Please see below the real smart writing (stolen'd from the innernetz) about Mr. Benny Hill (nee Alfred Hawthorn Hill). (Actually, it's just the Sunday Times.)
"Benny Hill was born in Southampton in the south of England in 1924. His family was lower middle class, Hill's father being the manager of a medical appliance company. Hill was attracted early to the stage and saw many live stage shows at the two variety theatres in Southhampton. Hill saw army service in the later years of World War II and it was there that he began to perform as a comedian. After demobilisation, Hill began working in variety theatre where he slowly learned his craft.
Part of this genius lay in his writing. Hill wrote all his own material, a grueling task which explains the relatively small number of programs produced."
Thing is that I JUST blogged on my friend Billy Cometti's blog BillySmash about how my "associations" with Benny Hill -- the late night T.V., etc. -- may have meant more than anything else, and here's this real famous New York Times writer (from S.F.) writing:
"Growing up in the Bay Area in the 1970s, I watched “Benny Hill” on weekend nights on a local independent station. The lateness of the hour and the show’s presence on a commercial channel were central to its appeal. “Monty Python” was telecast on the PBS station, firmly associated in my mind with the endless, ponderous serials my parents insisted on watching in favor of, say, “Laverne & Shirley.” (This was in that benighted era when most suburban houses boasted but a single set for family viewing.) And I think “Benny Hill” had the added attraction of appearing as a lighthearted appetizer for my real passion of the time, a resplendently lurid Australian soap opera set in a women’s prison called “Prisoner: Cell Block H.”
Unfortunately, I think Billy wiped out my "comments" when he last "archived." So the fact that I made the very same observations before Mr. I-Write-For-The-New-York-Times is unsupportable.
Nonetheless, it is only the innernetz that make us human.
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