First watched : Uncertain
Like The Tommy Cooper Hour I first saw this by virtue of it following Coronation Street on a Wednesday but when the first time was is anyone's guess. I rarely saw it in full , probably only until the first ad break gave Mum or Gran an excuse to drag me off to bed.
Obviously there's been a long controversy about this show and I'm not intending to write a potted history of that. No one denies that Benny was a hugely talented and versatile performer who packed slapstick, parody , musical pastiche and innuendo into every show with the help of regulars like suave Henry McGee and the grotesque Bob Todd and Jackie Wright. But of course he also included lots of scantily-clad women to be chased and drew increasing criticism for that though his comeback that the punchline to the sketches was invariably the humiliation of their lecherous assailant was surely correct. Because a large proportion of the show was made up of sight gags, it was very easy to export around the world making Thames TV a lot of money and Benny a world star although he rarely worked outside the UK.
Infamously Ben Elton made the ridiculous claim in 1987 that the show incited rape and violence towards women, a statement he's always tried to backtrack on since the backlash. The following year John Howard Davies newly appointed Head of Light Entertainment at Thames put the show to bed on the grounds that ratings were falling, the show was expensive and Benny was looking tired. The first two were related, A still-athletic Benny chasing women around was one thing; it might get Elton hot under the collar but the ITV audience wasn't too bothered. When he was grey-haired and overweight it didn't work; his audience could tolerate supposed sexism; they weren't too keen on being reminded of their own mortality.
Offscreen Benny was a complicated character, over -fixated on his mother, largely indifferent to the money he was generating and reportedly wanting no more sexually than an occasional blow job. He was devastated by the cancellation and started deliberately neglecting his health despite the fact that new offers of work were starting to come in . He had a minor heart attack in February 1992 then died alone watching TV in his rented flat two months later. He had no up to date will, supposed verbal promises to colleagues and lady friends could not be substantiated so his fortune went to great- nephews and neices he hardly knew. Some sources have named Aussie sexpot Holly Valance though she isn't as closely related to him as that.
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