Benny Hill – Set Three: The Naughty
Years
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B
Benny Hill - Set Three: The Naughty Years has the
famous comedian’s show moving from the beat of sending up international TV to
going after more British and American shows, plus upping feature film satire
and continuing his more familiar characters.
This set from A&E covers 1975 –1977 and offers more of his classic
skits.
Funnier than the second set and on par with the first, The
Ladybirds are gone, but a whole new slate of amusing, forgettable music acts
show up in between skits and many are classics. Features like Murder On The Orient Express and The
Long, Hot Summer is lampooned, as well as TV classics like Kojak, Columbo,
McCloud, Starsky & Hutch (as Husky & Starch) and The
New Avengers are targets for satire.
As fans know, Hill often does most of the characters in each skit, doing
them very well and making the funny writing funnier. It is amazing how good he is and it is fair to say this is an
aspect of his talent that does not always get the recognition it deserves.
Again, all skits are chapterized for outstanding access to
all the funny moments. I always liked
Benny Hill and even had one of those previous compilation DVDs, but the quality
here is better for picture and sound, especially Warner Bros. with their Dolby
1.0 Mono. The sound here is a boosted
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, which is a great improvement. That also helps make the music handled by
music supervisor Ronnie Aldrich that much clearer, including Hill’s legendary
signature theme song, Yakkety Sak.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 image is a bit sharper and cleaner, with a bit
more detail from the PAL materials. You
are better off with this first of many planned set releases. Extras include another funny quiz set up
with funny clips and Eddie In August, a short comedy film hat has hardly
any dialogue that runs about 26 minutes.
There is also a text foldout with some pictures inside the case, once
again made of those great slender cases.
Benny Hill - Set Three is a return to form for the comedian and
one of the best actually comedy DVD sets to date.
- Nicholas Sheffo
