OMFG! Its Benny Hill!!

Cafe Society
1

Yesterday, while watching “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” with my daughter, I had a flash of revelation.
The toy maker in the land of Bulgaria (who hid the kids when they first arrived there) is Benny Hill!
Shock! I am utterly flabbergasted. The chubby British comedian normally seen with half naked women performing sketches of definitely mature content is playing a part in a children’s film!!

Sorry. The shock is just too much. Once I realized who he was, I kept looking for the nekkid women. Jeez. What a muddled world.

2

He’s also a German in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, among others. A look at the IMDB shows 21 films listed (although some are post-mortem clips), including an appearance in The Italian Job:

http://us.imdb.com/Name?Hill,+Benny

3

Ah Benny Hill, bless his soul.

4

He used to live (and died) in a flat just down the road from me. A much under-appreciated influence on world comedy.

And for the record Chitty is set in Vulgaria

Which is the kinda place you’d expect benny to live!

5

Not quite, he’s the chief of the fire brigade at the airfield. In The Italian Job he’s the computer expert who snarls traffic in Turin.

For other odd CCBB connections; the original book was written by Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, and Baron Bomburst was played by Gert Fröbe, who also played Goldfinger (and the German in TMMiTFM).

And Jane Leeves, Daphne on Frasier, used to be on The Benny Hill Show.

6

Benny Hill’s program is one of my country’s most worthless exports. I apologise.

7

What about Are You Being Served?

:smiley:

8

And Soylent Green is made from people.

9

Hey! I loved Benny Hill!

My first husband and I used to watch it on HBO (I think). Of course, it’s even funnier when one is slightly stoned. Not that I ever discovered that first hand.

10

Originally posted by jjimm

As compared with what? Rod Stewart, who punches photographers? Liam Neessen? John Cleese? I prefer Benny Hill to any of these and I have about 14 videotapes of BH’s stuff…
Benny Hill did a great deal of slapstick, rare in modern “comedy.” In a book about the Marx Brothers, author Richard J. Anobile commented that these days “comedy must have laughter cards, or else how would we know.” With slapstick, and with Benny Hill, I could just watch the routines and laugh. With Cleese or Neessen, I would proably have to be told it’s funny, and therefore since it is funny I must laugh. :frowning:

11

dougie_monty, I couldn’t agree more. Hill was Burlesque to a fine point. Miss him, his show, and of course the girls! :smiley:

Fun Guy.

12

I saw a whole show (Biography-style) about him, and he had quite a life apart from what I knew of him as a kid, which was “semi-naked women and a fat guy!”

My dad would have his show on during dinner, for God’s sake!

13

You didn’t ask for it, but I’m giving it to you anyway…

My favorite Benny Hill routine involved a sexy blonde sitting on his lap (Long Hot Summer parody), and she’s giving him a hard time (not that hard time: with words, you nasty thang!) and when he comments on it she says “Well I give tit for tat.”

While looking down her front Benny replies. “Well, in that case, tat!”

I loved Benny Hill and miss his ribald comedy.

Quasi

14

:eek: No Way!! Was she a regular? She couldn’t have been old enough to go topless on TV could she?

15

I had no idea!

IMDb says she was born in 1961 and she was a Hill’s Angel in 1983-1984. So she was 21-23.

16

The german translation we were watching was kind of hard to understand.

17

There was very rarely any nakedness on Benny Hill - it was usually implied or just naughty stockings and bikinis. I saw some nudity once in a later series, possibly the last he made, but before that I had never really seen any.

Apparently Benny Hill was the nicest guy in the world, lived alone, never ever took advantage of any of the girls in his show, and was more of a kindly uncle figure offscreen. Which I for one can really believe.

His earlier stuff was pure genius, though - the songs, the characters, the one-liners - they weren’t always the stuff that seemed like they were stolen from old naughty postcards.

18

All I can say is: “Das Grossbaton up der klein jumper?”

Judging by his pronunciation, and some other stuff I saw, I think Benny probably spoke very good German. The world became a sadder place after Benny died. Like GuanoLad said, some of his stuff was pure genius, and you won’t ever convince me that even “Monty Python” wasn’t influenced by some of his earlier material.

19

I must admit i only noticed because “vulgaria” is written on the life saving rings they put on the car during the grease lightning type musical scene.

20

Obviously, some people just didn’t find Benny Hill funny, and that’s fine. Nobody makes everybody laugh.

But the people who get offended by Benny (and feminists, in particular) are being ridiculous. Because, if you think about it, in almost all of Benny’s sketches, the joke is on HIM! He drools over nubile young women, but he never ends up scoring with them! More often, his attempts at seduction end in disaster, and he has to run like the Dickens (to the tune of “Yakkety Sax”) from the police or the girls’ muscular boyfriends!

Benny was the last of his kind. As long as he was around, a little bit of vaudeville, burlesque and old-fashioned English music hall entertainment survived. Most of his “dirty” jokes were ancient, and most of his songs were merely ancient dirty jokes put into rhyme set to silly melodies. That was part of their charm.

I recall that, back in the 1970s, some parents’ groups in the U.S. regarded “Three’s Company”( a show I never liked) as immoral. But really, if you think about it, NOTHING ever really happened on that show! The whole show revolved around one (and only one) joke: that the landlord suspects hanky panky is going on between Tripper and the girls, but in reality, everyone is totally chaste! There’s lots of innuendo, but nobody on “Three’s Company” ever actually has sex!

In the same way, Benny Hill was constantly making comical attempts at scoring with gorgeous, scantily clad women, but he always failed! Benny Hill was to sex as Elmer Fudd was to hunting! Even Andrea Dworkin or Jerry Falwell ought to able to watch an episode of “The Benny Hill Show” and laugh.

You needn’t like his brand of humor, but if it offends you, you’re taking him too seriously.