Production[]
Episode: 32
Date: December 26, 1968
Time: 45 minutes
Musical Director: Burt Rhodes
Vocals: The Rita Williams Singers
Choreography:
Producer: Kenneth Carter
Director:
Writer: Benny Hill
Episode[]
- Show Opening - Running Late
- Merwyn Thud and Radio Times Takeover Bid
- Readers' Complaints: J. Arthur Scuttle, Film Editor for TV
- Inebriated Disk Jockey with a huge hangover
- Tammy Jones: "Summertime"
- Claude Le Twit, French Film Director
- See-Saw, Roundabout and Swing
- At the Barbershop
- Tag: The Singers and Dancers of the Red Army
Highlights[]
- Benny runny late for the studio and hitching a ride on an old lady
- A cheesy badly-edited monster movie is shown on television
- a Radio 1 disc jockey with a massive hangover struggling to get through a hangover
- an interview with French film director, Claude Le Twit talking his new film "See Saw, Roundabout and Swing"
- Benny as an actor in a theatrical play has major problems
Cast[]
- Benny Hill
- June Whitfield
- Henry McGee
- Jenny Lee-Wright
- Jack Wright (credited as John Wright)
- Doris Rogers
- Jim Tyson
- Ken Sedd (credited as Kedd Senton)
- Carolyn Moody
- David G. March
- Richard Mottau
- The Rita Williams Singers
- Ian Kaye
- David Wright
- Tammy Jones
Quotes[]
- Coming Up
Trivia[]
- This episode was Benny Hill's last for the BBC. It was recorded on December 15, 1968.
- This episode features six cast members from the Thames TV years.
- The gag with Benny riding the back of the old lady was later reworked in The Messenger on March 24, 1971.
- Claude Le Twit, French Film Director is an early version of Pierre de Terre interview from February 23, 1972 .
- "At the Barbershop" is later remade as Marcel The Barber on March 12, 1975.
- Film cameraman James Balfour would later serve in that capacity on the first two series of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."
- This was only one of two Hill shows in all his years at the BBC to have cracked the Top 20; this finished the highest, at #17 for the week. (The other was his January 8, 1966 show.) Greater ratings glory would beckon at his newer home.
- Though this was one of the last three shows Benny did for the BBC that were destroyed in retaliation for his move to Thames, a home kinescope exists and has circulated. Also, the BBC for years had the filmed inserts for this episode in their archives.
Sequence[]
- Last Episode: December 11, 1968
- Next Episode: The European Song Contest