Funny Times (Harry Hill album)
Funny Times is the debut comedy studio album released by British comedian Harry Hill. The album was released on 29 November 2010. The album was originally due to be entitled "Sergeant Peppers II", but due to copyright issues, it was later retitled to "Funny Times". The album is perhaps best known for featuring the song "Ken!", a song about Ken Barlow, a character on television soap Coronation Street played by William Roache. Critical reception. Adam Kennedy of the BBC wrote: "As a television personality, Harry Hill is a rare breed, entertaining the masses with unrestrained  wackiness while sneaking more mischievous references below early evening watershed radars. His debut full-length musical foray pulls a comparable trick, obscuring occasionally caustic wit beneath surface silliness. Despite distancing Funny Times from his best-known Technicolor vehicle TV Burp, Hill himself admits the album envelops similar themes. That’s inevitable, given the former doctor’s devotion to dissecting the slowly decaying corpse of popular culture-slash-television. But certain targets warrant further ridicule beyond 30-second TV gags, selected here with deadly accuracy. The Disappointment Song demonstrates that knack pithily, ripping into Sarah Jessica Parker and co’s big  screen excursions with barely-concealed zeal. Nobody is safe, either, from gardeners-turned-tedious chatshow hosts to family members." "Expectedly random guests – ABC’s Martin Fry, William ‘Ken Barlow’ Roache, Bruce Forsyth – garnish moments between Hill's politely narked highs. And trusty newsreader John Craven announces the genuine peak: Never Be Holly Willoughby Symphony is a geeky timewaster's letter to the eponymous presenter, offering to take her out to a ludicrous array of family-friendly UK attractions. Essentially Eminem's Stan lectured in British etiquette, it pauses only to insult her "tiny" husband. Hill's eye for the ridiculous  is tempered by completing rhymes that many musical comedians would only dare allude to. Nothing is left to the imagination in Phone Up Yer Mum certainly, Hill advising us "Be a good son and phone up yer mum, ‘Cos one day she’ll be dead", before trading off subtle nuances of such conversations with commendable attention to detail. Repeated spins will, naturally, send you barmier than Hill, particularly closing Brucie ballad I'm Not Anyone and flagship scally-dissing number I Wanna Baby. As a one-off trip through a madcap brain, however, Funny Times splits a few sides and  then some."