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.
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...
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!
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.
