Benny Hill final years

I remember that one. From his parody of Supersonic, as on his April 21, 1976 show. His impersonation of Roy Orbison in that sketch was especially eerie, since at the time the show was taped and aired Hill was 52 - the same age as Orbison was at the time of his death in '88.

 

Not all "Alternative" comedians hate benny hill, at the end of this clip, Stephen Fry says something very touching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCTjL9zlaWA

Not one awful thing about Benny is said in this video, everything is positive, and this is a highly succesfull "intellectual" show.

 

Some of his stuff was brilliant a lot was awful. He was way past his sell by date when Ben Elton killed him.

 

The later years were, for the most part, indeed pathetic. I've always said that the energy level (or lack thereof) reminded me of the final years of Jackie Gleason's show (from after he moved to Florida in 1964), or of The Dean Martin Show after his divorce from second wife Jeannie in 1970, or Lucille Ball starting within a few years of The Lucy Show (and every successive program she did, right up to her very short-lived Life With Lucy), or Bob Hope's last few years of specials for NBC. The "repetition" factor was cited in the Funny, Peculiar bio by John Howard Davies as one of the justifications for letting Mr. Hill go (that, and the way out-of-control budgets per show that were of inverse proportion to the declining audience figures). Benny and his cast effectively "phoning it in," acting on autopilot, with a rote "been-there-done-that" approach, made the repetition factor especially deadly.

One point about repetition in comedy was made by, of all people, William Henry III in his book The Great One: The Life and Legend of Jackie Gleason. While he was specifically referring to Gleason's repetition of whole gags, sketches, etc., from the 1950's on his 1962-66 American Scene Magazine (" . . . the program allowed Jackie to repeat the same shticks, the same gestures, sometimes literally the same sketches he had been doing for a dozen years or more"), he may as well have been speaking about Benny Hill, and in particular the later years of his show (post-1979):

Hill was able to do this effortlessly at the outset of his Thames association in 1969, and within the first decade of his run there.

 

I know I'm referring to comments made almost 5 years ago, but the rise of 'alternative' comedy, particularly in the form of the slick and egotistical Ben Elton, dictating what should and shouldn't be found amusing, had more to do with this than the godawful Thatcher.

Personally, I kind of liked Hill's juvenile smutty sense of humour, but only in small doses. As for Elton, I quite like some of Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line, but generally, meh...

 

Milligan was a genius. Hill isn't - wasn't - even in the same league - but he has his moments.

 

I never said Benny was a genius.......

Milligan was a minor diety though, BBC IPlayer Radio has some of his shows from the 60s, they sail very close to the wind, completely unacceptable to politically correct Guardianists, Im amazed they are unedited.

 

I would agree with that for 1981 to 1983, but once he toned down the Hill's Angels in 1984 he started to get slowly back into the swing of things. No, it wasn't as good as his golden years, but there was still some gems in the 1984 to 1989 era. Though no show post 1980 seemed to be 100% gold from start to finish has his pre 1980 material was.

1980, although the start of decline, was still a good year IMO, with some good material. My problem, especially starting with 1981, is that instead of a great well done and hilarious movie or tv parody, he replaced them with 10 minutes of "sexy" dancing and cheap gags. I find myself skipping the Hill's Angel's segments. I also thought the 1980's saw a dip in his opening songs as well, quite a few are quite boring, the only highlights I can think of are The Gypsy Dance from 1981 and The Town of Costa-Coco from 1985, and even those aren't of the heights of, say the opener for Feb. 22, 1973 which was full of energy and one of his funniest songs.

 

The formula of the Angels' routines, especially the earliest ones (namely the juxtaposition of pulchritude and the male cast members' reactions), seemed to me a wee bit derivative of the string of cartoons Tex Avery made for MGM in the 1940's (starting with Red Hot Riding Hood and continuing through The Shooting of Dan McGoo, Swing Shift Cinderella, Wild and Woolfy and Uncle Tom's Cabana before it all came to an end with Little Rural Riding Hood) which pivoted on the outlandish reactions of (mostly) a lascivious wolf over a sexy redheaded chanteuse singing in a nightclub. Certainly Hill "stole" from Avery on quite a few occasions, especially in the '80's - the "hair in the projection gate" gag from Avery's Magical Maestro (1952) finding its way to, of all things, a Hill chase sequence from April 25, 1984; and Avery's "split screen" gag from The Bear's Tale (1940) appropriated for a scene in Hill's March 31, 1986 nighttime soap spoof "The Herd."

 

There was also Benny's bizarre rant against the accusation of sexism that appeared in one of his late 1980s shows. The airing of that, which was probably down to Hill, most likely helped end the run of the show.

 

Oh man this Benny hospital sketch always has me crying with laughter...... http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xy9byr_benny-hill-st-john-thomas-hospital_fun

 

Ah, the days of being 10-11 years old, staying up late on a Friday night after Mom went to bed to watch Benny Hill on an independent St. Louis station to see if I could catch a quick glimpse of a topless woman in a random outdoor shower scene. I was always surprised U.S. censors allowed it.

 

My Mom could be a bit of a prude, when she wanted to be. She did not approve of me watching Benny at all when I was a pre-teen/young teenager. Dad would always stay up late on Friday & Saturday nights to watch Benny after the news. Mom would always go to bed as soon as sports came on the news. So, I'd just wait for her to go to bed, then I'd go downstairs where Dad was, and he would always let me watch it with him. It didn't take too long for her to figure out that I watching it, but she never said anything.

And, yes, my 12 year old self really looked forward to the occasional nudity.

 

And the stream goes up and down as the garderner gets bored - making it look like Benny is writing his name - LOL

Then Benny comes back around the corner - with perfect timing (just after the garden hose is turned off).

I can't say I watched that show much - but I know the exact scene you are describing !!! LOL

 

We named our littlest dog Liberace, because he was the peein-ist.

 

One of his later day monologues, I believe this is from 1986. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xy9bl5_the-benny-hill-show-1986_fun

I've always found it quite odd that for some reason, from 1984 onwards, he started to age quite rapidly. Prior to that, he looked at least 5 years younger than his actual age, for example, in 1980 he was 56, and yet he looked about five years younger. For example fellow comedian Ronnie Barker who was only 50 in 1980, was already looking a lot older and getting wrinklier, yet Benny still looked pretty youthful at that stage and could easily pass off being in his mid to late 40's.

Hmm, just random thought.

 

Benny ruled!!

 

Yes. Yes he did.

 

Sort of like Jackie Gleason, in the 1969-70 season of his variety show (which would be its last), after he lost a great deal of weight, appearing to have aged rapidly even though, at the start of that season, he was only 53. As late as 1967 or '68, while still in the ~300 pound range, Gleason still looked relatively ageless given his penchant for fast living. (I say this because in the few shows I saw of his 1968-69 season, his face looked especially puffy and bloated.)

But as for Hill, this aging rapidly after 1984 would have dovetailed with the point at which rehearsals for his show switched to a room at a pub which was located 5 minutes away from the Teddington studios; his past habit of crash-dieting before every new series of specials all but went out the window, with Benny indulging in roast beef salad with thick slices of beef (this, per Mark Lewisohn's Funny, Peculiar bio) which led to his invariably piling on the pounds - and more ominously, developing what in hindsight would be called a drinking problem (a.k.a. alcoholism, which many in his entourage denied he had) - encouraged to the hilt by his producer/director/enabler Dennis Kirkland. And this, even though Hill had only one kidney. He also had recurring ulcers from 1983 onwards.

 

I don't hate or really dislike Dennis Kirkland, but I think he should've never taken over as Producer.

 

This appears to have a quickie which wasn't featured in his Thames specials, it's at the start of a Best of Benny series from 1981, so everything has to be from then or earlier, and I've seen all 1981 and before that at the very least twice and have no recollection of ever seeing the sketch featured here:



It then cuts to the 1978 logo (used for the DVD Annuals) and opens with the 1973 tune "A Letter From Your Father".

 

I think I saw that quickie on his Dec. 26, 1978 special.

 

That's the one that, around point 5:23, has the gag lifted from Magical Maestro (around point 4:17):
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23xe0v_magical-maestro-1952-tex-avery-cartoon_tv

 

Your right, I can't believe I didn't remember it.

 

Interesting comments from Ben Elton following the death of Hill. Clive Anderson calls Elton out quite a lot.