TV Live Forum

Posting this as it relates to presentation. The Benny Hill repeats currently showing on That's TV Christmas since last week, are interesting for several reasons:-

1. They are 30 minute editions whereas the original shows were 1 hour including the adverts, as far as I remember. I only saw some of the later 80's editions. The only 30 minute editions were some compilation episodes shown around Benny Hill's death in 1992 just as Central were going to offer him a new contract - but these aren't the ones being shown now.
2. They feature the 70's/80's Thames logo at the start but a 2001 Thames endcap with a copyright in the 80's?
3. They feel very disjointed and poor editing. Indeed, last night, the closing theme tune started playing whilst one of the sketches were on and then the picture faded and the theme started again whilst some recreated credits scrolled up. The credits were also cut off at the end.
4. The Benny Hill logo at the start is not one that I have seen on his shows before. Nor the opening theme tune and images of the characters that scroll up.
5. The episodes have some weird stretchy aspect ratio, which slightly spoils the repeats for me. But I think a lot of the programmes on That's TV Xmas suffer from the same fate.

Which makes me wonder when and where these episodes were originally shown. Were they on ITV as compilation episodes or were they on Granada Men & Motors or similar - or overseas? The splurge says it's 20 years since Hill's programmes were shown on TV, yet the last time I'm aware they were last on were the compilation episodes in 1992 on ITV, the final original hour ones being in 1989. However, they may have been on some obscure satellite channel in the late 90's?

Still, it's good to see him back on TV, even if some of the material now may raise some eyebrows these days. ?

Juicy Joe post_id=54729 time= user_id=839 Wrote:Posting this as it relates to presentation. The Benny Hill repeats currently showing on That's TV Christmas since last week, are interesting for several reasons:-

1. They are 30 minute editions whereas the original shows were 1 hour including the adverts, as far as I remember. I only saw some of the later 80's editions. The only 30 minute editions were some compilation episodes shown around Benny Hill's death in 1992 just as Central were going to offer him a new contract - but these aren't the ones being shown now.
2. They feature the 70's/80's Thames logo at the start but a 2001 Thames endcap with a copyright in the 80's?
3. They feel very disjointed and poor editing. Indeed, last night, the closing theme tune started playing whilst one of the sketches were on and then the picture faded and the theme started again whilst some recreated credits scrolled up. The credits were also cut off at the end.
4. The Benny Hill logo at the start is not one that I have seen on his shows before. Nor the opening theme tune and images of the characters that scroll up.
5. The episodes have some weird stretchy aspect ratio, which slightly spoils the repeats for me. But I think a lot of the programmes on That's TV Xmas suffer from the same fate.

Which makes me wonder when and where these episodes were originally shown. Were they on ITV as compilation episodes or were they on Granada Men & Motors or similar - or overseas? The splurge says it's 20 years since Hill's programmes were shown on TV, yet the last time I'm aware they were last on were the compilation episodes in 1992 on ITV, the final original hour ones being in 1989. However, they may have been on some obscure satellite channel in the late 90's?

Still, it's good to see him back on TV, even if some of the material now may raise some eyebrows these days. ?

According to ex-Thames employee George_D over on DS.

George_D on Digital Spy Wrote:The Format Transfer area was only supposed to dub 2" tapes that had never been copied to later formats, 1" and MII.
Sure enough nearly all had only the single transmission logged and never played again. We then got a whole lot of Benny Hill. When I queried this I was told there were so many variations of overseas sales, it was safer to dub all the 2" material over.

No breaks masters and 30 minute compilations were made for overseas sales. There must be many variations on each show. It looks like some actors wanted to be removed, and as with the Kenny Everett getting music clearance would be difficult.
I saw three different director credits on the two shows last night.

I was hoping they would show the early material, but it looks not.

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion...t_99966810

I saw a couple of episodes last week and I don't think I've ever seen such a bodge job of anything. I think somebody's been a bit trigger happy in the edit suite.

1) Not uncommon for 1hr shows to get edited down to 30 minutes and split into two, it happens a lot today. But that editing is something else and I'm sure it didn't look that bad.
2) ITV do that too with the whole "ITV Studios" thing sometimes.
3) I cannot believe somebody at Fremantle sent those out like that. Wherever these have come from they've been butchered after receipt, as the end result is full of "mistakes" that Thames just wouldn't have made. In a discussion on the Blue Place with regards to another Thames show (Rainbow), a small error of some sort that made the end cap shift was (it says on the thread) considered incredibly unprofessional, and that was for something most people wouldn't even have noticed.
4) Syndication? Benny Hill was aired all over the world (and still is to an extent), not uncommon for new title cards for specific locations.
5) That's stretchyvision, as nobody can be bothered to pillar-box it properly.

All I can cay is its up to Local TV standards, the usual half-arsed standards these sort of services reach. Stretchyvision I was expecting, a bodge job in the compiling I didn't expect.