For those of us who grew up in the 90s, he was the definitive face of children’s television.
Affable, optimistic, always excitable, and always ready to attack a hapless teacher or two, Dave Benson Phillips became a household name thanks to his hosting roles on Playhouse Disney, The Fun Song Factory, and Get Your Own Back.
It all started at Haven Holidays, where Phillips, now 59, was working as a children’s entertainer before a visiting talent scout invited him to audition at BBC Manchester.
More than a decade of slapstick successes followed, but he almost ended up in the most unlikely of places when his wife Emma answered a panicked call at their family home in Worthing, West Sussex.
“There was a spate of celebrity deaths, supposed celebrity deaths,” he told the Joanne McNally investigates podcast.
Dave Benson Phillips was the face of shows like Get Your Own Back (pictured) but a cruel death hoax almost cost him his career.
Affable, optimistic, always excitable, and always ready to attack a hapless teacher or two, Phillips became a household name during the 1990s.
‘To give you an idea, Neil Buchanan, who was the host of a show called Art Attack, reported online that he had died due to a heart attack.
‘The other was The Chuckle Brothers, who apparently died from a laughter-related incident, and then they came to me and told me that Dave Benson Phillips had died in a car accident.
“I guess in my case, looking back, it went down very badly: people believed it!”
Recalling the moment he found out about the hoax, he recalled: “I was downstairs cleaning a dead seagull from the sewers. when a friend I had known for a long time called the house hoping I would be on the other end of the phone, he discovered my wife was there and said to Mrs. Phillips, “Is Dave okay?”
“She said, ‘Yeah, he’s cleaning the sewer right now, there’s a dead seagull in there,’ to which there was a big sigh of relief from him, and he said they had reported on the news that I had been killed. in a car accident.
The worst would come when his own mother was caught up in the deception after signing up for her shift as a nurse, unaware that false stories related to her son’s death were circulating online.
“My mother, my poor mother, was working as a nurse at the time and people avoided her, everyone was a bit strange to her,” she remembers.
‘One of them plucked up courage and said, “How can you come to work if your son is dead?”
Phillips says he became aware of the death hoax after a concerned friend read about it online and called him at home to make sure he was still alive.
Worse would come when his own mother was caught up in the deception after signing up for her shift as a nurse, unaware that false stories about her son’s death were circulating online.
“Well, at that moment he dropped everything and picked up the phone, called home and didn’t hang up until he heard my voice.”
Phillips revealed that the deception soon spiraled out of control, creating a domino effect that had a devastating impact on his career.
Meanwhile, a local Sussex radio station was busy planning his obituary.
“It’s possibly the worst thing that can happen, but by the time I got there it was too late,” he said. ‘People thought he was dead. The shows I was supposed to be on were canceled or they found other people to do the shows. It became really difficult.
‘In my town they were two minutes away from doing a radio obituary. The newspaper also got in touch. It was actually quite strange to say please don’t print the obituary because it’s me.
Phillips, a devoted children’s entertainer with a penchant for comical pranks, admitted his biggest surprise was seeing a planned national tour nearly derailed by cruel con artists.
“There were 25 dates and they were all canceled because someone who claimed to be my agent told all the theaters that since I had died they could give up the dates.”
Phillips, a devoted children’s entertainer with a penchant for comical pranks, admitted his biggest surprise was seeing a carefully planned national tour nearly derailed by cruel con artists.
He said: ‘I love performing for children and my wife and I put on this show where there was a lot of singing and interaction and stuff.
“There were 25 dates and they were all canceled because someone who claimed to be my agent told all the theaters that, since I had died, they could give up the dates.”
But despite moving on, audience members were still convinced Phillips was dead and buried.
“There was a date when I performed and people were worried because they didn’t think it was me and they thought it was a tribute act,” he recalled. “It was difficult for me to get a job.”
However, Phillips remains eternally grateful for his time in children’s television, particularly Get Your Own Back, a show he hosted from 1994 to 2004.
“People still recognize me, even now,” he said. The series took off because it was the kind of thing that kids would rush home from school to watch.
They would talk about it at school the next day; “Did you see what Dave did with that teacher? How funny!”
Phillips has since appeared on shows including Celebrity MasterChef (pictured in 2023).