Lighten to mood
Benny Hill stamps dropped by Royal Mail after jokes deemed 'contrary to company's sexual harassment policies'
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He famously ended his shows with a comedy chase after scantily-clad women.
But that running gag has cost Benny Hill his place in postal history.
Documents released yesterday reveal how concerns were expressed by the Royal Mail about the comedian appearing on a set of special stamps to commemorate 50 years of ITV.
It was deemed that his jokes were ‘in direct opposition to the company’s policies on harassment in the work place.’
So Benny, whose show was a national favourite for twenty years, was dumped.
The editing of stamps has come to light in documents released by the Royal Mail.
It has a special committee that meets a number of times every year to discuss what should and shouldn't be on the nation's postage stamps.
On another set of stamps devoted to food, images of a British fry-up were rejected as it was deemed too unhealthy.
Details of the ITV debate shows how Benny Hill, Kenny Everett, Miss Piggy, Coronation Street's Hilda Ogden and TV sleuth Morse's sidekick Lewis all missed the cut on a set of stamps to celebrate ITV’s half century.
The minutes show that Benny Hill was elbowed out of the designs because of fears his image clashed with ITV and the Royal Mail’s policy on sexual harassment.
It said: ‘Benny Hill had been included in previous presentations but concerns were raised by our public relations team as it was in direct opposition to company's policies on harassment in the work place.’
Benny Hill
Benny Hill ended his shows with a comedy chase with scantily-clad women
The stamp experts had the Benny Hill Show, Spitting Image, the Kenny Everett Video Show and Rising Damp as alternatives for the ITV comedy show stamp and eventually plumped for a picture of a front door to illustrate Rising Damp.
Bettine Le Beuu, who appeared on the Benny Hill Shows, said: ‘It is absurd. To have a jovial and loveable face such as Benny Hill's, who made millions feel good with his humour and was appreciated by many all over the world, would have enhanced the Royal Mail.
Benny Hill
Hill was dropped over fears his image clashed with ITV and the Royal Mail's policy on sexual harassment
‘The Royal Mail has at present a rather unfavourable reputation and by you bringing this latest ill judgement forward, it makes me doubly angry with them.’
The ITV stamps, issued in September 2005 had six images corresponding to six programmes made famous on ITV; Emmerdale, Rising Damp, The Avengers, Morse, The South Bank Show and Who Wants to be A Millionaire.
Kenny Everett, Miss Piggy, Thunderbirds and A Touch of Frost were all suggested as possible designs for the stamps but were later jettisoned.
Brideshead Revisited, Cracker and Prime Suspect failed to make the cut in the Drama section while Blind Date, Stars in Their Eyes and I'm a Celebrity....Get Me Out of Here missed out in the Light Entertainment section.
As postage stamps do not generally allowed living people other than the Royal family to appear on stamps it meant that other images bit the dust.
Kevin Whately, who was John Thaw's sidekick in Inspector Morse was elbowed out of the stamp as was a design for Coronation Street which included Jean Alexander as Hilda Ogden.
On another set of stamps called Gastronomy, issued a month before the ITV set, the committee were presented with images featuring ice cream, pizza, and the great British fry-up - but this was rejected in favour of multi-racial characters eating healthy foods.
Benny Hill
Benny, whose show was a national favourite for twenty years, was dumped by Royal Mail
The minutes state: ‘The mix of foods has been improved upon so that the majority featured were healthy foods eg. Chinese noodles, sushi, tagliatelle pasta and English apples.
‘The chips and tea have been retained as popular to the British people.’
Eventually the multi-cultural designs were settled on that showed a ‘British-Indian’ woman drinking tea and a ‘British-Caribbean’ eating chips while a white boy was seen eating sushi.
A spokesman for the Royal Mail would only say that for each stamp set a number of images are selected before being whittled down to the final group.
