Bill Stickers is innocent!
That joke’s so good he must have done it at least twice. The version I saw had Benny Hill as a drunken guest at a dinner party, embarrassing his host by asking if he could “go wee now.” “Er, yes, of course.” “WHEEEE!”
For the '76 Holiday Special, they did a parody of I, Claudius, then being aired on BBC 1 for the first time, with Benny in the title role:
WIFE: Claudius, where are you?
BH: [Offstage] I’m on the t-t-t-throne.
[Uproarious laughter]
BH: I’m having a sh-sh-sh-shave.
[More laughter]
This one:
It’s a good point, and worth bringing up at least once every seven years.
When the thread gets bumped again in 2020, I’ll be here.
Don’t make poor Ripper continue to suffer!
Benny Hill and Jane Leeves.
We’re all counting on you.
Visual joke
One bit was a movie where they were so cheap they only did one take for each scene so of course there were bad cuts, bad acting, etc. For the ship on the ocean, it was a model on a lake. The second time they showed it you see a duck bigger than the model swam by it.
Still no clue why it was so damn funny.
I was more Allen At Large <sic?> but -------
An Indian employee and his equally Indian employer are before a labor relations board and the employee is complaining about everything - and his solution to everything is “He should put more men on the job!” The board finds in his favor and awards some amount to “you and your children”. The employee admits to not having any kids despite wanting and trying to which the employer (Benny) responds “Well, you should put more men on the job!”
And with that I’m going to go meditate in a cave somewhere.
I love the comment he made not long before he passed away: “I still think of myself the way I was when I was 45. Then I look in the mirror and realize that old bastard is me!”
Classic!
“A woman like that could ruin a man…if he was lucky.”
One of my favorite sight gags was a medieval bank robbery. The thieves run out of the bank, jump into a sedan chair (one of those enclosed chairs carried by a couple of lackys), and rush off. The police run out of the bank, and jump into another sedan chair. As they are rushing off, an arm reaches out of the window, and sticks a red lantern on the top of the chair.
Very funny to anyone watching a cop show in the '70s…
“Nothing shall ever succeed like a bird with no teeth.”
Her parents kept her under the bed. They thought she was a little potty.
Benny Hill… I used to watch his shows when I was a kid in the mid-80’s. Somehow, I think that they were in part responsible for my love of England along with other, perhaps more respectable things.
Anyway, the joke that I remember is one that I saw much later, when I was around 20. By that time, I didn’t care much for his shows anymore. I was distractedly watching a sketch on a lazy Sunday. It was set in the Old West and he played the role of a heroic cowboy. At one point, he attempts to jump on his horse, misses and lands, private parts first, on a fence.
That’s not what made me laugh.
Right before he lands, we see him jumping in slow motion. He turns his head very slowly towards us and gives us his big, silly smile. That stupid look on his face still cracks me up.
It’s most of his songs that I like. (But has anyone noticed how he re-uses entire verses when it comes to his songs and poems? That “put out your puddings” line in the Dylan parody was part of a poem he did as well.)
I think my other favorite was an extended sketch on the opera Carmen. (There was a shorter one, with the cast singing the original French lyrics but given crazy subtitles, but it wasn’t as funny. This one was at least ten minutes, had the cast singing in English, and had the Hill’s Angels doing a well-choreographed dance at one point.)
I watched Benny Hill, Dave Allen at Large and Monty Python when I was 12. My dad’s then-girlfriend apparently was appalled that he let me watch Benny Hill because she figured Benny Hill was a “dirty old man.”
My favourite Benny Hill sound was when he was playing a conductor for a band in an outdoor gazebo - I forget what happened, just that he shook his conductor stick and went “Ay! Ay! Ee! Ee!” That sound still cracks me up to this day.
The prince has run off to avoid an arranged marriage to the princess of a nearby country. If the marriage doesn’t happen it will ruin years of tricky negotiation and diplomacy between the two countries. A peasant is found who is the splitting image of the prince and hastily trained to act like a prince. At the fateful first meeting the princess turns out to be a real babe.
Benny Hill (as imposter prince) : Pleased to meecher, lady.
Aide whispers in his ear: “Your Grace”
Benny (whisper): What?
Aide (whisper): Say “Your Grace”
Benny (Big grin): Bless us, oh Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive!