Hi, I'm looking for a specific Benny Hill episode.
I guess he parodied MacGuyver there. The specific scene includes him being tied up and somehow he manages to get a sheet of chewing gum into his hands which is traditionally packaged into a tin foil. He unpacks it and molds the foil into a tiny knife with which he cuts the rope.
Anybody have any idea?
I think it's going to be extremely hard to pinpoint that exact episode on such a small scene so long after any Benny Hill has been shown here, you may get better luck on the Benny Hill Fan Club website. I know I have seen this, I can picture it clearly but it doesn't help with identify the episode.
But I'd have a guess it was from his late period made in USA shows, late 80s to 1990ish and were pretty decent shows considering his age but not as good as his early 70s golden period.
He took to doing more little narrative spoofs of films or shows or American tropes or characters for his US shows and I have a strongish feeling I saw this or a very similar prison escape vignette in that period. I avidly watched all his 'comeback' shows as he was by then a huge star in the US and his new material tailored for the American market went down a storm I recall, they were very flattered by his efforts to 'Americanise' it.
So I'd look there first, his made in America shows (I think still Thames/ITV produced). Not too many shows to choose from. Apologies if it's from much earlier but it could even be from both as Benny did recycle a few of his sketches or put different slants on the same gags.
Thanks, I'll try asking some fan club then.
I seem to recall enjoying his shows as a kid but I found his later TV work so creepy that it makes me wonder if the creepiness was always there and I was just too young to see it. I suppose I should go back and revisit the early stuff, but knowing what he became, and given how society has changed, I doubt I would be able to judge it fairly.
I am not the most politically correct but even I blanch at stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmbFdenAb7o
I still like Ernie though.
Benny was always a bit on a pervy side. Seemingly more towards the end of his career. But I have never seen anything bad about it. First it was widely accepted at the time and as far as I know he only worked with the volunteers and I don't remember being ever forced to watch his show. Ok, I'm a man and may have a sexually biased view but I also happen to know exactly zero females who would think otherwise. Quite the opposite! Every woman I have asked about him remember him with warm words.
Did his sketches become cheaper as time passed? Sure, but who's didn't?
