Coalpits

## Production

**Episode:** 18

**Date:** March 13, 1974

**Time:** 48:33

**Musical Director:**

**Vocals:** The Ladybirds

**Choreography:**

**Producer:** Mark Stuart

**Director:** Mark Stuart

**Writer:** Benny Hill

## Episode

* Quickie: It's A Boy
* Monologue: The Good Book
* Bloopers - 5
* Fred Scuttle: Escort Service
* Quickie: You Say Hawaii
* Match Of The Week
* Quickie: 15 But Looks 12
* Guest: Judith Durham - Strut Your Self
* Quickie: Spanish Guard
* Coalpits
* Quickie: Please Don't Leave During TV Time
* The Ladybirds - Yesterday Once More
* Quickie: Missing Wallet
* The Short and Unhappy Romance of Ted Tingle
* Quickies: Hillbilly Drinking
* Diana Darvey:Mexican Medley

## Highlights

* Match of the Week
* The Short and Unhappy Romance of Ted Tingle

## Cast

* Benny Hill
* Nicolas Parsons
* Bob Todd
* Jerrold Wells
* Diana Darvey
* John John Keefe
* The Ladybirds
* Jack Wright
* Bella Emburg
* Jim Tyson
* Malou Cartwright
* Guillermo Basillicio
* Clare Russell
* Brian Nolan
* Jeannie Collings
* Zoe Hendry
* Len Keyes
* Bob Bauld
* Kevin Moran
* Stephen Kane
* Jo Peters
* Helen Horton (voice only - The Good Book)

## Quotes

* **Benny Hill** - "I am inclined to believe that the meek will inherit the Earth, but if the meek inherit the Earth, what are the single men going to get?"

* **Benny Hill** - "Poor men want to be rich... Rich men wish they were handsome... Single men wish they were married... And married men wish they were dead..."

* **Benny Hill** - "She may look like a million dollars now, but in twenty years she will still look like a million dollars... In loose change!!"

* **Benny Hill** - "Nature gave women eyes like the stars... And skin like silk... And a mouth like a rose bud…. And then he went and spoiled it all by adding a tongue to it."

* **Benny Hill** - "Just remember, no one is wrong all the time... even a broken clock is right twice a day."

* **Benny Hill** - "Remember your wife is smarter than you ever were because you married her and she married you."

* **Nicholas Parsons**  - "Tell me, is he bilingual."
**Fred Scuttle**  - "I think some of them are."

* **Fred Scuttle**  - "She's got sunken cheeks, shallow eyes, deep dimples and a cleft shin. When she smiles, her entire face caves in!."

* **Nicholas Parsons**  - "So she's loaded."
**Fred Scuttle**  - "Most Nights."

* **Nicholas Parsons**  - "Well, some good-looking men are conceited."
**Fred Scuttle**  - "I'm not."

* **Nicholas Parsons**  - "Mr. Scuttle, how do these ladies get a hold of your lotharios?."
**Fred Scuttle**  - "Not as often as I'd like."

* **Fred Scuttle**  - "Sounds like a dog with no roof to its mouth!"

* **Fred Scuttle**  - "This is Little Johnny. He's shy."
**Nicholas Parsons**  - "About thirty years....."

* **Fred Scuttle**  - "He just came out of the Merchant Navy. I don't think he's ever seen the opposite sex."
**Little Johnny**  - "They're the ones who go back when they're dancing."

* **Nicholas Parsons**  - "They have little peccadillos."
**Fred Scuttle**  - "So I have heard....."

* **Fred Scuttle**  - "Just a minute!. No making out and no molesting!"
 **Nicholas Parsons**  - "I'm not going to be doing any molesting."
**Fred Scuttle**  - "I was talking to her."

* **Colonel**  - "If there are any escapes, you will be put on a diet of bread and water."
**Captain Schtuk**  - "Extra rations? Goody, goody, goody....."

* **Captain Schtuk**  - "It will be a dirty one."
**Prisoner**  - "Why must it be a dirty one?."
 **Captain Schtuk**  - "Because the only bus that comes by is a number dirty-one."

* **Benny's Son**  - "Hey, paw, can I go out to play?"
**Abner**  - "What with those holes in your trousers."
 **Benny's son**  - "No, paw, with the kids across the street."

* **Benny Hill**  - "Please don't blame my doggy; it's not his fault at all. Someone left a wet umbrella standing in the hall."

* **Benny Hill**  - "Why do they put big walls around cemeteries? I mean, the people on the inside aren't going to come out, and the people on the outside don't want to go in!"

## Trivia

* The opening quickie features an expectant father (Benny Hill) who is happy to have a son until the nurse (Bella Emburg) asks for her finger back.
* The first string of quickies features bloopers from Fanny and Johnny Craddock]] with German accents, two dancers (Benny Hill and Diana Darvey smack into an unpainted set piece, another interruption from Fanny Craddock and Benny as a spokesman for the Hallo Hair Studio accompanied by Malou Cartwright as a model and Jon Jon Keefe as a studio grip. Fannie returns with yet another on-air interruption.
	+ The Hallo Hair quickie is later recreated by Benny and Abigail Higgins on February 11, 1981
* Nicholas Parsons returns briefly to the series after a several episode absence. This would be his last appearance in the series.
* The male models in Fred Scuttle's Escorts are Bob Todd, Jackie Wright and Jerold Wells. The female escorts are Diana Darvey (green), Jeannie Collings (yellow), Zoe Hendry (pink) and Malou Cartwright (black) with Bella Emberg in a white dress and orange sweater, revealed to be Scuttle's wife.
	+ The short is followed by the popular "Havaii" quickie with Benny Hill and Bella Emburg as a bickering couple and Jackie Wright as the tourist with the strange accent. A great memory from the series. Diana Darvey and Malou Cartwright also pass through the scene.
* Judith Durham performs "Strut Yourself" with the Hottest Band in Town. This number may be a bit obscure to even most die-hard Benny Hill fans as it didn't appear in American syndication nor in the HBO VHS/DVD packages.
* Additional Quickies feature a hillbilly son (Jon Jon Keefe) asking his father (Benny Hill) for permission to date his sixteen-year-old daughter (who looks twelve). This bit is repeated in Hold Back The Wind in 1977. Benny's hillbilly look in this sketch is recycled for Jed Jardine in Big Poppa.
	+ Mexican prisoners (Jon Jon Keefe/Jackie Wright/Len Keyes/Bob Todd) paint the image of a naked woman on the inside of their jail door then point and laugh as their jailer (Benny Hill) puts his head on it
	+ A husband (Benny Hill) pleads with his wife (Malou Cartwright) not to leave him but he's clearly more interested in the TV
	+ The hillbilly patriarch tells his neighbor (Jerold Wells) how he put an ad up for a missing wallet in the Budapest News. His son (Jon Jon Keefe) asks to go out with holes in his pants. This bit is also repeated in Hold Back The Wind in 1977.
	+ The hillbilly patriarch (Abner) lets his neighbor (Jerrold Wells) know he drinks because it's cheaper than sending the wife to the beauty parlor.
* Instead of a tag, the episode ends with a medley of Mexican tunes and songs by Diana Darvey and Benny Hill accompanied by guitarist Guillermo Basilisco. Jackie Wright also appears singing a tune with Benny who "translates."
* This was the last episode for Jim Tyson in the series; he died six months after this show originally aired. It is also the last appearance for Jon Jon Keefe and Jerold Wells, who both disappear from the series and don't return until the The Monte Carbolic Show episode in 1982.
* This episode is also the last appearance of The Ladybirds. The series would start a rotating venue of singers, entertainers and music bands until the creation of the Hill's Angels in the Eighties, but the vocals of the Ladybirds would be reused several times until the show ended in 1989.
* This episode doesn't end with a tag or chase scene.

## Sequence

* **Last Episode:** Dalton Abbott Railway Choir
* **Next Episode:** Spot Black