The Benny Hill Show featured Benny Hill in various short comedy sketches, along with Thames Television show regulars Henry McGee, Bob Todd, Jackie Wright, Nicholas Parsons (in the early years), Jenny Lee-Wright, Sue Bond, Lesley Goldie, Cherri Gilham, Rita Webb and others. The show also featured occasional extravagant musical performances by top artists of the time.

Hill often demonstrated his versatility as an actor by appearing in many different costumes and portraying a vast array of characters. Slapstick and double entendre were his hallmark. Some critics accused the show of sexism, but Hill often pointed out that the female characters were all intelligent and kept their dignity, while the men chasing them were all comically portrayed as buffoons.

Hill often used sped-up film (also known as 'Undercranking') and sight gags to create what he called 'live animation' and he employed techniques like mime and parody. The show typically closed with a sped-up chase scene involving himself and a crew of scantily-clad women, a takeoff on the stereotypical Keystone Cops chase scenes. These segments are among the most popular of Hill's work.

Many comedy sketches were derived from Benny trying to find any opportunity to try to spy on a gorgeous woman in a state of undress, and on occasion, 'cop a feel' (some of these scenes were edited out of the U.S. television versions but are uncensored in the DVD releases).

Hill sometimes pats the always shapely bottoms of a number of young women in his shows from the early 80s. In one sketch, Hill pretends to be a man doing weight training by hoisting girls clad in bikinis above him. He then lowers the girls so that their bikini clad behinds rest on his face. Hill's comedy often made fun of himself, which endeared him to many. In another sketch, Hill plays the passenger of a bus which gets stuck in the mud.

The passengers get out and push, including the inevitable pretty girl clad in the shortest and tightest of shorts. Hill leers at her derriere and then chooses to push her bottom instead of the bus. In numerous sketches, women have their dresses accidentally torn off in a public place, leaving them wearing only frilly panties, bra and stockings. A multitude of men are often included in the scene to add comedy value with their leers.

Benny Hill was also a proficient composer and singer of sophisticated patter songs and often entertained his audience with lengthy high-speed double-entendre rhymes / songs which he would recite / sing in a single take.

The theme song, "Yakety Sax", which has gained a particular cult following on its own, was written by Boots Randolph. The show's musical director was noted pianist and easy listening conductor Ronnie Aldrich, and vocal backing was provided by session singers, The Ladybirds, (who also frequently appeared on camera from 1969 to 1974).

Apart from the theme tune, another signature of the show was the enthusiastic announcer intro: "Yes! It's The Benny Hill Show!" (The announcer was often cast member McGee.) From 1975 onwards, Hill was also introduced at the start of each show as "The Lad Himself." The show closed with Hill's salute: "Thank you for being with us, and we look forward to seeing you all again, very, very soon. Until then, bye bye."

Hill was a pioneer in the ability of the television camera to create illusions and also how it could be used for comedic value. For example, in a murder mystery farce entitled "Murder on the Oregon Express" from 1976 (a parody of Agatha Christie's classic Murder on the Orient Express), Hill used both editing and camera angles, as well as his own skill for impersonations, to depict a Quinn Martin–like TV "mystery" featuring Hill in the roles of 1970s American TV detectives Ironside, McCloud, Kojak, and Cannon (as well as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot).

This also serves as a possible indication of Hill being canny enough to realize that American audiences would identify better with his shows if he had some humour that was derived in some part from their popular culture. During his television career, Hill performed impersonations or parodies of American celebrities, such as W. C. Fields, with Mae West (played by Cherri Gilham), and fictional characters, ranging from The Six Million Dollar Man to Starsky and Hutch to Kenny Rogers, to The A-Team, to Cagney & Lacey.

His own country's celebrities did not escape his comedic eye either: Hill also delivered impersonations of such British stars as Michael Caine (in his Alfie role), newscasters Reginald Bosanquet, Alan Whicker and Cliff Michelmore, pop-music show hosts Jimmy Savile and Tony Blackburn, musicians Roger Whittaker and Engelbert Humperdinck, his former 1960s record producer Tony Hatch, political figures Lord Boothby and Denis Healey, and Irish comedian Dave Allen. On a few occasions, he even impersonated his former straight man, Nicholas Parsons.

The show was first broadcast in the United States in January 1979 and screened there with a series of re-edited half-hour programs culled from the ITV specials. Due to heavy editing the U.S. versions of his show have far less risqué material than those which were aired in the UK.

The show became hugely popular in the U.S. as well and maintained high ratings through its entire run. The show was awarded the 'Special Prize of the City of Montreux' at the Rose d'Or festival in 1984. Selected sketches from the first three years (1969–1972) of the Thames run were also edited into a feature film, The Best of Benny Hill (1974).