And Now For Something Completely Different- An American Kid Grown Up on British Humor
37 years later I still remember the music, and it still brings a dopey smile to my face.
No matter the TV shows my brother and I started with, the final show, at 11 PM Central Time was always the same.
The Benny Hill show.
If you were there too, you remember the music, you remember the chase scene at the very end, you remember the old guy, and you remember Benny Hill.
Benny Hill was an absolute master of facial expression, innuendo, double entendre, all mixed with slapstick, and he could make you laugh hysterically without saying a word. Oh, but when he spoke, you laughed too, especially as an American kid. Benny Hill had a gift for making British humor accessible to Americans, and no matter how bad a day you had, it ended on a high note when you turned on the Benny Hill show (not to be confused with Benny Hinn).
He'd show up in all sorts of different costumes, as all sorts of different characters, and just when you thought he was all slapstick, he’d say something so ironic, so clever, that you fell out of your chair laughing. And oh my God, did he have gorgeous women on the show, pushing the envelope with naughty, cheeky humor, but never crossing over to “blue” humor. He didn’t have to- the art of pushing the envelope was so entertaining it would have been disappointing if he crossed it.
The show ran from 1955 to 1989, and the musical score you remember so well was called Yakety Sax. Sadly, in 1989, the show was cancelled as the winds of cultural change started to blow. The golden era of music ended, and the world we grew up in, a world without whiney alternative music, without mobile devices, without the internet, without social media was about to end. So perhaps it’s fitting the Benny Hill show ended there too.
Benny Hill died in 1992, the same year as The Godfather Joe Anthony, the great rock and roll radio DJ from San Antonio, Texas. He was 68, Joe was 55. I will always believe until the day I die it was the sudden cultural change that killed Joe, and it killed Benny. They were cultural icons of a far better world, and when that world suddenly died, so did they.
Benny Hill wasn’t a complex show or a deep show, nor should it have been. It was the same happy show you could watch every night for thirty years and enjoy every episode equally. It was unpretentious, uncomplicated, and always hilarious. And it stayed with every American kid who grew up watching it in the late 70’s and late 80’s. If you play the music in the hilarious clip below to anyone who did, you will see their face light up in a way you’ll never see in today’s world:
Luckily you can find plenty of Benny Hill clips on YouTube, and Amazon recently released a “Best of Benny Hill”- which is humorous in and of itself because all Benny Hill is the best.
If you’re reading this, and haven’t heard of Benny Hill or watched Benny Hill in a very long time, go to YouTube and treat yourself. Watch any of the clips, it doesn’t matter which. Watch them at 11 pm before you go to bed, and you’ll start to see how good Benny Hill was for the soul. You cannot watch Benny Hill and feel sad. The only sad thing is there will never be another show like Benny Hill, one that infuses you with simple joy in a mere 30 minutes.
There isn’t anything more to write about The Benny Hill show because the Benny Hill Show is meant to be watched. It’s an overused phrase to say that something is “good for the soul,” but that is an accurate description of the Benny Hill Show. Reader’s Digest used to run a section called “Laughter Is the Best Medicine,” and if that’s true, then Benny Hill is the most potent drug you can take, requiring a nightly dosage for full effect. And if you’re feeling a little down during the day, just play the Benny Hill music- Yakety Sax- and let that dopey grin come over your face.
And now for something completely different.
I’m not really sure how old I was when I first watched Monty Python’s Flying Circus on PBS. It was probably in the late 70’s at my grandparent’s ranch house in Bandera, Texas because they had a TV, and my family in El Paso did not. My Mother believed TV was bad for kids, and reading was better, and there’s probably a lot of truth to that. So that made watching tv at my grandparents special.
At that time in my life, I loved cartoons. Saturday morning cartoons were the best, and they started at 6 am. Whenever I would spend the night at a friend’s house in El Paso, we’d get up at 6am to start the cartoon marathon, beginning with FangFace. I used to remember the whole lineup, but that has faded to history- I think Captain Caveman was there, Superfriends were there, and a dumb rendition of Godzilla was there.
I watched Saturday morning cartoons at my grandparents, but there was a weekday bonus- at 3:30, you’d get 30 minutes of cartoons, usually Scooby Doo or the Flintstones. There was nothing worse than turning on the tv for cartoons and seeing the opening for M*A*S*H*. As a kid, that was a true disappointment. I wanted to watch cartoons, and I was always on the hunt for new ones since I was cartoon deprived at home.
That’s how I stumbled onto Monty Python because the show had cartoons in it. Weird cartoons. Surreal cartoons. A giant foot stomping down to start the show. Minstrels blowing horns. Indescribable animation that looked like it came out of the middle ages. But still, cartoons were cartoons, and if I could get an extra fix by turning on PBS at grandma and grandpa’s, I was up for it.
As I started to get a little bit older, I started paying attention to the skits. They were like nothing else I’d ever seen. The famous Python phrase, “And now for something completely different,” was 100% accurate. And I loved the accents. The different accents and mannerisms of the actors captivated me. I started doing imitations, even though I had no idea what the words actually meant.
It was in 8th grade, 1984-85, that I really got into Monty Python. My best friend, The Mic, had a cable tv in his room, right next to the Commodore 64 we eventually used to dial into the local BBS networks, and his Dad actually PAID for HBO and Cinemax (known as Skin-e-max if you were there). We could watch real live movies, and one of the first ones we watched was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. By then I understood the humor, and the movie killed us. Who couldn’t laugh at lines and skits such as:
“You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!”
“I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”
“It’s only a flesh wound!”
The Ballad of Sir Robin (he bravely chickened out)
The Knights who say Ni! (and demand a shrubbery)
The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch
An African Swallow vs a European Swallow
What made us laugh so hard- and in a different way than Benny Hill- was the humor was both intellectual and nonsensical at the same time. It made no sense at all, yet it was absolutely hilarious, made even more so by the fantastic accents of John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman and so many talented supporters.
We watched The Life of Brian, we watched The Meaning of Life, we watched all the Flying Circus episodes, and best of all we watched Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, where one of my best friends today was caught on camera at the age of 13, 22 years before I met him. Insane to think we’ve been friends for 24 years now.
While my friends listened to music, I listened to Monty Python. I soaked in the rhythm of the humor, the intellectually absurd sayings, the strange visuals, the surreal energy of the show. It made me laugh and think at the same time, and it still does. How could you not love openers like:
There’s a dead bishop on the landing! (The Church Police)
‘ello! You are the sole proprietor and owner of the Whizzo Chocolate Company? (Crunchy Frog)
I wish to register a complaint! (Dead Parrot)
Good morning, can you help me? Do you have a copy of "Thirty Days in the Samarkand Desert" by A.E J.Elliot, OBE? (Bookshop)
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! (The Spanish Inquistion)
I wish to have an argument! (The Argument clinic).
Spam! Yes, the word for unwanted, unsolicited email is derived directly from the Monty Python skit.
I can go on and on- the Ministry of Silly Walks, Nudge Nudge, Albatross, Barbershop Quartet, I Bet You They Don’t Play This Song on the Radio and so many others I can still (almost) recite from memory. You can look them all up on YouTube, and I’d recommend you do. If Benny Hill brings you pure joy, Monty Python brings you a deeper absurdity, activating a different part of your mind.
As a kid, I was a little tight sometimes, but I did love to laugh, and British humor taught me how to laugh in a different way. It loosened me up. It taught me how to be funny, the best social skill you can learn. Benny Hill gave me the surface level humor with a jolt of joy, and Monty Python gave me the much deeper, intellectual humor making me laugh and think at the same time.
If you were into Monty Python, you know what I’m talking about. It changes you, and for the better. It makes you see the absurdities in life, and laugh at them in a way others can’t or won’t. And in this day and age, it lampoons those who constantly whine and moan and snivel on social media more so than ever.
If you’re reading this, and have never heard of Monty Python, or never watched Monty Python, or haven’t watched Monty Python in decades, go to Youtube and treat yourself. It is unrivaled intellectual humor, from a world long gone. And that’s why it holds up so well, perfectly pointing out how ridiculous the phony angst that began infecting culture in 1992 really is.
Reader’s Digest was right, Laughter IS the Best Medicine, and no one did it better than Benny Hill and Monty Python.
But enough of this writing. I never wanted to do this in the first place. I wanted to be…
…a LUMBERJACK!
You have some great stories. Love it!