How Did they Get Away with 'That'?

[Humphrey Hacker]

Wasn't Benny Hill basically axed to make way for Mr Bean?

I think that was more or less the reason. Thames was in a bad way at the end of the 1980's. Death On The Rock played a part but there was the financial pressure of the time. Hill's shows were costing a fortune and it was a case of diminishing returns.

With Bean you had a similar vein to Hill in terms of the silent comedy but probably cheaper to film,

[XIII]

One of my favourite sketches is The Two Ninnies which was done by Not the Nine O'Clock News, apparently Ronnie Barker was appalled by it but it's a perfect send up of their innuendo filled material.

[Whataday]

Hill's shows were costing a fortune and it was a case of diminishing returns.

Yes, important to remember that the shows cost a fortune and the ratings were going down. Very little to do with political correctness as is oft quoted.

[Humphrey Hacker]

From what I understand Hill was supposed to have signed a deal or had talks with Central. There are rumours that a contract was all ready to be signed before Hill died. Central purchased two slots on the network for Hill but after he died the slots were used by Freddie Starr.

[XIII]

I've read that a Benny Hill Show episode could cost up to £450,000 an episode which would have been very expensive in the 1980s.

[Neil Jones]

It could be argued the whole premise of Dad's Army is very much "how did they get away with it", because its documented in the 2015 We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story that it was was felt by Paul Fox (head of BBC 1 at the time) that it was probably too soon after the war for such a show, he himself having been in the parachute regiment during the war years. The show's originally planned titles were seen as a step too far and offensive, A portion of "these" titles is seen in the 2015 film, though I doubt they're the genuine ones originally planned for use and may be just some stock footage from a library somewhere.

[XIII]

It could be argued the whole premise of Dad's Army is very much "how did they get away with it", because its documented in the 2015 We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story that it was was felt by Paul Fox (head of BBC 1 at the time) that it was probably too soon after the war for such a show, he himself having been in the parachute regiment during the war years. The show's originally planned titles were seen as a step too far and offensive, A portion of "these" titles is seen in the 2015 film, though I doubt they're the genuine ones originally planned for use and may be just some stock footage from a library somewhere.

I'm surprised they would have considered Dad's Army as a too soon considering WWII had ended 23 years before.

[Brekkie]

I've read that a Benny Hill Show episode could cost up to £450,000 an episode which would have been very expensive in the 1980s.

That would still be considered very expensive for a linear comedy show today.

[Humphrey Hacker]

It could be argued the whole premise of Dad's Army is very much "how did they get away with it", because its documented in the 2015 We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story that it was was felt by Paul Fox (head of BBC 1 at the time) that it was probably too soon after the war for such a show, he himself having been in the parachute regiment during the war years. The show's originally planned titles were seen as a step too far and offensive, A portion of "these" titles is seen in the 2015 film, though I doubt they're the genuine ones originally planned for use and may be just some stock footage from a library somewhere.

Dad's Army began in 1968 when memories of the Second World War were still painfully fresh for many including the cast. As you said Paul Fox was a former Para, John Le Mesurier was a Captain and Clive Dunn spent much of the war as a German POW.

This is just a theory but I think Dad's Army become popular from the early 1970's onwards when the political and industrial situations in the UK were shall we say highly combustible and maybe the show acted as a kind of reminder that the nation had been through worse and had got through it.

[Bluecortina]

I've read that a Benny Hill Show episode could cost up to £450,000 an episode which would have been very expensive in the 1980s.

That would still be considered very expensive for a linear comedy show today.

I believe Stanley Baxter’s show at LWT suffered the same fate for the same reason - cost.

[Steve in Pudsey]

If you want an example of how to structure a load of otherwise totally unacceptable material in a way that makes it possible to get away with, check out the Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Joke Swap segments.

These usually occur at Christmas and the season finale, and have Colin Jost and Michael Che writing joke news reports for each other that they don't see before it appears on the prompter for them to read live on air. Inevitably, the aim of the game is to stitch each other up with inappropriate jokes, in particular Che usually gives Jost lines based around offensive racial stereotypes.

They get away with it because of the context - we know that Che (a black man) has written the lines to stich Jost up, and the humour is in Jost's mortified reaction to being forced to read this stuff, rather than in the actual content.

[BlueFrog]

There was this one time where around 2014, Channel 4 aired Simpsons episode "Bart the Fink" and they accidentally aired a post-watershed variant of the episode, so you'd hear Krusty going "Tell me where you are now you bastard!"

This was at 6pm.

[Brekkie]

Bastard is a word you can get away with pre-watershed - the soaps certainly have - though not so much in recent years. I suspect The Simpsons wouldn't though.

[Newshound47]

A lot of those controversial programmes would still be pretty popular now if aired I suspect but would also cause thousands of complaints which might upheld by Ofcom so would never be aired.

[RyoG]

A "bastard" or two slipped through back when the BBC showed it, and I remember Sky keeping Bart and Homer's usage in "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" back in the 90s (although they cut Bart singing it).