Album hits more problems

A comedy album by Harry Hill has been hit by another series of setbacks, with 90,000 copies being scrapped over copyright issues – including complaints from his ITV employers.

Funny Times has been embroiled in legal wranglings since it was announced. The Beatles’ record label Apple objected to it being called Sgt Pepper Vol 2, and Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr blocked a medley of the band’s tunes in the style of George Formby.

Now The Sunday Times reports that ITV has blocked Hill – one of their biggest stars –  from using clips from Coronation Street in his planned song parody about Ken Barlow

And the comedian has similarly denied permission to use extracts from BBC shows Ground Force and John Craven’s Newsround for tracks called Alan Titchmarsh Song and Never Be Holly Willoughby Symphony respectively.

Record company Universal has also had to change the cover of a single taken from the album in case it offended X Factor supremo Simon Cowell. The sleeve of Subo spoofed the cover of Susan Boyle’s album, The Gift, which will be released next month on Cowell’s Syco label. Boyle has frequently been a target of good-natured ribbing on Hill’s TV Burp show.

The setbacks mean the release date has been pushed back two weeks from November 8 to November 22.

A source close to the record label told The Sunday Times: ‘[This] release has been dogged by a catalogue of setbacks and a massive corporate sense-of-humour failure. This is a good-humoured recording but some people clearly take life a little too seriously.’

Here is the first single planned from the album – I Wanna Baby – and click here to pre-order the album:

Published: 31 Oct 2010