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DVD Box Set

Title:Benny Hill: The Complete And Unadulterated Megaset 1969-1989
Publisher:  New Video
Country:USA
Format:DVD Box Set
Date:30 Oct 2007
Region Code:None
Classification:NOT RATED
Barcode:733961775433
Genre:Comedy
Rating:Rate
Collection:  I Own It     I Want It 
Community: 1 Owns
Price Guide:Valuation Page
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Notes

18 DVD Set
58 episodes

TV Series: The Benny Hill Show
Year1955
Selected CastBenny Hill
 Jack Wright
 Bob Todd
 Henry McGee
(Information from TV Series World)


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Comments and Reviews
 
W.B.lbl
15th May 2022
 Review
And here in a nutshell is the evolution of The Benny Hill Show from the time he joined Thames Television in 1969 to when they ignominiously dumped him in 1989. The first half (dubbed "The Naughty Early Years" in the first three sets when issued individually) was infinitely better, quality-wise, than the second half ("The Hill's Angels Years"). It is very likely no coincidence that the show's quality - and its esteem, plus its UK ratings over the long term - fell into the toilet once Dennis Kirkland assumed the reins as producer/director in 1979. It was under his watch, after all, that Hill's Angels were created - and in their early years, were presented in such a way as to almost solely pander to the crowd that read "girlie" magazines like Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and Mayfair, having almost nothing to do with comedy or making people laugh. Too, in the '80's as he got older (and heavier), the repetition factor in his gags began taking a rote, lifeless, by-the-numbers, phoning-it-in, "been there, done that" approach that is utterly deadly in terms of attracting audience interest. It is that type of approach that was most evident in the last years of Jackie Gleason's variety show (from his 1964 move to Miami Beach, FL until his show's final cancellation in 1970), Dean Martin's top-rated NBC variety show (after his second wife Jeannie divorced him that same year), Bob Hope's last years of NBC specials to the end in 1996, Lucille Ball's TV output from the second season of The Lucy Show onwards (culminating in her last-ever series, the very short-lived Life With Lucy), and other "legacy" entertainers who got especially long in the tooth (as, for example, prompted Johnny Carson, after 1992, to disappear from the limelight completely once his nearly 30-year run as host of The Tonight Show ended).

The real travesty in this otherwise complete set is the total absence of his 1977 made-in-Australia special (aired in Britain in 1978 as Benny Hill Down Under) with such local talent as Max Phipps, Barry Otto, Ron Shand, Dawn Cusack, Carmel Cullen and Lorna Lesley; there are apparently two versions, one as shown originally in Australia (with Chow Mein as Chinese Minister of Culture and Mr. Phipps as his straight man) and the other for UK airing which apparently replaced that with the "Love Will Find A Way" period sketch from one of the "Colour Strike Three" of 1970-71 (which contents are infinitely superior to the '80's remakes in every which way - and which are among the 58 shows on here). The Aussie show is also vastly superior to the later show he did after Thames canned him, where outdoor location scenes were shot entirely in New York City with a local cast while the studio segments were taped at Teddington with his usual cast of familiar faces. This show bore such classics as "Archie's Angels" (with Benny in the Farrah Fawcett role, natch'), "Hold Back The Wind" (with Benny as a Southern "Big Daddy" where the running gag is his catchphrase "Cut out the middleman! That's how I made my money - by cuttin' out the middleman!"), and a sketch of Benny and a stablemate (Otto) tending to Lady Godiva's horse on the day of her famous ride through Coventry.

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