Wife Swap

[Contrarian]

Remembering Benny Hill classics.

         

[Steveboy]

Remembering Benny Hill classics.

         

I liked Benny Hill I must of been about 10 years old or so when he was on TV.. They would never allow him to be on TV today not in today's sad world all those days are long gone .. Love thy neighbour was a good one..

[Contrarian]

Steve, I was thinking the exact same thing. How Benny Hill could never make it onto TV today, yet he's exactly what this World needs.

Real comedy and if the PC brigade doesn't like it, f&^% em. 

[AvHdB]

The States had its own version. Still quite funny. Absolutely not politically correct.

[AvHdB]

A while ago in The States there was humour.

[BillyB]

When I was in the army in the early 90's and arrived in a new unit, one of my roommates was a big black guy. Being half asian, he always called me "Chink" which is like using the N word on a black person. I shrugged it off as him testing me to see what I'm made of because I'm the new guy. A few weeks after arriving, a soldier in our unit told me never to call my roommate "Boy". I asked why and he said "Boy" is what white people called male slaves over a hundred years ago. Once someone called him that, he went into a rage and beat the guy up. I thanked the solder for the tip. Next time I entered the room, the black guy said how you doing Chink? I responded "What did you say boy?" He laughed and we became good friends.

[Steveboy]

When I was in the army in the early 90's and arrived in a new unit, one of my roommates was a big black guy. Being half asian, he always called me "Chink" which is like using the N word on a black person. I shrugged it off as him testing me to see what I'm made of because I'm the new guy. A few weeks after arriving, a soldier in our unit told me never to call my roommate "Boy". I asked why and he said "Boy" is what white people called male slaves over a hundred years ago. Once someone called him that, he went into a rage and beat the guy up. I thanked the solder for the tip. Next time I entered the room, the black guy said how you doing Chink? I responded "What did you say boy?" He laughed and we became good friends.

Im not bothered what people call me! More important things to worry about.. If I was out in some bar and a colored guy said "hey snowflake pass me the vinegar " I would .. Of course if he called me ****nt or something well that's a a different matter .. I see no harm in fun banter and so on.. I got an Indian friend here and Turkish .. Turkish Nic name "Kabab" so what?? Its offensive? To who? people need to lighten up a little..

[Texan77]

I thought people here might find this funny.

[andrewfi]

I confess, even as a sprout I found Love Thy Neighbour to be uncomfortable viewing. I can only imagine that some of the cast members badly needed the money!

[B.B.]

Steve, I was thinking the exact same thing. How Benny Hill could never make it onto TV today, yet he's exactly what this World needs.

Real comedy and if the PC brigade doesn't like it, f&^% em. 

Benny Hill was arguably one of the first victims of cancel culture.  Pity as he was quite a comic talent, if not to everyone's taste.  Bernard Manning also comes to mind - he hit on ALL of the comedy third rails, particularly race - although when interviewed his Indian neighbor said he was always a good neighbor.

B/B

[andrewfi]

I only saw Bernard Manning live on one occasion. He was great. It was at a club up near Sheffield.

I think that Love Thy Neighbour was bad because it was lazy. It was a lazy concept backed up by lazy writing.
The actors were actually all good. I wouldn't mind betting that for Nina Baden Semple and Rudolph Walker decent roles were hard to come by at the time so regular work was regular work.

Just compare an episode of that show with a Bernard Manning set.

Benny Hill was an important part of my sexual maturation - particular his female sidekick Jenny Lee Wright.

Deffo not part of cancel culture, he snuffed it back in the early 90s before the concept had been invented.

[AvHdB]

I thought people here might find this funny.

That is funny,

[sailor291]

I watched this and all I could think of is, “that could have been me”. 

[B.B.]

Deffo not part of cancel culture, he snuffed it back in the early 90s before the concept had been invented.

We just didn't have that name for it then, similar to how there were AIDS deaths before it was called AIDS.

Jemima Lewis: Why did the British disown Benny Hill?

In the 1980s, Hill came under concerted attack from feminists and (the killer blow) the new wave of alternative comedians. Ben Elton denounced him as a "dirty old man, tearing the clothes off nubile girls while chasing them round a park". This was not strictly true (Hill thought it was funnier to get the girls to chase him), but it was said in a tone of such moral righteousness that only the most reactionary braveheart dared to question it. The curious thing about the alternative comedians was that they would not brook any alternative. Despite their socialist pretensions, they despised the coarse, working-class, vaudeville tradition from which Hill's comedy derived. Theirs was the humour of the middle-class dinner party: all politics and irony and verbal jousting. The sheer physical exuberance of Hill and his Angels suddenly seemed gauche by comparison.

Hill's demise was painful to behold: like watching an elderly, confused uncle being picked on by young thugs. As his ratings slid, he cranked up the bawdiness levels, hoping to give the British public more of what it once loved. But times had changed: comedy had become self-conscious, and young people knew better than to laugh at gags about saucy nurses.  In the 1980s, Hill came under concerted attack from feminists and (the killer blow) the new wave of alternative comedians. Ben Elton denounced him as a "dirty old man, tearing the clothes off nubile girls while chasing them round a park". This was not strictly true (Hill thought it was funnier to get the girls to chase him), but it was said in a tone of such moral righteousness that only the most reactionary braveheart dared to question it. The curious thing about the alternative comedians was that they would not brook any alternative. Despite their socialist pretensions, they despised the coarse, working-class, vaudeville tradition from which Hill's comedy derived. Theirs was the humour of the middle-class dinner party: all politics and irony and verbal jousting. The sheer physical exuberance of Hill and his Angels suddenly seemed gauche by comparison.

Hill's demise was painful to behold: like watching an elderly, confused uncle being picked on by young thugs. As his ratings slid, he cranked up the bawdiness levels, hoping to give the British public more of what it once loved. But times had changed: comedy had become self-conscious, and young people knew better than to laugh at gags about saucy nurses.

[andrewfi]

BB, as you can see from reading the article, he was not banished from our screens. In fact, he was appearing on TV until just before he died.

His cancellation occurred due to a heart attack.

His ratings had been falling because there was better fare to watch. His schtick was funny, but it was of a time that time was run out by the early 80s. His response was to give more of what he knew how to give. What he had to give was not what audiences were looking for. I was part of that audience. So, audiences fell away and his shows got shittier.

One problem that USAians face in their nostalgia for such acts is that his shows seen on US TV were not the full show, they were edited. And, looking back now, you get to choose when to watch a favourite segment from a long-dead show on YouTube. We used to watch his stuff every Friday or Saturday night, week after week. It gets old really fast.

Would his shows get broadcast repeats today? Certainly not on a mass access channel. Look at it, so dated - and the quality of the recordings - pretty poor. If there were to be repeats on mainstream TV the chances are that the Hill's Angels and similar routines would be wound back because, yes, they're just not what we want. If I want to see some titty tease action there's Xhamster. Back then, adolescents, kids and daddies had no place else to look other than granny's Grattan catalogues!

So, no, Benny Hill was not cancelled, your evidence proves the opposite case.

[B.B.]

BB, as you can see from reading the article, he was not banished from our screens. In fact, he was appearing on TV until just before he died.

He had some sporadic specials, but his show was canceled in 1989, when his ratings were still strong.

His cancellation occurred due to a heart attack.

He suffered a heart attack in 1992...three years after his show was canceled by ITV.

One problem that USAians face in their nostalgia for such acts is that his shows seen on US TV were not the full show, they were edited. And, looking back now, you get to choose when to watch a favourite segment from a long-dead show on YouTube. We used to watch his stuff every Friday or Saturday night, week after week. It gets old really fast.

I don't watch him on YouTube; I watched his show when I was a young teenager on an independent station out of Boston.  They were shown in full format (other times his shows were edited down to a half hour, removing some of his racier/racist segments and removing sketches that would not make sense to an American audience.)

So, no, Benny Hill was not cancelled, your evidence proves the opposite case.

You clearly didn't read what I posted, which I posted to avoid exactly what I got anyway, which was Andrew, pontificating.

B/B

[Valenki]

Remembering Benny Hill classics.

         

How the mind plays tricks. I saw your mention of Benny Hill but couldn't understand why you included a thumbnail picture of Onslow!

[andrewfi]

The Benny Hill Show was not cancelled. Hill decided to stop making the shows and took a year off. After that, his contract was not renewed which meant the show was cancelled at that point. Checking on Wikipedia gives somewhat conflicting views of the events depending upon whether one looks at the Benny Hill page or the Benny Hill Show page.

My guess is that Thames TV took advantage of a presented opportunity to sack Benny Hill. It seems that, for whatever reason, they chose to sack Benny Hill personally rather than cancel the show which would have left him without an active vehicle.

Who knows what would have happened had he not decided to stop working at that time?

I may be an old man but 3 years is not a long time. If you want to get all lawyerish on me then go find me a concrete definition of 'not a long time time'. He died aged 68. Back then, most men in the UK retired at 65. He was in bad health at the time he stopped making TBHS and had been so for some years.

The very fact of the commissioning of new specials before his death tells us that he was not 'cancelled' in the modern USAian misuse of the term.

As I noted his time was over. His material was no longer relevant, people were no longer watching. Viewership in the UK by the final series was under ten million, less than half the 21 million at its peak.

From Wikipedia:

In 1979, Thames Television purchased a week of transmission time on two stations owned by RKO General that were offering a "Thames Week" schedule and were in the two largest American television markets: New York City's WOR-TV and KHJ-TV in Los Angeles. This introduced the show to American audiences and became immediately popular; subsequent screenings involved a series of re-edited half-hour programmes culled from the ITV specials. As a result of heavy editing for fear of FCC licence revocation, the early US versions of the show have far less risqué material than those broadcast in the UK, though some brief female nudity and subtle sexual innuendo was apparently acceptable.

That suggests, that, as I noted the material that USAians were seeing was not the same as seen in the UK because it was edited to suit your tender sensibilities.

So, no, Benny Hill, was NOT cancelled in the sense that is used in the US version of English. His show ended, in some manner depending upon versions of events, but at the point he died he had been offered and accepted a contract for a new series of shows. It seems he died on the very day the new contract hit the letterbox in his flat.

Nope, not cancelled. Facts mean something, words mean something.

[Valenki]

..... as I noted the material that USAians were seeing was not the same as seen in the UK because it was edited to suit your tender sensibilities. ....