In episode #54 of The Benny Hill Show, as part of the "National Smile Week" sketch, there was a short sequence in which Benny played a member of a motorcycle gang, Sue was his wife, and Sue's real-life daughter Louise played their on-screen daughter.

During this bit, the script called for Louise to sit on Benny's upturned motorcycle helmet, as though she was peeing into it. But during filming Louise balked at this, at first.

One of the books about Benny Hill claims that in order to get Louise to sit on the helmet, Sue pulled down her own jeans and underwear, then sat on the helmet herself to demonstrate what they wanted Louise to do — only to be mortified to find the camera had been running during her demonstration.

Sue has denied the truth of this account. In a recent letter to me, she wrote:

"I chuckled when I read your email re. getting Louise to 'sit on helmet', actually the report got it wrong. When filming, Roger [Sue's husband] was "on set", and we couldn't get Louise to sit on the helmet, so Roger threw a coin on the floor, in front of Louise, and camera rolling, as she stood up to pick the coin up, he quickly turned the helmet upside down, so when she sat back down on helmet it was made to look like she was weeing in the upside down helmet — (the tricks of the trade) ha! ha!"

This page created February 12, 2012.
Thanks to Sue for the account!