Editing Benny Hill (section)

=== ''The Benny Hill Show'' ===
{{Main|The Benny Hill Show}}
[[File:Benny Hill.JPG|thumb|right|[[Wax sculpture|Waxwork]] of Hill in character as Fred Scuttle on ''The Benny Hill Show'']]
Hill had struggled on stage and had uneven success in radio, but in television he found a medium that played to his strengths. In the early 1950s, he appeared as a guest on various [[BBC]] variety shows where he developed his [[Sketch comedy|parodic sketches]]. In 1954, he was voted television personality of the year.<ref name="BFI profile"/> ''The Benny Hill Show'', which debuted the following year, aired on the BBC and ITV (from 1969) between 15 January 1955 and 1 May 1989. It had a [[music hall]]-derived format, combining live on-stage comedy and filmed sketches, which included his comic characters such as Fred Scuttle, and its humour relied on slapstick, innuendo and parody.<ref name="BFI profile"/><ref>{{cite news |last=Isherwood |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Isherwood |date=22 April 2007 |title=Why the British Killed King Leer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/weekinreview/22isherwood.html |access-date=22 February 2025 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included [[Patricia Hayes]], [[Jeremy Hawk]], Peter Vernon, [[Ronnie Brody]] and his cowriter from the early 1950s to early 1960s, [[Dave Freeman (British writer)|Dave Freeman]].<ref name="BFI profile"/> Short, bald [[Jackie Wright]] was a frequent supporting player who in many sketches had to put up with Hill slapping him on the top of his head.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mVO_CAAAQBAJ&q=Jackie+wright&pg=PT337 |title=Benny Hill – Merry Master of Mirth: the Complete Companion |date=2014 |publisher=Batsford |isbn=9781849942584 |location=London |page=337 |language=en |access-date=15 February 2025 |origyear=1999}}</ref>

Hill remained mostly with the BBC until 1968, except for a few sojourns with [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] and [[Associated Television|ATV]] stations between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to [[Thames Television]], where it remained until its cancellation in 1989, with an erratic schedule of one-hour specials. The series showcased Hill's talents as an imaginative writer, comic performer and impressionist. He may have bought scripts from various comedy writers, but if so, they never received an onscreen credit (some evidence indicates he bought a script from one of his regular cast members in 1976, [[Cherri Gilham]], to whom he wrote from Spain, telling her he was using her "Fat Lady" idea on the show in January 1977).<ref name="Kirkland">{{cite book |last=Kirkland |first=Dennis |author-link=Dennis Kirkland |title=The Strange and Saucy World of Benny Hill |last2=Bonner |first2=Hilary |date=2002 |publisher=John Blake Publishing}}</ref>

{{Quote box
| width = 29%
| align = left
| quote = "To this day, ''The Benny Hill Show'', as watched by 21.1 million people in 1977, and which over the years won its star a [[BAFTA]], the [[Golden Rose of Montreux]], and a Variety Club of Great Britain ITV Personality of the Year award, remains the sole programme that spoke directly to the dream experience of the hot-blooded adolescent. This was perhaps why Thames could sell the show to so many foreign markets, from France, Spain and West Germany to the remotest jungle clearing in Brazil—deep up the Amazon River, photos of Hill were to be found in mud huts."
| source = —Roger Lewis in ''[[GQ]]'' magazine on the popularity of the show in Britain and abroad, April 2014<ref name="GQ"/>
}}
The most common running gag in Hill's shows was the closing sequence, the "run-off", which was literally a [[running gag]] featuring various members of the cast chasing Hill, along with other stock comedy characters, such as policemen, vicars and old women. This was commonly filmed using "under-cranking" camera techniques and included other comic features, such as jogging instead of a run at full speed and characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, [[Boots Randolph]]'s "[[Yakety Sax]]", is so strongly associated with the show that it is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody in many ways by television shows and films. In a 2015 UK-wide poll, the show's theme song was voted number 1 on the [[ITV (TV channel)|ITV]] special, ''[[The Nation's Favourite|The Sound of ITV – The Nation's Favourite Theme Tune]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1week38/sound-itv-nations-favourite-theme-tune|title=The Sound of ITV: The Nation's Favourite Theme Tunes Episode 1|publisher=itv.com|access-date=24 November 2019}}</ref>

From the start of the 1980s, the show featured a troupe of attractive young women, known collectively as "Hill's Angels". They would appear either on their own in a dance sequence or in character as foils against Hill. [[Sue Upton]] was one of the longest-serving members of the Angels. [[Jane Leeves]] appeared as well. [[Henry McGee]] and [[Bob Todd]] joined Jackie Wright as comic supporting players and later shows also featured "Hill's Little Angels", a group of children, including the families of [[Dennis Kirkland]] (the show's director) and Sue Upton. [[Jenny Lee-Wright]] (who first appeared on Hill's show in 1970) earned the nickname, "The Sexiest Stooge", coined by Hill.<ref name="Kirkland"/>

The [[alternative comedy|alternative comedian]] [[Ben Elton]] made a headline-grabbing allegation, both on the TV show ''[[Saturday Live (UK TV programme)|Saturday Live]]'' and in the January 1987 edition of ''[[Q (magazine)|Q]]'' magazine, that ''The Benny Hill Show'' incited crimes and misdemeanours. "We know in Britain, women can't even walk safe in a park anymore. That, for me, is worrying."<ref name="GQ">{{cite news |last=Lewis |first=Roger |date=16 April 2014 |title=Benny Hill saw sex as both a nightmare and an impossible dream |url=https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/benny-hill-sex-controversy-and-legacy |access-date=24 November 2021 |work=GQ}}</ref> A writer in ''[[The Independent]]'' newspaper, though, opined that Elton's charge was "like watching an elderly uncle being kicked to death by young thugs".<ref>Jemima Lewis [https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/jemima-lewis-why-did-the-british-disown-benny-hill-479887.html "Why did the British disown Benny Hill?"] ''The Independent'', 27 May 2006</ref> ''[[GQ]]'' magazine stated, "Pompous and portentous as this is, blaming Hill for rape statistics is like pointing a finger at concert pianists for causing elephant poaching."<ref name="GQ"/> Elton later parodied himself in ''[[Harry Enfield & Chums]]'' as Benny Elton, a politically correct spoilsport; Elton ends up being chased by angry women, accompanied by the "Yakety Sax" theme, after trying to force them to be more feminist.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bekman |first=Stas |title=05 Television (all broadcast dates are UK unless otherwise stated) (Ben Elton) |url=http://stason.org/TULARC/tv/ben-elton/05-Television-all-broadcast-dates-are-UK-unless-otherwise-s.html |access-date=4 November 2021 |website=Stason.org}}</ref> A spokesman for the Broadcasting Standards Council commented that "the convention is becoming increasingly offensive ]...] It's not as funny as it was to have half-naked girls chased across the screen by a dirty old man."<ref>{{cite book | last = Baker | first = Rob | title = Beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics: a sideways look at twentieth-century London | publisher = Amberley Publishing | location = Stroud | year = 2015 | isbn = 9781445651200 }}</ref>{{page needed|date=October 2022}}

In late May 1989, Hill announced that after 21 years with Thames Television, he was quitting and taking a year off. His shows had earned Thames £26 million, with a large percentage due to the success of his shows in the United States.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Daily Variety]]|date=1 June 1989|page=16|title=Benny Hill To Call It A Day}}</ref> [[John Howard Davies]], the head of Light Entertainment at Thames Television, was cited by the British press as the man who sacked Hill when the company decided not to renew his contract.<ref name="guardobit">{{Cite news |last=Sweet |first=Matthew |date=2011-08-24 |title=John Howard Davies obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/aug/24/john-howard-davies-obituary |access-date=2025-05-09 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> "The show was past its sell-by date", Davies told ''[[The Guardian]]''. "The audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Hill) was looking a little tired."''<ref>{{Cite news|last=Bernstein|first=Adam|date=23 August 2011|title=John Howard Davies, British comedy producer and former child actor, dies at 72|language=en-US|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/john-howard-davies-british-comedy-producer-and-former-child-actor-dies-at-72/2011/08/23/gIQAUJliZJ_story.html|access-date=19 February 2021|issn=0190-8286}}</ref>''

In 1991, Hill started work on a new television series called ''Benny Hill's World Tour'', which would see Hill performing his sketches in various places around the world in places his show had become popular. However, Hill managed to record only one special called ''Greetings from New York'' (with regular cast members such as Henry McGee, Bob Todd and Sue Upton), with the show becoming billed as "his final TV appearance" when released on [[DVD]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/benny_hill/shop/1596/benny_hills_world_tour_greetings_from_new_york_dvd/|title = Benny Hill's World Tour – Greetings from New York DVD| website=[[British Comedy Guide]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Gale Group|author2=Thomas Riggs|title=Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nuVkAAAAMAAJ|year=2002|publisher=Cengage Gale|isbn=978-0-7876-5114-5}}</ref>

In February 1992, Thames Television, which received a steady stream of requests from viewers for ''The Benny Hill Show'' repeats, finally gave in and put together a number of re-edited shows. Hill died on the same day a new contract arrived in the post from [[ITV Central|Central Independent Television]], for which he was to have made a series of specials.<ref name="classic"/> He had turned down competing offers from [[Carlton Television|Carlton]] and Thames.<ref name="classic"/>