 The Benny Hill Show
1 9 5 5 - 1 9 5 7 (UK)
1 9 6 1 - 1 9 8 9 (UK)
British TV's saucy comedian with a flair for smutty
jokes and slapstick routines. Old Fred Scuttle himself . . .
While many British comedians of the 50s and 60s simply
transferred their talents to TV, Benny Hill was the first comic to be
purely a product of television He went on to become a British
institution.
The Benny Hill Show has been screened by
every major channel in the world, it has won a British Academy Best
Comedy Show Award and television's top entertainment prize, the Golden
Rose of Montreux. Common themes in the show were the husband-beating
wife, buxom women, and silent, high-speed chase scenes between Hill
and the other characters. Sketches, zany monologues and cheeky
songs blended with fast moving comic sequences. His songs and rhymes
were rendered with the cheeky look of a happy idiot that constantly
broke into a leer.
Benny was aided by his regular ensemble (hardly an
episode went by without Henry McGee and Jack Wright) and the famous
Hills Angels (who were without doubt my personal favorites!). He was
always at his best when sending up television itself, particularly
commercials for soap powder and washing-up liquid.
 
During the sixties, Benny also appeared in a number of
my favorite films: In 1965 he featured as the Fire Chief in Those
Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, in 1968 he played
the Toymaker in Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang . In 1969 Benny played the computer expert
in the classic The Italian
Job. In 1970 he joined Thames TV for a series of one hour
specials. As usual he wrote all the material, songs and sketches along
with his now regular cast of 'extras' . His top TV show was mirrored
by a number one in the pop charts with Ernie (The Fastest Milkman
in the West) which was the Christmas hit that year, and stayed in
the charts for 17 weeks.
 In
1979, he finally conquered America. His fame in the US was such that a
1988 survey of Florida schoolchildren revealed that, although many of
them did not know London was the capital of England, they all
associated one person with Britain: Benny Hill. A riot once broke
out in a California jail when prisoners were prevented from watching
his show, and a US Mafia boss only agreed to do a documentary
interview with Thames Television on condition that they arranged for
Benny to do a stint at the mobster's Las Vegas casino!
The Benny Hill Show was always a late night
treat for me and it did my little 12 year old heart good! If the
truth be known, I watched the show primarily for the scantily clad
young lovelies and (hopefully) a crafty glimpse of boob (but then
probably at least 80% of his viewing audience did too!)
The forces of political correctness finally had their
way in 1989 when Thames Television cancelled the program due to
complaints about its smuttiness and because its old-fashioned sexism
had become increasingly intolerable. Although there was no sign of his
popularity waning, Thames refused to renew his contract and after 34
years his show came to an end.
Although over the next three years he often talked
in interviews about a comeback, it was to be the end of his career.
He died alone in his frugal London apartment of a heart attack on
April 20, 1992, aged 67.
   
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