Benny Hill Music

[InformationGeek]

For some reason, adding this song to almost any scene makes it funnier.  As such, post some of your favorite videos involving the theme!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCivL27FCYY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrAVfByEDzc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkJmoIOr8QU

[LilCerberus]

Yup, Yackety Sax goes with almost anything.
Especially a bunch of people running around aimlessly through an open field. 

[AndyC]

I threw this one together a couple of years ago. Almost 83,000 views and lots of comments since then. I think it works rather well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nLCuS2q5Fo

[Trevor]

www.freewebarcade.com/game/bat-and-mouse-2/ has the Benny Hill theme as its' music ~ try the game but watch out for the nuclear bomb at the end. 

[Flick James]

I want Yackety Sax played at my funeral.

[Trevor]

I want Yackety Sax played at my funeral.

The Raiders March for me as the people leave: it will make them smile because they will know that I loved movies all my life and that this piece of music was my favourite piece of movie music. 

[AndyC]

I want Yackety Sax played at my funeral.

Robot Chicken actually did a phony news report commemorating Benny Hill's death, including "news footage" of Hill's funeral. I could only find a Spanish dubbed clip, but only the intro has any spoken words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoeJJsQCs7E

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

I want Yackety Sax played at my funeral.

Robot Chicken actually did a phony news report commemorating Benny Hill's death, including "news footage" of Hill's funeral. I could only find a Spanish dubbed clip, but only the intro has any spoken words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoeJJsQCs7E

OMG, I remember this one, I laughed my ass off!  The English version talks about the scene at Benny Hill's funeral.  And I'm sure if Benny were here to see it, he'd have laughed himself to death. 

[Doggett]

This is a personal fave of mine.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zRT-LvJUuQ

[ImaginaryFoot]

Years ago i saw a video online of a transvestite midget with some kinda disease, walking around then crawling towards the camera. The Benny Hill theme song was the background music

[Paquita]

At our wedding, I walked down the aisle to the traditional wedding music, but after the ceremony, we ran back down the aisle to Yackety Sax  .

Our wedding had a lot of fun music.  We cut the cake to "Eat it" by Weird Al.

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

The thing about Benny Hill was that he didn't shun anything that was bawdy or risky; he went right after it!     

Be that as is, the man was able to do it in a way that was done w\o any overtly dirty or nasty skits.   He did it in sight gags and innuendo in a way that, to me anyhow, defined him as the last of the giants in his field. 

Also, some of the songs he came up with were downright hysterical, even moreso when he would try to keep his composure when singing them. He was a true master of his craft, and sadly his likes will not be seen again. 

[Flick James]

I remember that sometimes on the Benny Hill Show, they sometimes had some alternate music for slapstick sequences other than Yackety Sax. If I remember, it was either a sax or some kind of horn playing a wacky version of Beethoven's Fur Elise. I think there were other elements too, but I distinctly remember it opens with the Fur Elise riff.

Does anybody know what that piece is called and who did it? I know that Yackety Sax was done by Boots Randolph.

[AndyC]

The thing about Benny Hill was that he didn't shun anything that was bawdy or risky; he went right after it!     

Be that as is, the man was able to do it in a way that was done w\o any overtly dirty or nasty skits.   He did it in sight gags and innuendo in a way that, to me anyhow, defined him as the last of the giants in his field. 

Also, some of the songs he came up with were downright hysterical, even moreso when he would try to keep his composure when singing them. He was a true master of his craft, and sadly his likes will not be seen again. 

Benny Hill was strongly influenced by Music Hall entertainment, sort of the British Vaudeville, and his style of comedy reflected that. There's a lot of emphasis on song, dance, pantomime, slapstick, performing in drag, working with a straight man (usually Henry McGee), pretty girls in skimpy costumes, and a style of humour that was naughty without being dirty. I've heard the comparison made to pre-adolescent humour, where boys might giggle at talk of "naked ladies" and underpants, while maintaining a degree of innocence.

Benny Hill's problem was that as he got older, that sense of innocence was harder to maintain. People started to see him as a dirty old man. Social attitudes were, of course, changing, and his comedy was frequently labelled as sexist. And a new crop of young, "sophisticated" comedians tended to view his old-fashioned comedy with a certain amount of contempt. The irony is that Britain was turning against Benny Hill just as his worldwide TV audience was at its peak. The poor guy just didn't understand what was happening.

It's tragic. All Benny Hill had was his work. When he lost his TV show, he went downhill fast. It really did kill him.

[Flick James]

The thing about Benny Hill was that he didn't shun anything that was bawdy or risky; he went right after it!     

Be that as is, the man was able to do it in a way that was done w\o any overtly dirty or nasty skits.   He did it in sight gags and innuendo in a way that, to me anyhow, defined him as the last of the giants in his field. 

Also, some of the songs he came up with were downright hysterical, even moreso when he would try to keep his composure when singing them. He was a true master of his craft, and sadly his likes will not be seen again. 

Benny Hill was strongly influenced by Music Hall entertainment, sort of the British Vaudeville, and his style of comedy reflected that. There's a lot of emphasis on song, dance, pantomime, slapstick, performing in drag, working with a straight man (usually Henry McGee), pretty girls in skimpy costumes, and a style of humour that was naughty without being dirty. I've heard the comparison made to pre-adolescent humour, where boys might giggle at talk of "naked ladies" and underpants, while maintaining a degree of innocence.

Benny Hill's problem was that as he got older, that sense of innocence was harder to maintain. People started to see him as a dirty old man. Social attitudes were, of course, changing, and his comedy was frequently labelled as sexist. And a new crop of young, "sophisticated" comedians tended to view his old-fashioned comedy with a certain amount of contempt. The irony is that Britain was turning against Benny Hill just as his worldwide TV audience was at its peak. The poor guy just didn't understand what was happening.

It's tragic. All Benny Hill had was his work. When he lost his TV show, he went downhill fast. It really did kill him.

Thank you for that commentary. I was a huge fan growing up, one of those young boys giggling about naked ladies. And I still appreciate the show. It was an interesting mix of low-brow, yet having a certain amount of old-fashioned class that ran through it.