Andrei Pavlov
This is the show, which means more than just a few laughs to me. And not only to me actually. In our country "Benny Hill Show" was extremely popular and when it was shown on our TV millions of Russian people (little kids and mature adults) couldn't breathe - so funny it was. I'm not sure about the opposite sex but we were always blown away by this stuff.Much time has passed since my school years and when I watch the show now the reaction from me is the same. It is a brilliant mixture of sketches, which are going one after another. You don't have much time to laugh at one joke while the others are coming in spades already. There are misses of course. There are some points at which Mr Benny Hill is almost "over the board" with some rather cheeky humour, but then he manages to get out of the mess with his chin up.Great talent. Great British humour. Great British actors and actresses. Great show. Something I want to watch and re-watch from time to time.Thank you, Mr Benny Hill, your show is one solid anti-depressant from bottom to the top. And you can easily wipe out the today's performances of frigging "comedians" with one single sketch of yours. Yours will remain the classics.10 out of 10 - exceptional quality. Thank you for attention.
ShadeGrenade
Mention 'Benny Hill' to most people and the first thing they'll think off is the great man himself, a lecherous grin on his face, fleeing from scantily-clad girls to the strains of 'Yakety Sax'. Yet his Thames show, which spanned an incredible twenty years, was about far more than mere sexism. Nobody did spoofs better than Benny Hill; when he took off 'Sale Of The Century' starring Nicholas Parsons, for a long time afterwards it was impossible to view the real thing without laughing. He also spoofed 'Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?' with himself playing both the Burton and Taylor roles, Tennessee Williams, 'I Claudius', French language movies, and 'The Collector' starring Terence Stamp. So his show wasn't as crass and mindless as some would have us think. Yes, he went out of fashion in the '80's, but should not have been sacked. The alternative comedians who railed against Benny and helped end his career have yet to match him for sheer entertainment value. Besides, Hill did not humiliate women as much as Ben Elton did with his awful 'Maybe, Baby'.
Gustavo
Really. Nothing compares to Benny Hill. Long time ago I became aware of the fact that there isn't anything so difficult as good comedy. Because making anyone cry... that is easy; anyone can do it: just tell someone about the saddest moments of your life, do it convincingly and you are done. But to make others laugh... that falls absolutely under other category. Of course, there have been almost equally talented comedians last century: Charles Chaplin, Peter Sellers, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Steve Martin in his first films... ... ... ... and stop counting. I cannot think of anyone else right now, and, worst of all, don't know of anyone alive at present. Two very big thumbs up for Benny (and his brilliant crew as well).
alantaylor168
I remember watching The Benny Hill show during the Seventies on London channel Thames TV, which also produced the show from their studios at Teddington Lock in west London. I remember just how popular this show was in England and as i found out later, the whole world. This man was a comedy genius ranked by many with the all time greats such as Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Lloyd. In France he is revered as a comedy auteur. His shows viewing figures were always in the top ten in the UK right up to his shows cancellation in 1989. Around the same time comedy in Britain was undergoing a revolution. The old-school traditional end-of-pier type of comedy that had become a mainstay in UK television (Are You Being Served) was now considered to be politically incorrect. In it's place came a new "style" of writing more influenced by correct non sexist/racist humour. This change was headlined by such shows as The Comic Strip Presents,The Young Ones,Friday night Live and a whole host of other programing that had first had exposure with the launch of channel 4 in 1982. By the late 80s Thames television were facing a barrage of anti Benny Hill sentiment driven by the UK press that was totally contradicted by his viewing figures that showed only a small decline in viewers. Thames decided to bite the political bullet and cancelled his show in 1989. Benny Hill was to experience the wilderness of change and he never worked again. Former members of the Hills Angels visited him on a regular basis, but a depression had started to eat away at him. He died on April 18, 1992.Now in 2005 TV comedy in the UK is split into two halves. The commercial channels such as Channels 4 & 5 show predominantly US imports such as Friends, Joey etc. While the BBC still stick to homegrown comedy such as Little Britain, The Smoking Room, which are the direct descendants of the "Alternative Comedy" that changed British TV in the 1980s. The problem now is is that it's hard to find anything that can give you a real belly laugh because todays comedy is too obsessed with patting itself on the back in self congratulation at how smart it is.
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