I remember watching The Benny Hill show during the Seventies on London channel Thames TV, which also produced the show from their studios at Teddington Lock in west London. I remember just how popular this show was in England and as i found out later, the whole world. This man was a comedy genius ranked by many with the all time greats such as Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Lloyd. In France he is revered as a comedy auteur. His shows viewing figures were always in the top ten in the UK right up to his shows cancellation in 1989. Around the same time comedy in Britain was undergoing a revolution. The old-school traditional end-of-pier type of comedy that had become a mainstay in UK television (Are You Being Served) was now considered to be politically incorrect. In it's place came a new "style" of writing more influenced by correct non sexist/racist humour. This change was headlined by such shows as The Comic Strip Presents,The Young Ones,Friday night Live and a whole host of other programing that had first had exposure with the launch of channel 4 in 1982. By the late 80s Thames television were facing a barrage of anti Benny Hill sentiment driven by the UK press that was totally contradicted by his viewing figures that showed only a small decline in viewers. Thames decided to bite the political bullet and cancelled his show in 1989. Benny Hill was to experience the wilderness of change and he never worked again. Former members of the Hills Angels visited him on a regular basis, but a depression had started to eat away at him. He died on April 18, 1992.
Now in 2005 TV comedy in the UK is split into two halves. The commercial channels such as Channels 4 & 5 show predominantly US imports such as Friends, Joey etc. While the BBC still stick to homegrown comedy such as Little Britain, The Smoking Room, which are the direct descendants of the "Alternative Comedy" that changed British TV in the 1980s. The problem now is is that it's hard to find anything that can give you a real belly laugh because todays comedy is too obsessed with patting itself on the back in self congratulation at how smart it is.
