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Why is Benny Hill seen as a staple of British comedy abroad?

posted 12 years ago by DeutschlandUberAlles
8 replies | jump to latest

I personally had never even heard of Benny Hill until recently, but after watching some clips on Youtube I frankly feel embarressed to think that Benny Hill is what many people perceive as being typical British comedy.

His slap-stick rubbish is so unsophisticated and predictable I'm suprised he became as popular as he did anywhere. He doesn't represent British comedy in the least.

Really all he is doing is playing up to the stereotype of an effete, unsophisticated dumb Englishman, which I guess is why he had so much success abroad.

Foreigners like to laugh at us, not with us. So for that purpose, Benny Hill is perfect. They like to feel intellectually superior to the stupid Englishman.

[–] manchester_england2004 12 years ago

He is seen as a staple of British comedy abroad because his work was exported to a higher number of countries than the work of his competitors like MONTY PYTHON, THE TWO RONNIES and the CARRY ON movies to name just a few. He accumulated a personal fortune of about £10 million (and that's in 1992 prices!). Along with the aforementioned "cultural icons", his brand of comedy marked a massive u-turn at the end of the 1960s from everything that came before it. His humour is mostly interpreted as appealing to the "lecherous" or naughty instincts within men and teenage boys. Both lovers and haters of his work agree on this. This brand of humour influenced MONTY PYTHON (TV show only) and THE TWO RONNIES I think, along with the shift in the CARRY ON series towards increasingly risque humour in the 1970s. The physical humour of his acts was also designed to appeal to the naughty instincts of children, something that the aformentioned "cultural icons" didn't really target.

Comedy was re-shaped in the 1980s and 1990s but no comedians or TV shows from then on have had the same impact (on British comedy) or durability as Benny Hill's show. People and shows come and go somewhat quickly these days. More notable I think is this - I may be wrong here but it does seem as though the vast majority of British comedy produced now is designed to be adult-oriented and without the family-focus that was the case in previous eras.

We have different views on Benny Hill's success as a comedian but I do agree with you on the last paragraph in your post. Many foreigners do like to laugh at us, none more so I think than the so-called "continental" Europeans like the French and the Germans. There are a quite a few places out there where the culture seems to be based on snobbish attitudes to us Brits. The truth is this - most of what Britain produced in the cinema on the TV in the 1960s and 1970s (in other eras too but none more so than these) was looked down upon. But as TV and cinema standards have declined throughout the Western world (well that's what I think anyway), some foreigners are now (albeit slowly) looking back upon British TV and cinema output more positively.

[–] blakgard 12 years ago

You must be young, if you've never heard of him. He was a staple of British comedy, and this isn't just known abroad. His show ran, with very high ratings, for decades.

And uh... no one laughs at you. Well, they don't laugh at Brits. One of the major reasons Benny Hill was so successful is that his humour is nearly universal. The punchlines of his jokes have nothing whatsoever to do with being British. They're not laughing at the "unsophisticated dumb Englishman." They're laughing at the "unsophisticated dumb clod." Where he's from is irrelevant to the humour.

[–] warren_houghton 12 years ago

Yeah, I'd look at him like we view Jerry Lewis here in America if I were you. We find it highly amusing that the French seem to view him as some sort of comedic genius, while about 3 minutes of his shtick is more than enough for us.

While BH's comedy is easier to understand if you "get" British English and culture, it's mostly just repetitive vaudeville and wordplay with a bit of crumpet thrown in. I can easily understand why someone on either side of the pond wouldn't find him to their taste, but those of us Americans that do enjoy a bit of BH aren't laughing at Brits anymore than you think all Americans are like John Wayne or Jerry Lewis or Pee Wee Herman.

[–] laurence01 12 years ago

Another reason that it was a very successful export is because a lot of it could be shown abroad with out much translation.

[–] MrBlondNYC 11 years ago

Jerry Lewis had 30 hit movies in a row. He didn't become successful in a vacuum. He became successful here in America so that's an unfair assessment of him. Hollywood normally does not allow an unpopular actor to make 2-3 movies a year for 15 years.

But yeah, Benny Hill was easy jokes and scantily clad women. Plus, he was on for so long that he had so many episodes that were shown 5 nights a week (at least in New York where I grew up). Monty Python could only be shown once a week. Plus, even though Benny Hill had sexual humor, it still comes off as very mild and even kind of innocent. Whereas, Python is more ribald.

George Carlin: It's all bullsh-t and it's bad for ya.

[–] DreTam2000 11 years ago

...the stereotype of an effete, unsophisticated dumb Englishman...

What in the hell..?

They like to feel intellectually superior to the stupid Englishman.

I need you to please educate me, because every single stereotype I've ever heard of an Englishman in my life was the total opposite of what you've described here.

England is generalized as a sophisticated, upscale and snobbish place. I've never heard it referred to as the opposite. Englishmen are portrayed as professors and intelligent chaps. As an American, I myself held the misconception for years that England was a place of the prestige. I know now that it is a place more diverse than previously let on. What you've described here seriously throws me for a loop, however.

I'm not a control freak, I just like things my way

[–] jefgg 10 years ago

I concur. I am an American. Most Americans think of Englishmen as polite, cultured and well educated. Maybe those are the most frequent images we see of English people.

When I was a kid in the '80s American public television stations showed English comedies like Monte Python. But many Americans abhor anything associated with public television. "The Benny Hill Show" was aired late nights on commercial TV channels. A lot of kids automatically liked Benny Hill because the show was occasionally naughty.

I think slapstick comedy translates well into different languages and/or cultures. Maybe that is why Jerry Lewis was beloved in France and other countries after his popularity in his own country declined.

I knew a guy who thought Benny Hill was an absolute genius on par with Charlie Chaplin.

[–] W.B. 10 years ago

Benny Hill also recycled many visual and verbal gags from numerous sources. I've seen some gags lifted wholesale from old Tex Avery cartoons (the "hair in the gate" gag from Magical Maestro and the "split screen gag from The Bear's Tale are the two in particular that stand out; plus the formula of his cartoons with a lascivious wolf lusting after a red-headed nightclub singer in a retelling of the "Red Riding Hood" legend which was what the early Angels' routines - their doing their stuff juxtaposed with the male cast members' reactions - seemed to me derivative of), f'rinstance. One of Stan Freberg's most famous records, "John and Marsha," was adapted for an "art-film" parody sketch where the actors were filmed from the neck down (and Hill added another touch on top of it). His "blooper" sketches were reminiscent of material of that type seen from time to time on The Electric Company with Rita Moreno as the jodhpur-wearing, megaphone-wielding director (to my assessment, anyway), and his TV and movie parodies, at their best, ranked up there with Carol Burnett's or what was seen on SCTV. In short, it wasn't for "the lay-dees" that I first became interested in Mr. Hill.

To my assessment, the first half of his Thames run (up to when Dennis Kirkland assumed producer/director duties) was considerably better, in terms of overall quality, output and comedic ha-ha, than the second half when the T&A began to take over and the level of Hill's own performances began approaching the "been there, done that" quality associated with Jackie Gleason after he moved to Florida in 1964; Dean Martin (speaking of his ex-partner Jerry Lewis) after his divorce from second wife Jeanne in 1970 or so; Lucille Ball from the second season of The Lucy Show onwards; and many other U.S. TV mainstays who, by the time they "got the hook," had long overstayed their welcome and were clearly running out of gas creatively and otherwise.