Early Benny Hill

Just watched this show from a TV show called SCTV and it's a thing called "Benny Hill Street Blues". It's mean't to be a mix of Hill Street Blues and benny hill. I admit that it's quite funny, but apart from the hand gag, the rest doesn't even closely resemble the benny hill show. It reminds me more of Kenny Everett.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1Euu_F5w9E

 

They must of not of got the Ernie film over in Aussie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxY3GijCjnY

 

I'm pretty sure that I'd give up on one of my threads long before I posted 13 times in a row without anyone else chiming in...

 

I never give up on any threads, and even if people don't post, at least they look.

 

Just a random though. It's very odd that Benny Hill was the one that was attacked, as he never did anything "out loud" so to speak in his shows. It was always inuendo and never anything really "naughty" happening. Whereas other shows like Dick Emery (going by his 3 Thames specials which included a few Hill players) and Kenny Everett (more his BBC program, not the Thames) were downright in your face with sexual and "sexist" content, with lots of highly sexual content such as breast fondling, sex scenes, and naked women all with the "character" full knowing what he's doing. whereas if anything the similar happened on Hill's show, it was always by accident, and he ended up getting chased angrily for doing something he didn't even mean to do.

 

Benny Hill on Aussie TV circa 1960!!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo98UTCw_h0

This has him singing "Gather In The Mushrooms" one year prior to him recording it and it becoming a hit.

To be honest, he did this sketch far better when he split it into two, 1973's Dalton Abbot Railway Porter Choir and The Singing Firemen from 1976 (which segwayed into Robin Hood).

The little fat lady makes me laugh in this clip, but apart from that, and the aussie's laughing extremely loud, he comes across as rushed and is sadly not in top form.

 

Someone has somehow got away with upload original benny hill show's to youtube. Here's the first one of 1976:

 

It's probably because he was the most famous. He was an easy target. The world knew of Benny whereas unless you were an Anglophile you really didn't know about the other two.

 

Been watching some show's, and have concluded that 1981, 1982, and 1983 are his weakest years, there is very little humor and too much T&A. 1984 seems to get back into the swing of things with Fred Scuttle, not seen since 1980, and just overall seems to slowly go back to to the original format.

 

I thought the Hill's Little Angels years were his weakest.

 

That's 1988 and 1989. Those little kids are pretty bad, but the comedy was getting back into the swing of things, even with Chow Mein appearing after like 5 years.

 

Skip to 8:49 and you'll see John Cleese do a Benny Hill gag on Python:

 

Lennon doing Fred Scuttle:

 

'82 and '83 seemed to see Mr. Hill essentially mailing it in, not unlike Jackie Gleason after he moved his entire show and entourage to Florida in 1964. Essentially where it's obvious he's performing by rote, with a "been there, done that" quality.

 

I don't know if this was mentioned before, but Davies also produced the first four episodes - and served as film director for the fifth - of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Only one supporting bit performer received screen credit on both shows (if we're talking Benny's Thames years here): Nosher Powell, who appeared on the Feb. 24, 1971 Hill show in the original "Undercover Sanitary Inspector" sketch (doubling in the fight sequence for not only Hill and Bob Todd, but even Lesley Goldie!), and then the "Dennis Moore" episode of Python in 1973 (as "Jack Bodell").

 

goodiesguy, have you seen this clip from one of Benny's Australian shows from 1960?

 

Yes, a fabulous clip! I wish there was more of it around. It's rumored he did quite a few of those in the early 60s.

 

I stumbled across this picture completely by accident when looking at stuff about ABC's Oh Boy (the original british Shindig! on the british ABC).

 

Benny has an eye for big busted women... My kind of guy...

 

18 May 1974: British comedian Benny Hill(R) being interviewd at the Rediffusion Studio in Clemenceau Avenue. Photo: Mazlan Badron / The Straits Times



And from 1989 a promo picture of him and Sue Upton as Laurel & Hardy:

 

And Paul Hogan's hilarious Hawaii Five O send-up done Benny Hill style:

 

More pictures crop up, so here's some interesting ones:

 

Just found this thread (I don't get much to the Visual Arts section anymore) and you've given me a great idea of what to do with my wasted weekend of laying at home on the couch trying to heal from an injury. I'm going to finally break out those A&E box sets of mine and revisit these shows. When Benny was good, he was great, and I think he deserves more credit than many give him.

 

Those A&E sets (at least the first two) seem to have some weird digital blocking in one corner or the other on almost every episode. Had the same problem on multiple players. Can't see how that got past QC.