One of the great things about library music is the unexpected links it can create across some of my favourite comedy.
For instance, take the Carlin release Light-Hearted & Fun from 1989.1 Every single track on that album was written by Andrew J. Hall. So, there’s the vaguely terrifying “Clowns”:
Which was, of course, used in Alexei Sayle’s Stuff and Monsieur Aubergine, first broadcast on the 3rd October 1991:
Then, from the same album, there’s the amusing Yakety Sax rip-off “Ben Hill Billy”:
Which was used for The Fast Show‘s Cheesy Peas sketches, first broadcast on the 18th October 1994:
And finally from that album, there’s “Pub Piano”:
And what classic piece of comedy used this, in the early hours of the 2nd May 2008, do you think?
Oh well, you can’t have everything.
The Warners site gives the release date as 1990, but every other source I’ve seen says 1989. ↩
3 comments
Brad Jones on 20 August 2024 @ 1pm
I’ve got several Carlin discs, but pretty sure I’ve not got this one. The only pieces I’ve ever recognised from these library music discs are something used on an Alas Smith and Jones arts show spoof (possibly from series 3) and the music Tommy Boyd used to use to introduce his late-80s Southern Sound FM show.
cwickham on 20 August 2024 @ 3pm
The Wikipedia page for the children’s television series ZZZap! has a quite wonderful and thorough list of library music used in the show, including “Ben Hill Billy” specifically, from the Cuthbert Lilly sketches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZZap!#Music
Another guide to the show’s music is on this fansite, which is less thorough in some respects but does give the specific series in which some sketches were used, telling us that “Ben Hill Billy” was used on the show in Series 1, TXed early 1993, and then not again until Series 8 in late 1999: https://zzzapcomic.wordpress.com/music-used-on-zzzap/
This raises the fascinating possibility the show stopped using it to avoid association with the Fast Show. (Or possibly that they just got access to some more library music after the first series, and wanted to replace a piece that was clearly knocking off Yakety Sax.)
Jack on 25 August 2024 @ 11pm
“Nobody’s really watching at this hour let’s let Jez do his American accent, it’ll be a laugh” – David Dimbleby
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