The Underwater World Of Jacques Custard

## Production

**Episode:** 5

**Date:** October 14, 1970

**Time:** 50:44

**Musical Director:**

**Vocals:** The Ladybirds

**Choreography:**

**Producer:** John Robins

**Director:** John Robins

**Writer:** Benny Hill

## Episode

* Quickie - Park Bench
* Monologue - Suitcase on a Train
* Quickies - 11
	+ Look #7
* The Mask
* Guest - Los Zafiros
* The Bill Stickers
* Quickie - British Arms
* Bloopers - 11
* Fred Scuttle: Mr. Show Business
* The Underwater World of Jacques Custard
* World of Change
* Guest - Two's Company - September Song
* Chow Mein: East Meets West
* Monologue - Ted
* Ballad - Jose's Cantina
* Tag - The Court-Martial

## Highlights

* Suitcase on a Train
* Look #7
* The Mask
* The Bill Stickers
* The Underwater World of Jacques Custard

## Cast

* Benny Hill
* Patricia Hayes
* Bob Todd
* Dan Jackson
* Jack Wright
* Jan Butlin
* Verne Morgan
* Carmen Dene
* Charmaine Seal
* Ken Sedd (Unconfirmed)
* Leslie Goldie (uncredited)
* Mia Martin (uncredited)
* Rona Newton-John (uncredited)
* Michael Sharvell Martin (uncredited) (voice only)

## Quotes

* **Moira Anderson**  - "Who were you expecting? Jimmy Clitheroe?"

* **Nicholas Parsons**  - "Are Thames Executives against attractive nude women?"
**Fred Scuttle**  - "Not as often as they like!"

* **Jacques Custard**  - "Unlike other fish, the Cobalt fish only has one mating season a year. This lasts for twelve months"

* **Jacques Custard**  - "Unfortunately, there is no female of the species. The Cobalt Fish is a very unhappy fish."

* **Jacques Custard**  - "The viping fish is the smallest fish known to man; yet, it lays a batch of eggs weighing four times its own weight. It is also a very unhappy fish."

* **Jacques Custard**  - "This female sole had spent five years in the Cobalt Sea and had yet to find a mate. Poor old soul..."

* **Chow Mein**  - "I'm not confusing you; you're confusing me!!!"

* **Nicholas Parsons** - "Well, I think that's most uninteresting."
**Fred Scuttle** - "Thank you, sir, we do our best."

## Trivia

* The opening sketch features a groundskeeper (Bob Todd) rushing to beat a homeless person (Benny Hill) to a freshly painted bench
* Nicholas Parsons does the opening.
* In a brief departure from the last four episodes, Benny groups the Quickies in this episode as examples of Look Number Seven
* The Mask gets replayed practically scene for scene and even with some of the same cast members in The Scarlet Pimple on February 6, 1980.
* In a short Quickie, an arms dealer (Benny) tries brokering a deal with an African chieftain (Dan Jackson)
* In a series of fake out-take Quickies:
	+ On a talk show, the hostess (Patricia Hayes) and a priest (Benny Hill) are caught with their microphones on while gossiping
	+ Moira Anderson (Benny) finds her microphone in a strange place (Verne Morgan is the stage grip)
	+ Inglenook Hamperdinck (Benny) has no steps to get on stage
	+ Moira has difficulty raising and releasing her microphone from its stand
	+ An opera singer (Charmaine Seal?) is upstaged by her gondoliers (Ken Sedd/Verne Morgan/Benny Hill) when the last gondolier gets stuck
	+ A close-up on a singer (Benny) reveals his missing front teeth
	+ An actor (Benny) has an anxiety attack while filming with his attractive co-star (Rona Newton-John)
	+ Hamperdinck's microphone flies from his hand during his excitement
	+ During a production of "Romeo and Juliet," Juliet (Rona Newton-John) forgets her lines in front of her c0-star (Benny)
	+ Hampderdinck noticeably loses his breath in his song going up and down stairs to retrieve his female back-up (Charmaine Seal, Rona Newton-John and two unknowns)
	+ An actor (Benny) carries in a nude portrait with his face on its shoulders
* Inglenook Hamperdinck is an obvious satire of Englebert Humperdinck, an English pop singer who dominated the music charts in the 60s and 70s. Overall, he has sold more than 140 million records worldwide.
* "Who were you expecting? Jimmy Clitheroe?" - Jimmy was a popular British comedian who was only four-foot-two. He passed away on June 6, 1973, two and a half years after this episode.
* The "Romeo and Juliet" quickie is a satire of Act 2, Scene Two.
* The nude portrait gaffe recurs in a Crossroads spoof on the "Jack and Jill" rhyme in 1975.
* "The Underwater World of Jacques Custard" is a spoof of the Jacques Cousteau documentaries of the 1960s.
* The closing tag features a court martial with a man (Benny) who nearly keels over from a cigarette and escapes when the firing squad (unidentified) are distracted by a woman (Leslie Goldie in her first appearance). Bob Todd plays the general. (This was also his first appearance in the series.)
* Several clips from this episode made it into the The Best of Benny Hill.

## Sequence

* **Last Episode:** The Sound of Frankenstein
* **Next Episode:** Opportunity Knocking