Tommy Tupper in Tupper-Time

Production

Episode: 3
Date: February 4, 1970
Time: 50:30
Musical Director: Ronnie Aldrich
Vocals: The Ladybirds
Choreography:
Producer: John Robins
Director: John Robins
Writer: Benny Hill

Episode

• Quickie - Black Moor
• Ballad - Colleen
• Naked Audition
• Guests: Luis Alberto del Parana & Los Paraguayos - Colorado
• Hotel Sordide
• The Tour Guide
• The Ballet Company and A Typical TV Audience
• Eira Heath - Carnival
• Monologue - Making A Commercial
• Monologue - The Old Fiddler
• Bloopers - 8
• Tommy Tupper: Tupper Time
• Ballad - Girls of the Souza Bar
• Tag: A Run in the Park

Highlights

• The Naked Audition
• Making A Commercial
• Hotel Sordide
• The Old Fiddler

Cast

• Benny Hill
• Eira Heath
• Henry McGee
• Rita Webb
• Nicole Shelby
• Michael Sharvell-Martin
• The Ladybirds
• David Hamilton
• Valerie St. John
• Charmaine Seal
• John Wright
• Christine Rogers
• Harold Gee
• Ann Irving
• Wally Goodman - hotel guest (uncredited)
• Rikki Howard - beach girl (uncredited)

Quotes

• Benny Hall - "I got the job."
  Secretary - "How much?"
  Benny Hall - "£25."
  Secretary - "That's not much."
  Benny Hall - "That's all I could afford to pay."

Trivia

• This episode was recorded on November 2, 1969, prior to the taping of Is This Your Life, and the only other show besides The European Song Contest to start off with the black-and-white Thames animated fanfare.
• The opening quickie features a reporter (Benny Hill) disappearing in Black Moor marsh. The reporter may have been patterned after Alan Whicker whom Benny impersonated several times while at the BBC.
  • The "disappearing in the marsh" gag was recycled towards the end of the Hollywood Grates: Chubby Dodds sketch in Women's Lib TV.
• Nicole Shelby introduces the episode.
• The string of Quickies for this episode features Benny's third string of blooper-themed scenes, such as:
  • A French harp player (Benny Hill) breaks his front teeth on his instrument
  • An actor (Benny Hill) forget his lines in a scene with gangsters (Henry McGee and unknown) and his girlfriend (Anne Irving)
  • Three actors (Valerie St. John/Benny/Ann Irving) are upstaged by a noisy beach ball
  • A new groom (Benny) struggles to carry his wife (Rita Webb) as she keeps flubbing her lines (Michael Sharvell-Martin is the voice of the director)
  • The actors on the beach with an ill-placed screen graphic on the wrong body part
  • A singer's (Eira Heath) romantic song interupted by another actor (Benny) caught changing clothes in her mirror
  • Wardrobe problems between two ballet dancers (Benny and Charmaine Seal)
  • Problems in a balloon act by two entertainers (Benny and Eira)
• The closing quickie features a walker (Nicole Shelby) running from a strange man (Benny) trying to kiss her and then her chasing him back.
• David Hamilton covers some of the host segments.
• Several clips from this episode made it into the The Best of Benny Hill.
• The Production Number for this episode is VTR 2307.

Sequence

• Last Episode: Is This Your Life
• Next Episode: The Sound of Frankenstein

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