His longest tenure arrived in 1969 when he joined Thames Television. He remained with Thames Television for 20 years! His comedy was rooted in the British Music Hall tradition. His comedy relied heavily on wordplay, patter songs, and costume/visual humor. He was not a "sexist" nor is his comedy "offensive". He is a genuine comedy master. When you find yourself laughing at the funny or silly things he does in his television specials then he's done his job! As mentioned I often watch clips from his television specials on YouTube and I have some VHS tapes of his BBC sketches. Arts and Entertainment issued a 6-volume DVD collection titled Benny Hill: Complete and Unadulterated. I have Volumes 1, 2, 5, and 6. Those DVD's contain complete episodes of his Thames Television specials which aired from 1969 until 1989.

Benny's programs that aired in England were a series of hour long television specials. He would typically do a handful of television specials per year. In 1979 a syndicator, Don Tafner, brought Benny's comedy to America's television sets. Don's idea was to create a syndicated series featuring half hour episodes of sketches edited from Benny's hour long television specials. The syndicated, half hour series aired on American television during late night and eventually, over-night timeslots, once cable television expanded to all-night service. Once upon a time television channels used to sign-off near Midnight or just after the 'late night movie' ended. These syndicated half hour programs officially aired from 1979 until 1989 on many local television stations across America...however, some local TV stations continued airing the half hour sketch-filled show on into the early 1990s. Some of the members of Benny's supporting players included Jeremy Hawk, Patricia Hayes, Bella Emberg, Rita Webb, Henry McGee, Bob Todd, Jackie Wright, Louise English, Sue Upton, Jenny Lee Wright, Diana Darvey, and others. Some of the women were character actresses but others were part of a larger ensemble collectively referred to as Hill's Angels. This ensemble appeared in their own segment...typically a dance routine. Now, of all the Hill's Angels, the two that appeared more frequently in comedy sketches, too, were Sue Upton and Louise English. The two of them remain the most popular of the Hill's Angels to this day. Henry McGee was Benny's straight man and the announcer of the Thames Television show...often heard introducing Benny as "here he is...that lad himself...Benny Hill!!" or "Yes!! It's the Benny Hill Show!!". Jackie Wright was the short, bald headed guy that always got his head slapped in rapid fashion from Benny. In some of the later episodes following Jackie's 1983 retirement they had a fill-in take over that characterization due to the rapid head slapping sight gag being so hysterical.   

I know I can't speak for all fans of Benny Hill but I'm getting tired of seeing video clips pop-up from time to time bashing his comedy or seeing video where the uploader of the video is trying to insist that Benny was somehow "lonely" or lived a "sad, lonely life". That description of Benny is inaccurate. He enjoyed his life and he had a close circle of friends. Yes, it's true he lived alone and by most people's accounts anyone "who lives alone" must therefore be "lonely"...but I reject that assertion. Benny Hill was a master at what he did...and the fact that in the year 2021 there's so many video clips of him on the internet and the fact that I'm writing my third or fourth blog entry about him just goes to show anyone that Benny Hill is still one of comedy's masters!

      

Benny Hill: 1924-1992

Benny Hill...a Future Biopic in the Works...

I periodically browse the internet as mostly everybody else does and I came across a story about a biopic in the works centering around the one and only Benny Hill. I came across this story while doing an on-line news search for Benny and it's from a site called deadline.com and I offered a comment over there. Their comments section, much like mine, is monitored and so it hasn't been uploaded to their site yet. Just in case my comment, for whatever reason, doesn't get published on their site I planned ahead and copied my message and I'm pasting it here. Since I'm a fan and appreciator of Benny Hill's brand of humor and entertainment and since I've written several blog posts about him over the years I decided it made a whole lot of sense to share it on my personal blog page, too. First off here's the link to the story about the possible Benny Hill Biopic so you'll be able to better understand my comment:

Although one comment suggests there's not an audience considering the subject of the biopic died more than 25 years ago and another comment simply trashes him based on their interpretation of his comedy I, for one, have loved Benny Hill's style of entertainment ever since I came across it by accident flipping through the television channels one summer night as a teenager. I live in America and like a lot of people here I discovered Benny's comedy on late night television on those half hour syndicated programs that used to air on numerous local channels at all hours of the night.

I get a bit nervous, though, anytime I read about upcoming book releases or in this case, a biopic, centering around Benny given his enigmatic life and how only a precious few actually got to know Benny off-stage.

Unlike a quote from one of the writers of this project I never "fell out of love" with Benny's comedy...I grew to love it more and more. I've since added a lot of DVD products of his comedy...everything from his sketches from his BBC era in the mid 1960s to his more famous Thames Television sketches. But again...I hope this does Benny justice and presents him in a way that will teach people a lot of things they maybe didn't realize...the last thing I want to see, as a Benny Hill fan, is a hatchet job that celebrates or justifies the negative criticisms leveled at him during his later years from those with axes to grind.

So, then, that's the comment I wrote concerning the possible biopic of Benny Hill. You will be able to read much more detail about this when you click the link I provided. There are other on-line sites reporting on this, too, but deadline.com was the first one I came across. They published their report on May 31st so I'm just a tad bit late at finding it.

Benny Hill...my favorite British comedian...

In December of 2014 I posted a blog entry marking the occasion of Benny's birth year 90 years earlier in 1924. I didn't post a blog in January of 2015 marking the 60th anniversary of the debut of The Benny Hill Show on the BBC because I'm notorious for not keeping track of anniversaries, birthdays, and milestones except for a chosen few. But as I began looking through some of the photo's saved on my computer of Benny from various stages of his career I happened to read that January 15th is the day that Benny debuted as the star of his own self-titled comedy special. No stranger to British audiences in 1955 he had been seen in a series of comedy programs and specials as early as 1951 but those didn't carry the title of The Benny Hill Show.

It should come as no surprise that I'm a fan of Benny Hill...he's my favorite British comedian by far. Although he isn't the only British entertainer that I'm familiar with he is by far my favorite. Television specials hosted and written by Benny under the specific title of The Benny Hill Show aired, on and off, from January 15, 1955 to May 1, 1989. The last television special in May of 1989 was his 58th and final for Thames TV. The syndicated half-hour series that originated in America in 1979 and had expanded globally continued to air regardless of the cancellation of the series by Thames TV. There happened to be more than 100 half hour programs that had already been compiled since 1979 that re-airing them over and over to fill the lack of new footage coming over became the norm for several years. In the early '90s Benny ventured over to America to check out potential spots to tape comedy material for a proposed series of specials titled Benny Hill's World Tour. The first special, focusing on New York, is the only program that became a reality due to the slow nature of the shooting schedule, delays, and the usual perfectionism Benny had been known for. The special finally hit the air on the USA Network on May 30, 1991. It didn't air in his homeland until 1994 (2 years after his death!).

I discovered the comedy of Benny Hill as a teenager in the early 1990s. Here in my part of America the local channels aired Benny's program in the late-night/over-night hours although research shows his programs in some parts of the United States aired as early as 9pm.

The syndicated half hour programs, comprised of sketches originally seen on his full-length hour long programs in the U.K., began airing in 1979. The batch of syndicated programs that aired for the first several years in local syndication in America featured material that had originally aired as early as 1969 (the first year Benny began making television specials for Thames TV).

After the phenomenal success of the edited programs in America it didn't take long for those clip-fest programs to find their way onto the television screens of people all over the planet. As it's been pointed out by official historians and biographers alike the popularity of Benny Hill in America kicked open the bolted doors of just about every country across the globe and this half hour program of sketches suddenly gave Benny global fame the likes of which a decidedly television-created star had never known.

This isn't to say Benny's mass popularity translated into critical acclaim, praise, acceptance, or any other similar synonym you can think of. Critical praise of Benny Hill is limited and in some countries it's muted. The irony of Benny's global success and the acclaim from abroad stood in sharp contrast to the cold and condescending remarks by television critics. Baffled, mystified, and dumbfounded could easily have been the adjectives to describe television critics in America once the program started to become such a hit in local syndication that episodes of the show began to air for what seemed like every other hour in the same market but on a different channel. It also wasn't uncommon for multiple local channels to air the program at the same time during late-night.

To further illustrate the phenomenal success of Benny's program in America newspaper columnists began to go on the attack in their editorials...attempting to link Benny's programs to increased crime, the rise of AIDS, increased rape, and just about anything else. During my research for this blog entry I come across a scathing article about the program carried in a Florida paper on July 5, 1982. The author attempted to find the reasoning behind Benny Hill's success. To the author's credit he supplied Arbitron ratings information supplied to him for WTVT-TV (Channel 13) during May 1982 and compared the numbers of Benny Hill's half hour of so-called "sexist smut" to it's chief competition, NBC's Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. The article's author couldn't understand how Carson's classy presentations had consistently been, in that market at least, toppled by Benny Hill's "vulgar, tasteless, and sexist" excesses.

According to the numbers provided in the 1982 article Benny's program averaged 36,000 viewers locally to Carson's 13,000. There wasn't any demographics numbers provided for Carson but according to the report Benny's program attracted nearly double the amount of male viewers than females (21,000 male; 15,000 female). Obviously the goal on reporting the demographic numbers for Benny's program is the author's way of driving home the sexist accusations. Hmm, judging by those numbers, there must be a lot of female sexists out there if we're to buy the author's argument about Benny's comedy being sexist.

In an article dated July 4, 1983 it had been reported that WVNY-TV (Channel 22) had decided to stop airing Ted Koppel's Nightline series at 11:30pm in order to make room for Benny Hill's program. The station's programmer explained his decision by citing the ratings reports, too. The local ABC channel  decided to start an 11pm newscast. The newscast would run to 11:30pm and be a lead-in to Koppel's national program. The only problem was Benny Hill's syndicated series aired on the local channel at 11pm and the program director didn't want to push Benny's hugely successful series to 12:30am. He cited that Benny's series at 11pm had attracted more than 50,000 viewers on average and Koppel's series attracted nearly 10,000 and so the removal of Ted Koppel's program in favor of the higher rated Benny Hill series made perfect business sense to him.

Benny Hill's birthday is coming up...born on January 21, 1924. He died on April 20, 1992 at the age of 68.

Benny Hill...a 90 year anniversary...

I couldn't let 2014 go by without making mention of the 90th anniversary year of Benny Hill's birth. Born in January 1924 and passing away in April 1992, Benny Hill became one of the biggest comedy icon's of all-time (in my opinion). Originally rooted in verbal comedy and parody, seek out the black and white episodes Benny did for the BBC in the early part of his television career. Those episodes appear in a series called Benny Hill: The Lost Years. I have the VHS release...I don't have the DVD counterpart.

Benny's humor after leaving the BBC eventually became much more slapstick and pantomime, a move that guaranteed his programs to be universal given the elimination of a language barrier. Those programs became a hallmark of the Thames Television-era. Those programs (several specials broadcast throughout the year) were packed with bizarre poems, elaborate song and dance segments, all styles of comedy (both spoken and visual), and a fondness for theatrical staging created a Vaudeville-era showcase and a throwback to traditional comedy during a time when younger English comedians were embracing a so-called modern style of humor. Benny's age at the time of his first Thames production in 1969 was 45 and as the following decade opens we reach the mid 1970s and Benny's television specials are remaining enormously popular. After 10 years at Thames (1979) and numerous one-hour comedy specials, a decision is made to syndicate Benny's programs for American audiences.

In America the Benny Hill programs aired as half hour clip-filled presentations of sketches that originated during the first 10 years of the Thames TV association. The series ran in late night time-slots (or early morning time-slots, just before sunrise) on hundreds of local television stations in America. The hodgepodge look of the clip-filled series and the fact that Benny's age changes dramatically from sketch to sketch added to the uniqueness and appeal. Those at Thames TV and even Benny himself are quoted as being in disbelief that the programs attracted such a strong audience and fan base in America...but once the series became a smash hit in syndication in America it was like the floodgates opened up and from 1979 onward Benny Hill seemed to rule international humor...even though he'd been a big hit on British television since the 1960s. Yes, if you're keeping track, the year that Benny's sketches came to America in 1979 he was 55 years old. As I mentioned earlier, due to the American aired episodes being a compilation package, his age fluctuated 5-10 years within a single half-hour episode.

All the while Benny's sketches were entertaining millions of Americans and millions in Europe and millions of television viewers all over the world, he continued doing his usual sporadic television specials for Thames TV each year. Every year the half hour syndicated programs in America often gained new material annually as current sketches from then-recent Benny Hill specials continued to be woven into episodes that featured older sketches. By the mid 1980's the syndicated episodes looked even more distinct and by then Benny had turned 60 (in 1984). It is during the 1980's that the famous, or infamous, Hill's Angels made their debut. The Hill's Angels are the name of the group of women that appeared in many song-and-dance routines (often with Benny playing the part of the bum, the loser, or the easily excited spectator...typically all three rolled into one!). The name, Hill's Angels, has sort of retroactively come to identify all the beautiful women/models that appeared on his programs over the decades even though the name itself never came into being until the 1980's.

The Angels also played heavily in the sped-up silent sketches...a filmed segment that appeared on all the Thames TV episodes...and often it consisted of Benny and his familiar co-stars (Henry McGee, Jackie Wright, Bob Todd). A typical presentation starts out calmly and eventually works itself into a frenzied display of sight gags. It's in these sped-up presentations that one of the most memorable sight gags became immensely popular and referred to by many viewers as "the slapping of the head of the little bald guy".

The sped-up presentations make generous use of camera tricks (called under-cranking) and those appear at various moments in any number of episodes. In the closing segments of his programs, often a sped-up gag reel, the action is played under the saxophone solo of Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax" as Benny eventually is chased by everybody he meets as the credits roll.

As the 1980's progressed, more and more younger comics were starting to come out of the woodwork and many of them had a much different style of comedy. In the mid-late '80s several British comedians seemingly took it upon themselves to launch into anti-Benny Hill tirades. Feminists received a much louder voice and the language-stifling unofficial censorship policy, popularly known as political correctness, played a part in Benny's eventual cancellation at Thames TV in 1989.

By that time Benny had started to incorporate a lot of cute humor into the sketches...lots of children become part of the sped-up sketches...and in typical fashion Benny allowed the other people in the comedy sketches to come out as the winner. As mentioned earlier, Benny usually always played the bum, the loser, the fall guy, the bad luck charm. In any comical sketch in which Benny seemed to be coming out on top of a situation, something always happened to change his fate. If he happened to be a pirate and stumbled upon a chest...he'd visually relish the idea of being rich...only to open the chest and find a sign that read "It's Lonely In Here!" and he'd make one of his famous comical expressions at the camera, start crying, and the scene would cut to something else. Another sight gag one might see is of Benny spraying deodorant under his arms and then suddenly noticing huge paint spots in his arm pits...often leading to this classic facial expression...

Silent movies were a huge inspiration to him and that's evident right from the start of his television career. He was the recipient of a prestigious Charlie Chaplin award in 1991. In the BBC era Benny often presented films from a fictional character named J. Arthur Clinker, billed as "the fastest film maker". Benny's straight-man in the BBC telecasts was Jeremy Hawk (a role later taken up by Henry McGee during the Thames TV era).

I research a lot and a couple of years ago I came across several articles originally printed in British newspapers that featured younger comedians making disparaging remarks about Benny's style of comedy and it's "old-fashioned" look. The thing that baffled me is the idea of a comic viciously attacking another comic. Isn't it kind of an unwritten rule that comics are all in it together...creating laughter? Unless there are 2 comedians engaging in a mock-feud (like Fred Allen and Jack Benny), it seems kind of crude for one comedian to bash another on the merits of what's funny. Humor is subjective...thankfully.

After the cancellation of the Thames TV contract in 1989, Benny's syndicated television programs in America eventually came to an end even though a couple of local stations in my area continued to air repeats of the clip-fests into the early 1990s. A local ABC station in Columbus aired the program in the overnight hours (late Saturday, early Sunday) opposite the last half hour of Saturday Night Live on NBC. Another station aired the program at an even later time-slot on Sunday mornings. Benny's fame in America led to a 1991 television special taped in New York. It's official name is Benny Hill's World Tour: New York. It was filmed/taped on-location in the spring of 1990 but it aired early in 1991 on the USA cable channel. It became the first and only hour long Benny Hill television special to originate outside of England.

It was going to be part of a "World Tour" series but only the New York special became a reality...his health played a deciding factor in the non-materialization of the other proposed specials (I touch on that later in the blog).

The television special proves that he was in top comic form...and there are several video clips of sketches from the 1991 television special on YouTube. One of the funniest is the Rap Song...

In the meantime, one of the hallmarks of burlesque and early stage comedy in general is the female impersonation by men. Modern audiences think "female impersonations" and perhaps instantly think of people described as Drag Queens. Centuries ago men dressed up as women for laughs and females often played the part of young boys (even today, a lot of young boys on cartoons are often voiced by females). It's almost impossible for people today to rationalize this kind of humor. Those that have no knowledge of burlesque humor (particularly Victorian burlesque of the 19th century) and therefore have a lack of understanding of it's comical value are typically confused or at a loss for words. Some people ignorantly proclaim that comics that dressed up as women must be closet homosexuals or something. I hardly suspect Milton Berle, for example, to have been a closet homosexual. He dressed up in female attire plenty of times for comic effect. The cartoon character, Bugs Bunny, famously put on dresses, lipstick, and heavy mascara in many attempts to ridicule Elmer Fudd's befuddled dopiness and apparent shyness around females.

Look up Victorian burlesque or read up on English music hall comedy and you'll immediately notice Benny Hill's biggest inspiration. He not only played the roles of Princesses and Queens but also of Kings, Dukes, Princes, and court jesters.

In February 1992 Benny Hill had a mild heart attack. Reports state he refused to change his eating habits or his lifestyle...and eventually this led to his death at the age of 68 in April 1992. It's been reported that on the very day he died a contract arrived in the mail for even more television specials. One can assume that these specials would've aired throughout 1992 and into 1993 and possibly beyond that point in time but as it turned out only the New York program surfaced in early 1991. After his death millions of people obviously mourned it...fans, friends, and extended family members alike. It's not a secret that Benny passed away in the midst of social controversies surrounding his brand of humor and many believe the cancellation of his Thames TV contract played a factor in his death considering that the television specials were "his life" and once he had "nothing to live for" he started to lose the desire to carry on. The New York television special doesn't play into that narrative, though. I've seen bits of the 1991 special and I didn't see a man torn apart or in misery...to my eyes it was the usual Benny Hill up on the screen...making faces, rolling his eyes, dancing and prancing around, and delivering one joke after another. In the 20+ years after his death the home video and later, the DVD market, became commercial avenues for Benny's legacy. The VHS home videos featured comedy sketches, at random, from the Thames TV specials that Benny did during the latter half of the '70s and into the '80s. The DVD series, titled Complete and Unadulterated, contained actual full length programs from Benny's earliest years on Thames TV. The actual programs themselves featured a mix of previously filmed sketches, live sketch performances, singing, and dancing...including Benny coming onto the stage at the beginning and talking to the audience. As mentioned, the half hour edited programs that aired in America starting in 1979 contained none of the monologues, singers, or other trappings of a variety program. The syndicated programs that aired in America contained one sketch after the other after the other...maybe featuring a comical patter song from Benny, too, to break up the sketch formula...but that's it. The full length episodes are a revelation to those only familiar with the edited half hour clip-fests that aired on American television stations for more than 10 years.

Enjoy the pictorial salute...I start things off displaying one of those A&E DVD releases of the Benny Hill program...in the image at the bottom right I display the VHS tapes of his BBC programs. Those episodes are all in black and white. Located on one of those tapes is a hilarious parody of "Bonanza" titled Bo-Peep. Benny, thanks to camera tricks, plays the parts of Ben Cartwright, Little Joe, and Hoss. Patricia Hayes, one of Benny's earliest supporting players, plays the part of Bo-Peep. She accuses the sons of stealing her sheep. In yet another sketch during the BBC era Benny does an exaggerated spoof of Mick Jagger and the rest of the Rolling Stones. 

In another sketch found on one of the VHS tapes Benny parodies television commercials (one of his favorite routines) and in a sped-up film by fictional J. Arthur Clinker we're all treated to a surreal and bizarre film spoofing melodrama's and action-adventure films. The film is made so fast that there's misplaced edits, strange camera angles, problems with the film's speed (jumping from slow motion to uptempo, back and fourth). During a crucial moment in the story, Benny's character attempts to pour out his feelings but his dialogue skips due to the unnecessary editing. As stated, J. Arthur Clinker truly is the fastest film maker in the world. In the first picture in the bottom row, that VHS tape consists of another J. Arthur Clinker 'masterpiece'. This time around it's from one of the Thames TV episodes and it features Benny as a love-struck passenger on a ship. Nicholas Parsons appears as Benny's rival. In this sketch there's a hysterical scene where the line "why didn't you tell me you were a second class passenger?" is shot and re-shot multiple times...each successive take is performed in a much slower tempo than before. If you look close enough, during one of the last slow takes of the phrase, you'll see Benny struggling not to break out laughing.

In some of the collages, as you can see, I posted images of myself next to Benny. On my Facebook page I have an image of myself saluting, as Benny Hill, and I recently took the image and placed it side by side with an image of Benny saluting in the same manner. Some of the collage site's special features enabled me to be somewhat creative but I didn't explore each and every special effect available. Up next is a series of collage's that I put together recently. There's one that I deliberately put together to spotlight the burlesque side of his comedy and the female impressions. I didn't come across any suitable pictures of any of his supporting players in drag although I've got video of sketches that have Jackie Wright all dressed up in high heels and a long wig and one unforgettable sketch featuring Henry McGee in a blue dress, pearl ear rings and matching necklace, and donning a tight curly wig.

This is by no means a complete representation of Benny Hill's female impersonations. At various moments in his programs, both on the BBC and for Thames TV, he often impersonated movie actresses and political figures. Some of the usual targets happened to be Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret Thatcher, and Mae West. In the four pictures to the left, Benny is dressed up as non-celebrities. Often the females happened to be nags or holier-than-thou...or scheming gold-diggers. In his series of commercial parodies he often played the part of the housewife demonstrating numerous items found in the kitchen, laundry, or the bathroom. One of the BBC sketches featured Benny as both Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and later as Mae West and W.C. Fields. Much later, during the Thames TV era, Benny brought back his impression of Mae West and W.C. Fields many more times in comical encounters. As far as the female vocals it typically depended on the kind of female. Most of the nagging wives had a high pitched, irritated voice. The snooty females all had a similar vocalization that played into that type...complete with haughty laughter and an arrogant demeanor about themselves and others. The larger picture seems to come from a soap opera spoof...and in those sketches Benny played the females as overly dramatic and prone to breaking into tears very easily. In that larger image the character looks as if she's thinking of some sort of scheme to either break up a relationship or enter into one. The image at the top left appears as if Benny applied the snooty/aristocratic vocalization to that character.

I don't have any information as to the year this picture happened to originate but based on the light colored shirt and his hair I'd say this is from an interview session he did at some point in 1990 or 1991. There's a VHS tape titled Benny Hill: The World's Favorite Clown, which surfaced in 1991. I have the VHS tape and I also have it on DVD. It's a special bonus feature on one of the A&E releases. There's another documentary on Benny that also makes an appearance as a bonus feature on another A&E disc. That particular documentary originally aired as part of A&E's Biography series, hosted by Peter Graves. The official title of that episode is called Benny Hill: Laughter and Controversy. In each documentary surviving supporting players and behind the scenes people give their thoughts on Benny and near the end of each documentary the supporting players offer their feelings on the shabby treatment his career received at the end of his life by television critics (ironically those that lived in England) and the accusations his humor obtained by a host of younger comics in England at the time. Benny, himself, takes part in the 1991 documentary and offers his thoughts of Thames TV ending his contract. He doesn't say anything too harsh but others do. In addition to those documentaries (both of them I strongly recommend) and in addition to the DVDs, there's also several books on the market about Benny. I personally do not have any of those books...I've not come across any review that has convinced me that any of the available books are accurate and lovingly written. I refuse to purchase anything that puts Benny in a negative light.

Let's all mug for the camera, shall we?? I don't necessarily like the idea of being approached by somebody (Benny) whose carrying a syringe. He didn't numb my mouth...the syringe is just for looks I found out. It appears as if the same thing happened to that poor woman (Benny)...she couldn't even tolerate the canned pasta on her table. You can click the smaller collage's for a bigger view. Did Benny Hill have any recurring characters? For those that might be wondering...the answer is yes! In addition to the previously mentioned fastest film-maker, J. Arthur Clinker. Benny also had a long-running character by the name of Fred Scuttle. This character is typically the one that did the backhanded salute across the forehead but the gesture soon started to make it's way onto any sketch regardless of character but it's Scuttle that I happened to see do the gesture the most often during his introductions. Scuttle is often in the sped-up silent sketches, too. Another character is Chow Mein. This character, a parody of the Chinese, often mangled the English language and exchanged in confrontational conversations (most often with Henry McGee). Typically Chow Mein grows frustrated by McGee's inquisitive nature and his habit of repeating everything back to the viewers. This causes Chow to growl in irritated cadence: "why must you repeat e'erything..." followed by the most popular catchphrase, "you stoopid iriot" (English translation: "you stupid idiot!"). Sometimes another supporting player, Bob Todd, appears along side Benny as a character named Cookie Boy (a cook at one of Chow Mein's fictional restaurants). Another long running character, Ted Tingle, often appeared as a storyteller and a poet...delivering poems and patter song with a thick Cockney accent.

I hope more and more people discover Benny Hill as time goes by. Thanks to the internet it's easy to search for his comedy and seek out others that enjoyed his humor for the sheer happiness it brought. To over-think and over-analyze Benny's style of humor is doing a disservice to it's intention. It's not hard hitting, satiric humor in the same category of those that are in the David Frost tradition. Benny's humor allows one to embrace their inner silliness and laugh at life's experiences and see the absurdity in a lot of everyday situations. In his own kind of way he was a trailblazer...he's one of the first British comics to explore television's capabilities. Benny may have been the only British comic of his generation to embrace television and not look at it in a scornful manner (as film and stage comics tended to do).

Simply put, Benny's humor will last as long as people enjoy laughing.

Benny Hill: 1924-1992

Benny Hill...a Further Celebration...

A couple of years ago I did a blog post about a DVD release that's referred to as a Mega-Set. The collection contains comedy sketches and songs lifted from Benny Hill's television programs for Thames Television (1969-1989). The selling price is still rather high...even nearly 2 years later...but I did write a blog entry about the Mega-Set complete with the titles of each DVD installment. A and E had been releasing Benny Hill DVD's under the title of The Naughty Early Years- Benny Hill: Complete and Unadulterated. There were three volumes released with that title in the mid-late 2000's. Each DVD represented a specific time-frame. The first Volume, which I have, represents the years of 1969 through 1971. Volume 2, the other one I have, represents the years of 1972 through 1974. Two important documentaries on Benny Hill appear as extra's. On Set 1 there's the celebrity-driven tribute titled The World's Favorite Clown which features interviews and footage of Hill during his final years. On Set 2, DVD 3, there's the episode of A&E's Biography focusing on his life, career, and social impact in Europe, America, and all over the globe titled Benny Hill: Laughter and Controversy. I'll post some more pics further down the blog entry. I didn't purchase any of the other DVD's in the A&E series because there was lack of publicity for them and by the time I found out that more Volumes had been released I searched for them on Amazon and the selling price was a bit too much at that point in time. Volume Four, titled The Hill's Angels Years, represents 1979 through 1981 and the selling price for that particular release is only $18.51...down considerably from it's original selling price in 2006 of $49.95. Volume Five, also titled The Hill's Angels Years, represents 1982 through 1985. This particular volume is not in stock but used copies are available for as low as $14.00. The last Volume, set 6, concentrates on the final three years, 1986-1989.

For quick reference: The first three sets are referred to The Naughty Early Years and the second three sets are called The Hill's Angels Years.

Benny Hill DVD Megaset This link will take you to my 2010 blog entry when I wrote about the then upcoming Mega-Set. I didn't post any images from my personal collection but this time around, as you can see, I decided to do so.

For a lot of people in the United States, Benny Hill didn't hit the airwaves until 1979 and when he did the show was often scheduled in a late-night slot and in some places it aired numerous times during the overnight hours. I assume a reason for this was because the program was an import from another country and another reason was that it was syndicated which left it's air-time in the lap of local stations that carried the show. I don't recall ever seeing an episode of his show any earlier than 11pm. During summer break from school I'd be a night-owl and would see his show on a couple of television stations. Each program that had aired on the same night, but on different channels, were different...a perfect example of the unique aspect of Benny's programs that aired in America. The America broadcasts were compilations of sketches that appeared originally in the television specials that Hill put together throughout the '70s and '80s. As it's been pointed out by several people more knowledgeable about television programming than I am, a typical half-hour Benny Hill program in America could feature a sketch from 1973 followed by a sketch from 1982 and then followed by a song/poem recitation from 1976. The sketches were all strung together, edited flawlessly, and presented as if it were an actual live production. Each episode would end with Benny, in character, being chased by a crowd of people to the tune of Boots Randolph's rendition of "Yakety Sax". The two VHS videos in this picture were released by HBO in the 1980's when his syndicated program in America was in it's peak. I have several more VHS tapes that HBO released but those are the first two I purchased in the late '90s from an outlet mall that specialized in selling VHS tapes...it was right around the time DVD's were just starting to become the preferred choice and so a lot of the tapes were selling for incredibly low prices. I bought all my Vincent Price horror movies, well, 95% of them, from that same outlet store...but that's another topic altogether!

I purchased these particular VHS tapes because I had never seen his BBC material. These three VHS videos are filled with hilarity and show a younger Benny Hill...from the early and mid '60s...experimenting and having all kinds of fun with the recording and audio techniques of the day. He'd been doing television specials since 1951 but it wasn't until later that decade that he began appearing with more and more frequency. These VHS tapes were released in the late 1990's and a DVD set became available in 2005. One of the highlights on practically any episode is when he tackles other celebrities...from those in England to those in Canada and America. A lot of the BBC episodes feature topical humor, too, which will perhaps go over a lot of people's heads. I didn't understand quite a few of the jokes that got thunderous applause and laughter until I did some research. There's an uproariously funny parody of the American series, Bonanza, featured on one of the tapes. The parody is titled Bo-Peep. The straight-man during these BBC shows was Jeremy Hawk but because these shows weren't reran and shown all over the world he isn't as well remembered as a Benny Hill cast-member; but Jeremy Hawk was a good straight-man...he rarely, if ever, broke up on camera. I don't think Henry McGee ever cracked a bit of laughter while working in the sketches (unless it was scripted). There was a scene that takes place during breakfast and Hill, apparently ad-libbing based on McGee's reaction, quotes a line from a cereal commercial that McGee appeared on. The camera shows a glimpse of McGee in near-laughter but he pulls himself back together before completely breaking up. One of the funniest sketches among the many was an offering called 'Hotel Sordide' which had been used as the name of a couple of other sketches...but in this particular one Hill plays a French waiter in the hotel who delivers food to a couple who are obviously not husband and wife but are seeing one another in secret. Hill, whose character can hardly speak any English, ends up mixed in with the lovers spat as Henry McGee and the woman in the sketch scream at one another about cheating, affairs, poor sexual performance and stuff like that there. It's a very funny sketch and one that I assume took place in the late '70s.

A look at Hill's years at the BBC can be explored further Here. On April 20th the BBC took a look back at Hill's career on the 20th anniversary of his death. Their information can be found Here. 

This VHS is something that I bought because the back of the cover shown some screen shots featuring Benny in sketches that I hadn't seen at that point in time. I was way more familiar with his late '70s and early '80s sketches that were on the HBO videos...I hadn't seen the earliest of the Thames material (1969-1975) and so I purchased this VHS. I loved the sketches that I saw and it wasn't too long afterward that the A&E company began releasing their Benny Hill DVD series which I wrote about at the top of this blog entry. When I purchased the A and E set I was introduced to complete episodes of his shows. His programs ran like your standard variety show: songs, dances, comedy sketches...but I was so used to the edited sketch formula of the syndicated series in America that it was like watching a completely different show. In many episodes there would be a musical number performed by a group known as The Ladybirds. These music performances never appeared in the America broadcasts (1979-1989) and they hadn't appeared on the HBO video tapes or the one you see in the image above. So, when I saw the clips in The Best of Benny Hill tape and then the full episodes on Sets 1 and 2 of the A and E company, in addition to the 3-Volume set of the BBC material and those HBO released video tapes, I felt as if my viewing of all things Benny Hill was complete...and then came the Mega-Set in 2007...combining all the A and E DVD releases in one collection...and then that Mega-Set was re-released in 2010 with new cover art but same selling price.

In the documentaries I wrote of earlier you'll learn about Benny's childhood, his comic influences, his rise to stardom, and his personal life...and you'll hear candid commentary from his supporting cast on their experiences working on Benny's programs and working with the man himself. Since the Thames material is what's more well-known all over the world that's mostly what appears in the documentaries...with a clip or two from the BBC shows added in to highlight his earliest performances on television. Hill had a regular cast of supporting players in all of his shows. The one that gets the most attention is Jackie Wright, the Irish comedian known by millions of Benny Hill fans as the "little bald man in the Benny Hill sketches" who is forever being slapped on the head and kicked in the rear by any number of cast-members...mostly by Hill but there's been times when any number of Hill's Angels have slapped and kicked Jackie Wright, too. Often, Hill's character would do something naughty toward one of the Angel's and, in error, the Angel would take her anger out on innocent bystander, Jackie Wright.

One of the most popular sketches that would surface at various times during the Thames Television run (1969-1989) would involve Hill at a bus stop wearing a trench coat and at first glance it would appear that he was holding up a newspaper as if he's reading it. Standing in the middle of Hill and Wright, in the same bus line, would be one of the Hill's Angels. Seconds later the woman would shriek, touch her bottom as she reacted to being pinched, and because Hill's hands were supposedly occupied holding up the newspaper, the woman would slap Jackie Wright, instead. After another incident involving a female in line at the bus stop, the woman would storm off after slapping Jackie Wright. These kinds of sketches were often played in mime fashion...usually with an up-tempo instrumental playing in the background. The loud slaps and other sound-effects were inserted, obviously, for comic effect. The mime/fast-paced chase routines that appeared regularly enabled many of his skits to transcend the language barrier, too.

I don't know too much about the BBC cast other than Jeremy Hawk and Patricia Hayes appearing frequently in the programs. In some of the earliest Thames episodes Nicholas Parsons was Hill's straight-man. Henry McGee remained the permanent straight-man, though, and remained a fixture on all of Hill's subsequent programs. Bob Todd often appeared. He was the big guy who also had hardly any hair. Sue Upton and Louise English were a couple of the Hill's Angels that have become synonymous with the series...but I don't know the names of any of the others off the top of my head....but....

I came across a web-site called Benny's Place and for those who want in-depth analysis and information about all things Benny Hill as well as the names of his cast-members through the years click the following Link. Along the left side of the page you'll see pics of Benny as different characters as well as pics of other cast-members, too. 

Nicholas Parsons is still among the living and heard regularly on radio. June Whitfield, who appeared on a few of the BBC specials, is also still among the living. The main cast is no longer living. Jackie Wright passed away in January 1989 but had stopped appearing on Hill's specials in 1983. Bob Todd passed away in October of 1992. Patricia Hayes, also from the BBC era, passed away in September 1998. Jeremy Hawk passed away in January 2002. Henry McGee passed away in January 2006...     

Benny Hill passed away on April 20, 1992. This salute, used many times by Hill in his programs, is one of his most recognizable. It didn't really matter which hand he used...whether right or left...it was sure to appear during any number of sketches revolving around his character, Fred Scuttle.