Benny's Back

Well, actually, it's perennial straight man Henry McGee this time, blowing on the tuba in 1977's At The Streaker's Ball (performed by the Little Dimpton Milk Marketing Board, no less). In addition to Lorraine Doyle having her dress blown up, Suzy Mandel loses her skirt to Benny's baton during the inevitable closing fiasco.

Benny Hill: Jane Leeves

While British actress Jane Leeves is best-known for her run as Daphne Moon on NBC's Frasier, she actually started out as an extra on The Benny Hill Show, circa 1982 or thereabouts. In common with many of her Hill's Angels co-stars, she was required to show her knickers in between dance numbers:

We've Just Passed Two Hundred Thousand!

Yes, that's right: as of 13 August, 2022, we've reached a grand total of 200,285 views - and the numbers continue to rise! Even more unbelievable: according to our stats, we scored more than 100,000 views within the last twelve months alone! 

What does all this mean? OK, let's try to put it into some kind of perspective. We established this blog waaaay back in May 2010, mainly as a database for lingerie scenes on film and TV. Following a couple of false starts, we bumbled along with a few hundred visits per month for the first eleven years (more or less the average for a niche blog like this), then suddenly our ratings shot through the ceiling.

What happened? None of us know for sure. The change came directly out of left field, catching all of us by surprise. We noticed a huge influx from Europe (particularly France) as well as a steady climb in Canada and the US, but we've yet to figure out how the digital landscape changed in such a short span of time. On the other hand, we have a few clues with might point us in the right direction.

First, there's Benny Hill. Benny has always been a perennial favorite on this site, with this post amassing 5047 views on its own. Seems that there's still a huge audience out there, thirty years after the great man's passing, and it's no secret that Benny's "silent comedies" appeal to a vast demographic on both sides of the Atlantic. Just goes to prove that some forms of humor transcend language and cultural barriers (especially when there are bras, knickers and beautiful young women involved). At present, we have no less than thirteen articles devoted to Benny's girls, and people simply can't get enough.

Another contributing factor might be diversity. Variety being the spice of life, we wanted to explore visual media of every conceivable form: film and TV, comics and cartoons, manga and anime; literally anything we could find in the uncharted corners of the Web (how did we ever survive without the internet?).

Benny Hill: Acacia Avenue

Acacia Avenue is the closing tag from episode 24 of The Benny Hill Show (March 26, 1975). Waiting at the bus stop, several locals (Libby Roberts, Henry McGee, Moira Foot et al) and a priest (Don Estelle) are alarmed by the appearance of a stereotype "duffer" (Benny Hill) with a half-naked woman on his arm (turns out it's just a mannequin). Noticing the commotion, WPC Jeannie Collings turns up to investigate, ordering Benny to drape his coat over the figure. Meanwhile, a pretty young girl (Debbie Greenhill) strolls up, taking her place by the bus stop. Naturally, Benny mistakes her for the mannequin and rips her clothes off, exposing her underwear in public. Having incited the inevitable melee, Benny flees into a local park where he leaps astride an ostrich (?!) to ride to freedom.

Summary by User:Thor2000

Benny Hill: Bus Stop

Bus Stop is the closing tag of The Benny Hill Show Episode 27 (March 24, 1976). Playing a stereotype "silly old duffer," Benny sneezes his way through one catastrophe after another, first blowing away a civil servant's (Henry McGee) newspaper before disrobing an attractive young brunette. A chase immediately ensues, with Duffo blowing away a tent (revealing two young campers in their underwear), felling a tree (provoking lumberjack Bob Todd to take after him with an axe) and demolishing a smoke stack before finally setting off a nuclear blast in the middle of London.

 

 

Benny Hill: Elsie

Elsie (Abigail Higgins) is the unwitting 'star' of Benny Hill's 1981 Channel Surfing sketch. Preparing to bed down for the evening, Elsie walks into the living room where newscaster Benny ogles her through the television screen. Nonchalantly removing her sheer blue negligee, Elsie strips down to her bra, panties and stockings in front of the stammering anchorman.

 

Unaware this is happening, Elsie moves around the apartment as Benny repeatedly misquotes the news, looks out the back of the set when she crosses behind it and even steals a bite of her pastry through the screen. When Benny later reports that an escaped convict (Bob Todd) is loose in her neighborhood, the criminal immediate bursts into Elsie's apartment and hides in her wardrobe, closely followed by two police officers (Henry McGee and Roger Finch) strolling into the house. 

Seeing all this, the newscaster tries to warn them, but they turn down the volume on the television which he then turns back up. When the criminal is caught hiding, a struggle ensues, and the newscaster is shot through the TV monitor, lamenting that the only casualty was an innocent newsreader. Finally looking at the television, Elsie comments "Look at that - drunk again."

Summary by Thor2000.

Benny Hill: Continental Capers

 

Benny lends Barbara Wise a helping hand.

The Continental Capers Band is a ten-piece orchestra which plays in the bandstand of a large unidentified park (possibly in Dimpton or Lower Tidmarsh). When they arrive, the gate into the bandstand appears to be stuck. Naturally, Benny immediately assists two of his musicians (Barbara Wise and Malou Cartwright) over the railing. The girls are required to hike up their skirts, revealing their knickers and stockings in the process. Once they're inside, Benny opens the gate without further incident, allowing the rest of the band to set up their instruments (summary by Thor2000).

The full skit may be viewed on youtube:

Benny Hill: Civil Servants

While civil servants were normally the purview of Monty Python's Flying Circus throughout the 70s, they occasionally turned up on Benny Hill whenever the opportunity arose. The scene posted below illustrates one of the fundamental differences between the two shows: on Monty Python, government bureaucrats were targets for absurdist ridicule; on Benny Hill, they were employed to 'inadvertently' raise skirts before the camera.

 

 

 

2D to 3D Conversion

OK, so let's see if this AI program works on a hand-drawn image we found on the web...

Click to enlarge

Actually...not too bad at all for a free online converter...

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Seems to work best at smaller sizes, but it definitely has great potential for  the future...

Click to enlarge

And yeah, it appears to work just as well with screencaps too. If you'd like to try it out, the program's called Leiapix. Enjoy :) 

Benny Hill: Garters Galore!

And now for another (in)famous chase scene from The Benny Hill Show! By the end of the eighties, the starring cast must have been stripped down to their underwear in every manner humanly possible, but apparently, the Old Reprobate still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

 

 

 

 

This 1986 closing sketch has Benny fleeing through the Dimpton countryside with the obligatory Traffic Wardens in hot pursuit. Inevitably, a chance encounter with a barbed wire fence leaves the girls in nothing but their bras and knickers, at which point the tables abruptly turn and the WPCs find themselves sprinting half-naked through the woods.

 

 

On the run again...

 

The skit appears to have been a fun shoot for everybody concerned; evidently the girls found running around in their stockings and garters as much of a thrill as we do. Interestingly, the scene posted above originally had the closing credits rolling over the action. We'd be very interested to know how they removed the titles for this animated gif. It seems to have been lifted from an old video compilation (as opposed to DVD), maybe there's an alternate source concealed somewhere on the net :)

Up to his old tricks again...

Yes, Benny Hill will do literally anything to meet a pretty girl. In this 'silent movie' sketch, Benny dresses up as an old maid then finds himself alone in a room with four sweet young things (apologies for the grainy screencaps):

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good quality clip of this scene anywhere online. Feel free to post a link if you happen to have one.

Benny Hill Revisited

Presenting: one of my favorite closing scenes from The Benny Hill Show. I probably saw this around the age of  thirteen, and needless to say, it left a profound impression. Back in the early 70s, TBHS was well-known for its saucy double-entendres, but this was the first time I'd seen the show's voluptuous co-stars disrobe before the camera. At first I didn't realize what was happening, then was hit with the stunning revelation that the girls were stripping down to their bare knickers.

Summary: 

The Langley Base Army Camouflage Unit is a British special forces division specially trained in the art of camouflage. They are staking out a glade in the Heathrow countryside where when three young ladies (Sue Bond, Cheryl Gilham and Dennie Bayliss) decide to go sunbathing in front of them. The members of the unit take snapshots as the girls strip down to their lingerie and depart for the clearing, leaving their clothes hanging on some nearby branches.

The scene is interrupted by the arrival of Tredder and Son woodcutters (Bob Todd and Jackie Wright) who proceed to try to saw down one of the tree-trunks, sending the disguised troops into a panic. The unit takes off down the grassy slope chased by the woodcutters and the young women.

Summary by User:Thor2000