9. Benny Hill - Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)
http://youtu.be/8e1xvyTdBZI Year: 1971 Weeks at No.1: Four As you can tell straight away, Benny Hill is not famed for his singing. The comedian and actor is one of England's most famous comedic exports, known for The Benny Hill Show as well as appearances in films like The Italian Job and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The song Ernie first featured in 1970 on the aforementioned Benny Hill Show, before a revised version was released the year after. The innuendo-laden song, filled with rhymes and limericks, relives the story of a milkman called Ernie (based loosely on Hill's job earlier in life), his horse-cart and his feud with bread-delivery man Two-Ton Ted From Teddington to win the affection of Sue at number 22. It was completely silly and surreal, hence why it proved so popular - it was Hill's forte. Listening to it now you can see right through the smutty euphemisms and saucy humour which may have been lost to many in the 70s. Essentially, I'd liken it to Carry On. This wasn't the only song by Hill; he released other humorous singles in earlier years that were all relatively successful (usually ranging around #20 in the charts) but none did anywhere near as well as Ernie. But I have to wonder; why go to all the trouble of recording a song when he could release Boots Randolph's Yakety Sax and still come up trumps?