Often benny hill is remembered for only chasing around girls in bikinis, it’s easy to forget how clever he was. I think this clip is a great example of this. Hilarious, if you’ve seen the original film of course!!
And even the 'Benny Hill chasing the girls around' memory is actually a perfect example of the Mandela Effect. During every show-closing segment, Hill's character would accidentally annoy said scantily-clad women (by innocently entering their changing-room, for example) and then THEY chased HIM. Moreover, it was not because he was irresistible, but because they were angry at him. Otherwise, the skit-show's sleazy male characters were always the butt of the joke.
A wonderfully rumbly, grumbly Burton-esque voice from BH. In the UK he was later pilloried for being un-PC, by half-wits who called themselves Alternative Comedians. Well, few of them were remotely funny but BH's best bits were clever, inventive and innovative, as well as being hilarious.
Unfortunately too much of his material was sexist slapstick low grade nonsense - and that’s what went against him. This was tremendous tho. Pity he didn’t stick with this really clever stuff all the time - he’d be right up there with the best had that been the case.
England does not have the monopoly on PC comics. We got WAAAAY too many Stateside...
5 лет назад
British comedy is far different than American comedy. Benny Hill, & Monty Python were gems, provided you understand British humor. Once you do, it's completely addictive.
@@RikiNewtonMusicianSongwriter Yes, sadly the quality of Benny Hill's material did plummet mid eighties, with all the tits & ass stuff. I think he (or more likely, his producers/ITV), were unduly influenced by another, very popular ITV comedy show of the time, 'The Kenny Everett Video Show' which exploited the sex appeal of young women for populist, cheap laughs. But Benny Hill was such a gifted guy. Better scripts & Benny Hill's legacy would be right up there with the best of the best. Though it likely still is regardless of these duff scripts, because he is practically a one-off among British comedians who became a superstar in the US (the only others I can think of are Stan Laurel of the legendary 'Laurel and Hardy', and Dudley Moore). This sketch was hilarious - Benny IS Liz & Dick! I loved his Fannie & Johnny Cradocks piss take too, really clever! Like his similarly gifted British comic compatriot Stanley Baxter, Benny did comedy characterisations (some in drag) brilliantly!
Not only did he do a fabulous job as both characters, but those opening credits are a hilarious satire of when a widescreen movie is shown on a square TV screen. Really fun stuff.
Benny was way ahead of the curve in criticizing TV stations for such practices (not only what you described, but also showing 16mm films with warbed and wobbly pitch and cutting films to ribbons), long before Siskel & Ebert, Leonard Maltin and Martin Scorsese. Only he made his commentary by spoofing same.
I have to confess I found him too BRITISH and too VULGAR when I was growing up. BUT. I found this VERY funny! Should do some BH reevaluations. My dad LOVED HIM.
BH has passed the ultimate test - the test cf TIME. Will 2day's feeble 'ccmediams'... I believe they will disappear, he had real gifts that made him memcrable.
In his heyday. A pastiche of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" was quite an entertainment feat. Nowadays, it'd have to be a pastiche of an already existing pastiche - i.e. the Kardashians. How low the bar has fallen!
@@daviddd99 I'm gonna sound like an old fart now, but what the hell - I wish today's comic were half as funny and charismatic as stars like Benny Hill, Ronnie Barker and Eric Morecambe. There, I've said it!
@@glamdolly30 Entering my old fart dotage of 55, I can mostly agree. Though there are a few sterling 'youngsters' - if Peter Kaye can be classified as such.
Charlie Chaplin loved Benny Hill and watched him often in his home in Switzerland. Chaplin was a 'child of the music halls' and Benny was the last of a tradition.
Except Benny Hill was actually funny. Chaplin elicits nothing from me but a desire to kick him in his baggy trousers. He exudes the kind of sentimentality that would have been best left in the Victorian era.
@@caulkins69 Well said, Chaplin's 'comedy' has not stood the ultimate test of time - Benny Hill's certainly has. The kings of comedy in Chaplins era were Laurel and Hardy no question. Again their humour hasn't dated and like Benny Hill, they still get belly laughs.
That's very sweet. So sorry for your sad loss. God bless your dear dad, and the equally wonderful Benny Hill. Who knows, maybe they are having a few laughs together in Heaven!
"You remember our wedding night? Gosh, you were so eager you didn't even give me time to take my stockings off." "Tonight you'll have time to knit yourself a pair." LOL
that is so classic comedy I laugh every single time...I can't stop watching it. before I turn off my computer for the night, I have to watch this king of comedy.
When I was a teenager, my dad worked a shift that ended in the evening. He would arrive home a little before 11:00PM when Benny Hill came on in our area. My parents and I would hurry to the living room to watch Benny Hill before we all went to bed. Such wonderful memories of all of us laughing until our sides hurt.
“Did he say anything about that big fat ugly bum of yours”. “No! He never even mentioned your name” I was half watching this playing with my children, but stopped after I heard this. Loved it!.
wonder if Taylor or Burton got to see this.....they would have been rolling on the floor. Thank heaven we still have this to watch and he is not completely gone forever. I feel so badly that he did not get awards and kudos he so well deserved...why do we only appreciate them when the greats are gone?
Your mind does a double take. I remember seeing the film Basquiat (which starred David Bowie as Warhol) and he was so convincing I remember thinking (briefly) how the heck did Andy Warhol feature in this film- he died some years ago didn't he? Face palm!
Nice to know SOME people still have a sense of humor! I've been a BIG fan of Burton's for years and I can still appreciate the humor in this! Some people are just ridiculous PRUDES! Thanks for the comment mate.
Did you get Benny's little dig at how TV stations used to cut off both sides of CinemaScope opening and closing credits? He was way ahead of the curve in criticizing them (not only for that, but also wobbly pitch from warped 16mm films and cutting them to ribbons in such a way that in the end they made no sense in any context), long before Siskel & Ebert and Leonard Maltin and Martin Scorsese, and the film preservationist movement that emerged therefrom. There was an everyday, street-smarts intellectualism in Benny Hill that unfortunately was buried after producer/director Dennis Kirkland turned the program into a de facto Playboy magazine of the air. (How would he have commented in the '80's, but for Kirkland's nefarious influence, on the colorization of old black-and-white movies?)
to this day I don't understand how anyone could have anything against his parodies or any of his work. Ranks up there with Mel Brooks and other comedic geniuses.
@@vikkinicholson2300 - Most who judge Mr. Hill today do so by after Dennis Kirkland took over as producer/director in 1979 and turned the show into a Playboy magazine of the air. I first became a fan due to parodies like this. His show up to that point was equal parts "SCTV," Carol Burnett, early (first two seasons) "SNL," Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton - and even "The Electric Company" (in the blooper sketches where the director yells at an actor who messed up - reminded me of that show's recurring bits with Rita Moreno as a hot-tempered, jodhpur-wearing, megaphone wielding director who exploded any time an actor said a word or line wrong).
My parents were rather staid people, but at 11PM every weeknight I would see them leaning toward the TV, watching Benny's show on the local channel. I could hear their peculiar-sounding laughs exploding regularly until midnight. When I was in elementary school there were kids who liked Benny's show!
Benny has given me more joy than any other person. He doesn't have to do or say anything, and he's still the funniest thing ever. But when he does do and say things, it's almost too brilliant sometimes. Genius.
I use to record his shows years ago (late 70's, yes VCR's) and write down some of his limericks and tell them at parties. Benny was a master of so many things funny! Loved him
Oh just SO funny every time I watch this!! 😂😂😂😂 Especially when I need a good laugh 😆 Poor old UK 🇬🇧 has lost so many funny chaps like Benny, with their wonderful innuendo........ Not forgetting Dick Emery, Morecambe & Wise (Dads Army) and many more.......... Those were in many ways the days of ‘innocence’ Now we have gone to the ‘dogs’..... Everything has changed and NOT necessarily for the better!!! 😡 can’t be doing with all the modern ‘Comedy’.......too much swearing 🤬 for a start And now we have all this political correctness 😡 Very sad ☹️ IMO Thanks for the upload!! 😂😂😂😂🇬🇧💕💕 Oh, PS ......now I also liked Stanley Baxter (still alive I hope!!?) A very clever man, and like Benny etc, good with accents!! 😆😆
Paul was on the 1976 Benny Hill special from which this sketch came from. In that special Paul was filling in the role of straight man for Henry McGee. I remember Paul from those sitcoms you mentioned because they used to air on PBS in the 1980s and 1990s. Even though I think Paul was talented and I liked those sitcoms he appeared in I was disappointed to discover years later that he jumped onto the bandwagon of Benny-bashing and refused to allow his appearances on Benny's 1976 television special to re-air.
20th Century Fo resents a inemascop film Rich Burt and Eliza Tayl in Who's Afraid of Virgin Wool so tarring eve McQueen Dirk Bog gory Peck Roger Moo and rank Sin from the novel That Long Hot Wee In Po
this is the funniest thing I have seen since I don't know when. Benny can literally do justice to anyone....this is GOLD. i will watch this over and over. Wheat a great Taylor and Burton. I wil never stop laughing at this, never. Forget it SNL, MADtv, LIVING COLOR, etc. ,etc........
Really clever script! Very clever and funny use of 'CinemaScope' titles at the beginning 😂. Benny's cadences and mannerisms of Burton and Taylor were spot on!👍
"It's our anniversary." "Oh, it's our anniversary. Biiiiiiig...deal."(lol). "Honey, I have a dog that chases cars, but even if he caught one, he couldn't drive the DAMN THING!"(lol).
