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.

Hee Haw: 1969-1992, Part Nineteen...

Hello all!! It's been awhile since I've posted a blog about Hee Haw. A big reason for that is because there hasn't been many clips uploaded on YouTube that have inspired me to post a blog...there's been nothing too obscure that's surfaced until now. Since my last blog post about the program I'm no longer receiving RFD-TV. The economy's caused us to downgrade our cable service and so we had to get rid of some of the packages that have additional costs and RFD-TV was part of a premium channel package. Hopefully, at some point, we'll add on the extra expense but for the time being it's not part of our cable line-up.

Enough about that...the main reason for this blog entry has to do with an episode of Hee Haw from September 1989!! In fact, it's the first episode of the 1989-1990 season. A fan of Barbara Mandrell has it on their YouTube channel and being a fan of the program I decided to share it with you all.

Barbara Mandrell, the Gatlin Brothers, T. Graham Brown, and soap opera star Jim DePaiva are the guests. At the time Jim and cast member Misty Rowe were husband and wife (the 2 married in 1986 and divorced in 1995).

The Kornfield segment isn't the same as it used to be. In times past they'd deliver 3 or 4 one-liner jokes in succession with a banjo playing in the background. On the later episodes they'd insert one single Kornfield joke at various times throughout the episode and it didn't include the banjo music in the background. As you'll see in the opening credits they paired the large cast in the introductions. This had become standard procedure in the mid '80s to shorten (?) the length of the cast member introduction. In this particular episode Roni Stoneman is paired with Gailard Sartain in the intro (instead of being paired off with Gordie Tapp...he's paired off with Lulu Roman). Also, Roy didn't wear the traditional bibs and overalls like some of the other cast members continued to do. He still continued to dress unmistakeably 'country' with the blue jeans, t-shirts, and the fashionable large belt buckle...but the hayseed look had disappeared. In one scene you'll see him in a black suit and a tie.

It's almost like the program was taking baby steps (intentionally or accidentally) into becoming the overhaul that surfaced in January 1992 where the Kornfield was gone and everybody dressed in the modern-country fashions instead of the traditional hillbilly attire. The 1989-1990 and 1990-1991 seasons are the final ones where the cast had the hillbilly look and feel (although you can tell from this episode that the 'feel' was fading but it still had a visual presence).

The audio is good and Gary Beatty (the one time voice of TNN) is doing the cast introductions. The video doesn't include the closing credits, though. There's a Tornado watch alert that appears on the lower left hand side of the screen during the first 24 minutes of the program. The time length of the episode is a little more than 45 minutes. The program ran 1 hour, including commercial breaks. 14-15 minutes of ad time for both local and national products and information sounds about right...so I'm assuming this to be a complete episode.  

And now, from September 16, 1989...ENJOY...