Posted on 05/23/2006 10:11:50 AM PDT by pissant
May 23, 2006 - At one point Benny Hill was planet Earth's most popular comedian. At its peak, The Benny Hill Show was broadcast in over one hundred different countries. Borrowing a page from the big book of restaurant advertisement, one hundred different country-sized customers can't be wrong. And they're not. Hill is hilarious.
On a side note, the somewhat puzzling thing about this globe-spanning fact is the language barrier. Many of Hill's sketches focus on puns and play on words in the English language ("I'm not against naked women... not as often as I'd like to be.") - I have no idea if the stuff would translate properly. I assume that for the international broadcasts the language gags were cut out and only the fast-paced physical comedy was kept.
In many ways that is Hill's greatest strength: he was very funny on two levels. He could please audiences of both brows, low and high. While not everyone may get a chuckle out of Hill's opening songs ("One day when he was high he saw a sign that said 'Drink Canada Dry' and the damn fool went up and tried it."), but nobody, and I mean nobody, can resist a short bald man with ice-cream cones stuck to his head. Benny makes the most of his seventy-year-old whipping-boy, that's for sure.
The ten shows on this set are more or less the same, in terms of format, as those found on previous A&E releases. Each episode runs for approximately fifty minutes, begins with a song (always with Benny surrounded by young, writhing women), and ends with the classic "Benny Hill song" chase.
Making their debut in these episodes were the Hill's Angels; a group of Benny's female costars who knew how to move around in leotards like nobody's business. In an attempt to capture some of the success of Hot Gossip, a similarly scantily-clad British group, Hill and his new producer Dennis Kirkland used these women to titillate a good chunk of the world's male population.
Taking a close look at this set you'll notice that it contains all of the episodes produced between 1978 and 1981; there's only ten of them. Yes, as is common of British television, not many episodes were produced - in 1979 he only made two shows - but in this case it was on purpose. Rather than risk weakening his comedy in an effort to turn out as many shows as possible, Hill chose to take his time until he was satisfied.
It's here that we come to the show's weakness (which also happens to be its strength): it's written by just one person, Benny Hill. A sole authorship of a television series can give a program a wonderful cohesiveness, but it also limits the range of the material.
For example, in the episodes found on this set Hill introduces a new character: Gaston Le Clerc, a young Parisian child that speaks with a heavy French accent. The joke is the fact that the man interviewing him always interprets the kid's sayings in the wrong way. The kid will say, "I see a lot of pretty ladies sitting on the grass and I can see their pink knickers... " the interviewer will raise an eyebrow and the kid will clarify, "I can see they are a pink knickers because they are having a pink-nick. " It's funny, but the gag is identical to the one used with the Chow Mein character.
It must be very difficult to come up with wholly new material for a show when only one person is writing it. Considering that by the '80s Hill had been writing for television for over two decades, it's not surprising that after you watch a number of episodes back-to-back you pick up on the recycled jokes.
That being said, there is still enough new and clever material to keep you from stifling a yawn. One particularly clever gag was the idea that the characters in a bunch of television sets could interact with one another. Hill's character looks "up" to the TV above him and notices the Hill's Angels dancing around, so he blows upwards in order to cause their skirts to flutter. Nowadays such gags don't seem too revolutionary, but at the time Hill was on the forefront of playing with the capabilities of the television medium (using split-screen, running footage backwards, etc.,)
You'll get the most enjoyment out of this set if you're a long-time Benny Hill fan or if you watch the episodes at a leisurely pace. There's a lot of great stuff here, but it does tend to grow stale after a while. Then again, that complaint holds for modern-day sketch shows as well. While the episodes on this set don't sizzle with the wit and energy they had during the '70s, they still remind you that puns, women in their underwear, and chase sequences, set to that classic music, are always funny.
Explains a lot. ;)
Leo Sayer?
LOL. It does indeed. As you can tell, I did too!
If Leo had half the talent of Benny when it came to songwriting...
I mostly watched it for the babes in garter belts and stockings.
The physical comedy was great, as was the skit comedy. His singing was another matter entirely! :)
My dad and I would watch it and my mom would get up and leave the room. She just didn't see any humor in Benny Hill.
I think Benny was responsible for introducing many a 12 year old to lingerie.
My wife can't stand him. Then again, she doesn't know why I watch the 3 Stooges either.
He chose "Benny" as his stage name because of his appreciation for Jack Benny.
later read
It's a toss-up. LOL
I did not know that. But I certainly understand.
Oooohhhhhh, she's bonny. BONNY!
We've had boring threads about Dixie Chicks and Madonna for the past three days. Now we have something that is relevant, Benny Hill.
The Stooges is a man thing. I have only meet woman who "tolerate" the Stooges.
My mom had a great sense of humor, it was just she saw nothing funny about slapping the old guy on the head, chasing women around in fast motion, etc...
I have to confess to not understanding 40% of what he says. But the other 60% makes up for it.
Women tend to have a flawed sense of humor.
My idea of television heaven would be Red Skelton, The Three Stooges, Lucille Ball, Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, and Benny Hill. Wow, he was a really funny man! ( I forgot to mention George Gobel)
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