O/T Benny Hill Show

[Deleted]

Hi,

I've been spending a few enjoyable evenings catching up with my Benny Hill DVD's and watching them all in chronological order, have come to the conclusion the laughter was canned.

Listen out in particular for one lady 'cackling' every so often - she can't have possible gone to nearly every recording Benny did through the 70's.

Occasionally you do get to see 'the audience' but of course they could be from another show entirely.

Still thoroughly enjoyable stuff though.

Peter

[Nosmo King]

The songs and standard/simple studio sketches were done live at Teddington studio 1.

Some eleborate studio sketches involving multicharacters or major editing - and all location filming obviously - were done in advance of the "studio day", but still shown to the studio audience on monitors.

More details are in the Mark Lewisohn bigography "Funny Perculiar"

[Deleted]

Thanks for that.


I have now ordered the book off www.play.com for the bargain price of £5.99 post paid.

Peter

[John G]

peter said:

Hi,

I've been spending a few enjoyable evenings catching up with my Benny Hill DVD's and watching them all in chronological order, have come to the conclusion the laughter was canned.

Listen out in particular for one lady 'cackling' every so often - she can't have possible gone to nearly every recording Benny did through the 70's.

Occasionally you do get to see 'the audience' but of course they could be from another show entirely.

Still thoroughly enjoyable stuff though.

Peter

It depends on the origination of your DVDs I would think.

The benny hill show was originally a hour format and was shown a few times a year. I am not absolutely certain but I would think this format has genuine laughter on it ?
I can recall a 1969 show I think? where you can hear one man in the audience who has completely lost it and is laughing uncontrollably. Not the act of a machine surely?


The shows were re-edited (butchered a better term) in the 1980s I believe?, to a half hour format. This format is maybe where you heard the canned laughter ?

IMHO these monstrosities do not reflect the original spirit of the show.

[John G]

PS
another possibility of you hearing the same woman laugh on different shows is maybe, she saw the sketches on the same night but they were edited into different shows?

[Deleted]

Hi John,

Interesting theories, but not only is it the same lady laughing on many different shows, but the laugh is the same pitch and duration every single time - it's canned laughter without a doubt.

Agreed that some bits may have been recorded in front of a live audience as Nosmo suggested earlier.

Peter