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...