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Re: Benny Hill
I think that the only problems that Cannon and Ball had was in the earlier part of their ITV contract - firstly, they were supposed to have sketches within Bruce's Big Night programme in the autumn of 1978, but LWT had so much to cram in two hours that they were bumped out every week. Secondly, the ITV strike between August and October 1979 did no favours for them as their first own series were interrupted by the strike and so again, their sketches could not be transmitted. It wasn't until the start of the 1980s that they took off on Saturday nights. And then in 1986-1987, they did a Hancock-alike sitcom. They soldiered on until 1988, and then joined Yorkshire TV in 1990 for their Casino show which I suppose was their way of trying to replace 3-2-1 and probably had the same production crew involved as they did for Ted Rogers.
I was so close to booking tickets to see Cannon and Ball on my birthday in 2018 when they were at the Bridlington Spa (I love travelling to theatres around the country at the end of August as you might have gathered) - mind you, as Bobby is in his late 70s and Tommy has reached the age of 80, one assumes that the quality of their material wouldn't have been as good as 30 years ago, and that would be saying something. So I went down south and saw something different. One point to make that neither Eric or Ernie never made it to the age of 70, and Morecambe didn't even reach 60.
Writers are another thing - in the 1970s, Morecambe and Wise had Eddie Braben as the main writer - when they moved to Thames, Braben couldn't go with them and had to stay with the BBC until his contracted ended in 1980, and he wrote for little and Large, while it was up to Barry Cryer and John Junkin to script Eric and Ernie's Thames shows when they arrived there in autumn 1978. They made an appearance in The Sweeney because Thaw and Waterman guest appeared on their show.
I think that the only problems that Cannon and Ball had was in the earlier part of their ITV contract - firstly, they were supposed to have sketches within Bruce's Big Night programme in the autumn of 1978, but LWT had so much to cram in two hours that they were bumped out every week. Secondly, the ITV strike between August and October 1979 did no favours for them as their first own series were interrupted by the strike and so again, their sketches could not be transmitted. It wasn't until the start of the 1980s that they took off on Saturday nights. And then in 1986-1987, they did a Hancock-alike sitcom. They soldiered on until 1988, and then joined Yorkshire TV in 1990 for their Casino show which I suppose was their way of trying to replace 3-2-1 and probably had the same production crew involved as they did for Ted Rogers.
I was so close to booking tickets to see Cannon and Ball on my birthday in 2018 when they were at the Bridlington Spa (I love travelling to theatres around the country at the end of August as you might have gathered) - mind you, as Bobby is in his late 70s and Tommy has reached the age of 80, one assumes that the quality of their material wouldn't have been as good as 30 years ago, and that would be saying something. So I went down south and saw something different. One point to make that neither Eric or Ernie never made it to the age of 70, and Morecambe didn't even reach 60.
Writers are another thing - in the 1970s, Morecambe and Wise had Eddie Braben as the main writer - when they moved to Thames, Braben couldn't go with them and had to stay with the BBC until his contracted ended in 1980, and he wrote for little and Large, while it was up to Barry Cryer and John Junkin to script Eric and Ernie's Thames shows when they arrived there in autumn 1978. They made an appearance in The Sweeney because Thaw and Waterman guest appeared on their show.
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