Benny hill comedy

11 February 2008tbs.pm/2182

“In his home country at least, in these supposedly enlightened and broadminded times, Benny Hill is taboo.” – Mark Lewisohn, Benny Hill’s biographer, writing in 2002.

Benny Hill in the seventies and first half of the eighties was Britain’s most successful television comedian, his specials for Thames attracting up to 20 million viewers and often knocking Coronation Street off the top of the ratings.

In America he was said to be more famous than the Queen. His familiar mix of bawdy seaside postcard humour, pretty girls in scanty clothing, comedy songs (he also had a number one hit in 1971 with a comedy song ” Ernie”), send-ups of popular television shows and commercials, the chase scene at the end of each show, and characters such as the incompetent Fred Scuttle was a huge success for ITV, which was notorio