I missed the early editions of 'Hi-De-Hi!'. I think it must have been the title that put me off. In those days, the Welsh language editions of 'The Radio Times' only used to print titles of certain shows without imparting information as to what they were actually about. 'Hi-De-Hi!' suggested to me a bad quiz show hosted by Leslie Crowther or some inane U.S. import. I caught up with it eventually, and was surprised to find the names Jimmy Perry and David Croft attached. As was the case with 'Dad's Army' and 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', Perry based it on personal experience, in this case his time as a Redcoat at a Butlins' holiday camp. Before cheap air travel came along in the '60's, camps such as these sprang up along British coastlines, providing entertainment for working class families and earning millions for their owners. ( As a matter of interest, I worked in one such camp in the '80's as a chef - Barry Island, South Wales - known to all and sundry as 'Shag Land' for reasons I won't go into! )The premise is this: in 1959, archaeology professor 'Jeffrey Fairbrother' ( Simon Cadell ) becomes bored with stuffy Cambridge and applies for a job as entertainments manager of Maplin's Crimpton-On-Sea camp, a post he is ill equipped to handle. Life is one long round of spaghetti eating contests and people in silly costumes being thrown in swimming pools. His staff includes resident comic 'Ted Bovis' ( Paul Shane ), his out-upon sidekick 'Spike Dixon' ( Jeffrey Holland ), miserable Punch and Judy man 'Mr.Partridge' ( Leslie Dwyer ), snobby ballroom dancers 'Barry' ( Barry Howard ) and 'Yvonne Stuart-Hargreaves' ( Diane Holland ), and the unforgettable 'Gladys Pugh' ( Ruth Madoc ), a fiery Welsh woman who lusted after Fairbrother at every opportunity. Bubbly Su Pollard stole the show though as cleaner 'Peggy Ollerenshaw', whose driving ambition was to be a 'Yellowcoat' ( all the important staff members wore them ). A number of sexy girls occupied these coats too, most notably Nikki Kelly's long-legged 'Sylvia Garnsey' and statuesque Rikki Howard's 'Betty Whistler'. We never saw Joe Maplin. He communicated to his staff in the form of ungrammatical missives, which poor Jeffrey was forced to read aloud. "Hi-De-Hi!" was the campers' greeting, usually met with the equally inane 'Ho-De-Ho!. One fan was the late Sir Fred Pontin.I always found Bovis the most convincing of these as well as the most tragic, like Archie Rice he was the comedian whose big break never came, reduced to cracking corny gags for the amusement of drunken late-night audiences. He took advantage of his position to indulge in a few perks, and in one memorable episode Fairbrother's patience snapped and he sounded him out: "Lies! Lies! Lies! Lies!". A father and son type relationship developed between Ted and Spike over the course of the series.As with every other Perry/Croft production, the cast were excellent, particularly Cadell, Holland and Shane. Ruth Madoc's prissy 'Gladys' was much imitated in school playgrounds, while Leslie Dwyer's misanthropic 'Mr.Partridge' and Felix Bowness' jockey 'Fred Qulley' also proved popular. The visual gag everyone remembers came in the episode 'Charity Begins At Home' as drunken Mr.Partridge spots a pantomime horse riding a real one along the beach. Looking at the bottle of whiskey in his hand, he decides to stick with it and instead throws away the banana he had been eating! With its frothy blend of '50's nostalgia and saucy postcard gags, 'Hi-De'Hi' was a big hit for B.B.C.-1 in the '80's, resulting in a massive upturn in bookings for Butlins and Pontins. John Le Mesurier made a guest appearance, as did satirist John Fortune. Cadell left after the fifth series to return to the theatre. His replacement was David Griffin's 'Squadron Leader Clive Dempster', a war hero reduced to living off borrowed money and with a liking for fast cars. Leslie Dwyer's death in 1986 robbed the show of one of its funniest characters. 'Carry On' star Kenneth Connor was brought in to replace him as 'Uncle Sammy'. Barry Howard was dropped, and Ben Aris stepped into his dancing shoes to play posh pig farmer 'Julian Dalrymple-Sykes'. The period setting occasionally caused problems; in one episode, Sylvia and Betty had to dive into the pool to rescue Peggy who for some reason was dressed as a shark. The revealing costumes they wore were wrong for that era. Still they looked great in them so who's complaining? In another, Ted sang the Tom Jones hit 'Delilah' to campers. It was not composed ( by Les Reed and Barry Mason, incidentally ) until 1968.Maplins closed its doors for good in 1988 - the camp decided to go upmarket, and the staff were told by Alec Foster ( Ewan Hooper ) that their services were no longer needed - and the last shot was that of Peggy ( now a Yellowcoat ) all alone, jumping into the air, and shouting the show's title one final time. I don't rate it as highly as Perry and Croft's other shows, but its popularity is undeniable. It was probably one of the last British sitcoms to generate tremendous public affection, mainly because it featured likable characters in a recognisable setting. Goodnight campers! Hi-de-Hi!

A variation of this was said by John Cleese in one of his earliest, if not his first, appearance on an American sitcom, Cheers, on which Cleese was Dr. Simon Finch-Royce, a colleague of Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammar).In the episode "Simon Says", Cleese told Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and Diane Chambers (Shelly Long) that they weren't suited for one another, so Diane kept dragging Sam after Cleese, to his hotel, insisting he rethink his conclusion, until finally, Cleese, a la Basil Fawlty, would scream out his hotel window "Listen up, World, the perfect couple has finally been achieved, so you can stop trying!!" I thought of this line as I watched the twelve episode set of "Hi De Hi" available to America. A slight alteration to the quote, the perfect sight gag, the perfect physical comedy joke.For those wanting to know, "Hi De Hi" was a show that, unlike Mr. Bean, Doctor Who, Fawlty Towers, Hyacinth Bucket, Are You Being Served, Jeremy Brett, Helen Mirren and numerous others, never reached American public television."Hi De Hi" was also about a subject that America knows virtually nothing about; these late 1950s vacation resorts in the UK that were a colossal failure, it seems.At best at this time in America, we had the summer camp for kids, such as what might be seen in Disney's "The Parent Trap" or Bill Murray's 1980s comedy "Meatballs".The show, however, was a huge success and ran for eight years, dealing with the staff who ran the resort and tried in vain to keep the campers amused.Definitely two of the standouts were Spike (Jeffrey Holland), who was the stooge who would be thrown in the pool for jokes, often in a different costume which we would unfortunately never see again (and most of the time, we didn't see him go in the drink) and Peggy (Su Pollard) definitely a centerpiece as a cleaning woman who wants to be one of the entertainers. She will do anything to be part of the show. She almost drowns when she wears a shark costume to Spike's drag costume of the damsel in distress.That Spike and Peggy take their respective indignities with a smile is what makes it difficult to be amused by other characters such as a grouchy puppeteer or disapproving snobby ballroom dance instructors.So in the episode "The Day of Reckoning" this time Spike must wear the legendary horse costume. But such a costume requires a second person. Once again, it is Peggy who volunteers to be the horse's posterior."Could be my big break!" she says.They are taken (in costume) by the horse trainer to retrieve a real horse that has been delivered. The trainer panics when the delivery man recognizes him and flees, leaving Spike holding the real horse's reins.The duo decide to head back with the horse and what do they do? They do what anyone else would do who has a journey to make with a horse. They ride it.In the costume. Truly the ultimate sight gag of the costumed horse perched upon a real horse.Hence, the John Cleese quote from "Cheers": Hear that, world, you can stop trying because perfection has already been achieved. Now the most juvenile of minds might say it looks like a sexual encounter, but that is for the viewer to decide.To me, it looked exactly like what it was; two people in a horse costume riding a real horse.That the Marx Brothers or Lucille Ball or Laurel & Hardy or Carol Burnett never did this very joke is beyond me.The only way to top it that I can deduce is two people in an elephant costume on the horse, or two people in the cow costume on the horse, or two people in an elephant costume on an elephant.But the blueprint was here on Hi De Hi.

this series is still the most popular comedy series in English television history. it takes place at a holiday camp in england in the 60's. which was only twenty years past when this series was on TV. The late talented simon cadell (1950-96) was particularly good in the lead role and his replacement did pretty well considering who he was replacing. the show is well worth watching and is not only funny, it is nostalgic as well. actually the eighties themselves are now nostalgia! which only adds to the whole feeling of comedic affection that the show was aiming at in portraying a bygone era that of the old holiday camps of the fifties through mid -sixties. so watch it and enjoy a classic comedy from those wonderful brits. I asked my library system in coloardo springs to order episodes of this and they did and they are checked out a lot. so hi de hi , hi de ho! lets go watch a great TV show!.

When this series first started, I freely admit I was not a fan. On first view, it was not up to their shining glory that is Dads Army. On the other hand, nothing is. I first started to 'got it' with the horse on a horse scene. I laughed and laughed. Since then, it has appeared on repeats and channels like UK Gold. The performance of Simon Cadell is outstanding. Every cast member fits their role like a glove. It grows on one and all I can say is, Well Done Jimmy Perry and David Croft.