Heroes of Comedy

Heroes of Comedy is a British television series, produced by Thames Television, and broadcast on Channel 4, which devotes each episode to a legend of British comedy. It was produced by John Fisher. Beginning in 1995, it followed a 2½ hour more general programme from 1992.

Episodes

Series one

Episode number	Subject	Original air date
Pilot	Frankie Howerd	1 January 1995
1	Tommy Cooper	13 October 1995
2	Joyce Grenfell	20 October 1995
3	Max Miller*	27 October 1995
4	Arthur Haynes	3 November 1995
5	Terry-Thomas	17 November 1995

• Contributions from Roy Hudd and Bob Monkhouse. An animatronic Miller was created for the programme and performed by David Barclay, Dave Chapman and Mike Quinn.

Series two

Episode number	Subject	Original air date
1	Les Dawson	16 April 1997
2	Kenny Everett	23 April 1997
3	Alastair Sim	30 April 1997
4	The Goons*	7 May 1997

• The first group subject, and the first where two of the performers covered (Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe) were alive at the time of broadcast.

Series three

Episode number	Subject	Original air date
1	Benny Hill	12 January 1998
2	Peter Cook	19 January 1998
3	Arthur Askey	26 January 1998
4	Tony Hancock	2 February 1998

This series examined dead performers.

Series four

Episode number	Subject	Original air date
1	Norman Wisdom	25 September 1999
2	Ken Dodd	2 October 1999
3	Eric Sykes	9 October 1999
4	Thora Hird	16 October 1999
5	Barry Humphries	30 October 1999

All subjects in this series were living at the time of broadcast.

Series five

Episode number	Subject	Original air date
1	Kenneth Williams	7 October 2000
2	Bernard Manning	11 November 2000
3	Ronnie Barker	28 December 2000
4	Leonard Rossiter	27 December 2001

This series examined living and dead performers.

Series six

Episode number	Subject	Original air date
1	Mike Yarwood	16 February 2002
2	Sid James	23 February 2002
3	Spike Milligan*	2 March 2002
4	Hattie Jacques	9 March 2002
5	Ronnie Corbett	16 March 2002
6	Dick Emery	13 April 2002

• Previously covered as part of the Goons episode. Aired three days after Milligan's death.

Series seven

Episode number	Subject	Original air date
1	Max Wall	2 January 2003

External links

• Heroes of Comedy at IMDb.