Oddcube reviews "The Jack Benny Program"!

THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM

Hello and welcome to the column! Everybody’s buddy, Oddcube, here to tell you about something you ought to know about! In the odd event that some uninitiated individual is actually observing this article, I’d best explain the average on-goings.

You see, my mission, which I’ve chosen to accept, is to tell you about all kinds of really nifty things that you may not have heard about. Maybe it’s something weird that’ll never get to be mainstream. Maybe it’s something old enough that people nowadays aren’t so familiar with it anymore. Well, whatever the case, I’m here to tell you about it!

This month’s topic is a perfect example of the effort I put in to broaden your horizons! So sit back and become enlightened!

My Poor Old Mother ™ assures me that once upon a time the world was a very different place. Not only did she have to walk barefoot in the snow uphill both ways to get to school every day! No sir, that’s just the beginning, get a load of this! There were NOT computers small enough to take with you on the bus. There was only ONE computer in the whole country! It belonged to the government and filled up an entire room that was bigger than my apartment! Also, there was no more than ONE telephone per household (IF you were lucky)! It was attached to the wall so you couldn’t take it anywhere, and all you could do was TALK on it! No texting! No pictures! There were NO household video game consoles, not even Pong! But I guess that was a good thing, cuz there were NO television sets to play them on!

Strange and scary, but totally true! (I know cuz it’s confirmed on the Internet!) However, in this particular dark age of primitive man, instead of watching TV folks would gather around the radio! Yes, I know we have radio nowadays, but not like this! These were a gargantuan, prehistoric version of the radio! Instead of sitting on the table or some other piece of furniture, it stood on the floor cuz it was as large as a piece of furniture! And the programming was WAY different than we have on the radio today. They had actual shows, with actors and sound effects, performing dramas and soap operas and adventure shows and stuff!

There were comedies, too, and today I’m gonna tell you about the best one! That one was “The Jack Benny Program”, even though it wasn’t actually called that during most of its run. See, back in the day, it was commonplace for a radio show to be named after its sponsoring product. So when he first went on the air, it was on “The Canada Dry Program” in 1932. Then he was on “The Chevrolet Program”, then “The General Tire Revue”. The show started off primarily as a musical show, with Jack as the master of ceremonies. Slowly but surely, the comedy segments took over the show.

Unfortunately, the various sponsors didn’t see much humor in the good-natured kidding directed at their products during the commercial segments and each of these sponsors dropped the show. So by the fall of 1934 General Foods sponsored “The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny”. By this time, the show had found its identity, and retained it during its run as “The Grape Nuts Program” and “The Lucky Strike Program”.

The show soon adopted the premise of “a show within a show”, and featured fictional versions of the cast as they attempted to put on the show. In the beginning, the jokes, gimmicks, and shticks were carried over from Vaudeville, and included a lot of ethnic characters with silly accents. Eventually, though, especially during World War Two, this style was dropped for comedy based on the characterization of the players and their relationships to one another. Essentially creating the concept of the “situation comedy” as we know it today.

The show, of course, was centered on Jack Benny, and his vain, miserly character was used primarily as a comedic foil for the other characters to play off of. And what a cast of characters he surrounded himself with! There was his wise-cracking girlfriend (and real life wife) Mary Livingstone; overweight announcer and yes-man, Don Wilson; jive-talking bandleader Phil Harris who was far more interested in women and wine than with music; naïve and dim-witted tenor, Dennis Day; and of course, Eddie Anderson as Rochester van Jones, Jack’s overworked and under-appreciated all-purpose valet.

It was also a unique sort of show, because the main star was NOT the only guy with the good lines. See, Jack Benny reasoned that since his name was on the show he would get the credit or the blame. People would stand around the water cooler and say “Man, the Jack Benny show was funny last night!” Or, conversely, that it was lousy. So, since he was already set up for the credit and the blame, he let everybody have good lines…often at his own expense.

That’s probably one of the main reasons he was able to get so many big name celebrities to be guests on his show. His guest stars ALWAYS ended up looking good! And he got ‘em all, too! Jimmy Stewart, Danny Kaye, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Ann Sheridan, Frank Sinatra, and Orson Welles all appeared on his show, and that’s not even scratching the surface! In fact, dramatic actor Ronald Coleman and his real-life wife Benita made several guest appearances as Jack Benny’s long-suffering neighbors. Now, nobody had thought of Ronald Coleman in a comedic capacity, cuz, you know, he was a REAL actor! But those segments on the Jack Benny show eventually led to their own radio sitcom, “The Halls of Ivy”.

The Jack Benny Program consistently had high ratings. His cast members and writers were the highest-paid in the business, because, hey! When you got a good thing; you try to keep it going!

And it’s so weird, too, cuz if you listen to several episodes, you find the same jokes used and re-used over and over…and yet…they’re funny EVERY time! I don’t understand how they could do that, but they did! It’s absolutely great! The jokes are still relevant today! And while it is true that a little knowledge of historic pop-culture is helpful, but mostly if you have a nodding acquaintance with film history, you’re able to appreciate the show!

I know there’s no real way I could do the show justice. They best way for you to appreciate it is to dive right in and experience it yourself. A quick web-search will take you to several sites with sound bites and even complete shows. Perhaps the most extensive one I’ve found is the OTR Network Library at http://otr.net/?p=jbny because it looks like they have every episode of the radio show from 1932 to 1955! Fair warning: some of the audio files were made from very old and damaged recordings! So some are just better than others!

Or, if you want to purchase the show on CD, I would suggest you visit Radio Spritis at http://radiospirits.com/ cuz they got a boatload over there, and lots of other cool old radio shows, too!

Of course, the Jack Benny Program moved to television in 1950 and remained on the air until ’65 (while the radio show stopped around 1955). It was pretty much the same show with music, funny business, and guest stars. In fact, stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart made their very first television appearance on Jack Benny’s show! And you can see them both for free over on YouTube! Uh…let’s see, first you click “Browse”, then “Shows”, then you should have a menu arrow next to the words “Shows/All Categories”. On that menu, click “Classic TV” and the Jack Benny show is right there between Elvira and “Father Knows Best”. …That’s not alphabetical! Stupid YouTube!

Anyway, I’m supposed to give out a phoney-bologna rating to pass this article off as a review. So I’m gonna whip out my trusty D&D percentage dice and determine a rating between 01 (oh dear god, how can you stand it!) and double-0, which actually means 100 (oh dear god, how could you live without it!?). So I give ‘em a roll, just like that...

…and end up with a nice un-biased 97! See that? I told ya it was good and you should check it out! Now we got actual proof!

But hey, that’s just one idiot’s opinion! Feel free to form your own! I’ve already said where you can find it so you can! So with no further ado, I shall sign off until this time next month! So be there and be square!

-----Your Buddy, Oddcube


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Oddcube Reviews "Dungeons & Dragons" The Movie

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (THE MOVIE)

Hello, and welcome to the column! Everybody’s buddy, Oddcube, here saying boy, am I glad you showed up! Cuz I have a sneaky suspicion this is gonna be a long one, and the sooner I start on this one the sooner it’ll be done!

First off, some need-to-know stuff for the newbies about what goes on in these articles: See, I try to find stuff to talk about that doesn’t get enough attention here and now. Maybe it’s something completely outdated and out-of-print or off-the-air. Maybe it’s something out right now, but hasn’t made it big enough to get the attention it deserves. Maybe it’s just something weird that I like personally, and am trying to spread the word so it’ll get more popular, and continue ever-on, so I can continue to enjoy it! Yes, I am the sort of person that would promote his own agenda like that, but at least I’m honest about it!

Then, to fortify the flimsy façade of this being an actual-factual review column, I assign a rating number to everything I talk about by using a laboriously contemplated highly scientific method…and a pair of randomly rolled D&D percentage dice. But, more on that later.

Now, this is gonna be sorta unusual for my regular readers (yup, both of you will be surprised!) because I usually try to talk about cool stuff…but not this time. See, my Beloved Editor ™ has observed that in nearly all of my articles thus far I try to talk positively about things, and has suggested I do a negative review! I don’t know, it must be the internet equivalent of sweeps week, or something… Anyway, after giving this much thought, I finally conceded that it would be a sort of public service to tell you about something that should be avoided like the plague! …Okay, it may be a belated public service message, but it ought to count for something just the same!

And speaking of avoiding something like the plague, this month I’m gonna rant with unembarrassed anger and unrestrained ire on that time-wasting travesty of a teleplay called Dungeons and Dragons.

Now, just in case one of the two people in the whole wide world don’t know it just happens to read this, I shall point out that this movie is based on the world-famous grand-daddy of all role-playing games, coincidently also called “Dungeons and Dragons”. It’s a fantasy role-playing game, which involves graph paper, pencils, funny-shaped dice, and offers several different game worlds each with a variation on the fantasy theme, each one supported by enough sourcebooks to give Conan a hernia. This game has inspired enough novels (set in their established game worlds) to fill a whole section of a library; plus had its own comic book, supporting magazines, and even a Saturday morning cartoon show (which, by the way, is better than the movie!).

The movie was produced and directed by Courtney Solomon, who supposedly bought the movie rights when he was only nineteen. He is primarily a film producer, but he did go on to eventually direct “An American Haunting”…which also seems to be a bad movie from what I’ve found online. It was written (and I use the term loosely) by Carroll Cartwright and Topper Lilien. I notice on IMDB that they have very short credit lists, and only one of them has one credit after this film.

Now it’s time to tell you about the cast. There are only four people in this movie that I knew who they were…and two of them didn’t impress me. I’ll point them out as I get to them. At the time this movie came out, I had never heard of anyone else in it. …And now that I think about it, this movie is still the only thing I know them from. Wow. What a terrible way to be remembered.

The movie stars Justin Whalin, who I had never heard of before. Apparently he used to play Jimmy Olsen on a TV show that I didn’t watch called “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”. LOL. He’s Jimmy Olsen? You know, when I was growing up, the big joke about Jimmy Olsen was that three pages into the issue or about ten minutes into the film, he was tied to a chair and trying to call for help by dialing the phone with his nose! Now he’s supposed to go up against evil wizards and fire-breathing dragons! Oy vey! This movie has jumped the shark already! I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time! It’s bad enough that with his hairstyle and dopey grin he reminded me of Keanu Reeves in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”! I kept waiting for him to tell the bad guys to just “be excellent!”

It gets worse! His sidekick is a very annoying Marlon Wayons. Of course, he was in “In Living Color” with, like, his entire family and apparently carved out a pretty steady career for himself. More recently, he appeared in “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”, which wasn’t as bad as I was afraid it was gonna be, but also wasn’t as good as it should have been. His performance is usually cited as one of the major contributing factors as to why this movie sucked so bad. I’m not sure how fair that is. I mean, yeah, he was annoying most of the time, but on the other hand, he was the only good-guy with any personality at all.

The bad guy is an evil wizard played by Jeremy Irons, and is the only part of the movie worth watching! Everybody says bad things about Irons in this movie, and I don’t know why. Ok, it’s not the best performance he’s ever given. It’s also not the best character he’s ever played. He’s a fun-to-watch villain. Some villains are cool, some are scary, some are clever, and some are just plain fun-to-watch!

Rounding out the cast (and I use that term loosely) are Thora Birch (from “American Beauty”) as the young Empress; Zoe McLellan as the hero’s reluctant-but-eventual love interest; Kristen Wilson (from the “Doctor Dolittle” movies) as the boring Vulcan, I mean, Elven tracker; Lee Arenberg (from “Pirates of the Caribbean”, yay!) as a Dwarf who gets to do nothing, but is thrown in cuz it’s supposed to be a fantasy movie; and Bruce Payne as the villain’s chief lackey who gets used and abused, has blue lips, and seriously needs to get a new boss. Also noteworthy are special guest star cameo appearances by cult favorites Richard O’Brien (who played Riff Raff in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”) and the incredible Tom Baker (who played the fourth incarnation of “Doctor Who”, you know, the one with the long scarf)! …I can only guess their careers were at a particularly low point at the time.

So, why does the movie suck so bad? First and foremost, I say “Bad Writing”. Only two, well, two-and-a-half characters in the film have any actual personality at all. The story isn’t very plausible. See, in this fantasy empire ruled by mages, the young idealistic Empress wants to give equality to everyone, whether they cast spells or not. …Um, why? If the place is ruled by mages, isn’t she a mage? If she’s a mage, wasn’t she raised to think that this is the way it’s supposed to be? The evil wizard played by Jeremy Irons wants to keep things the way they are, and tries to manipulate the Council of Mages to take away the Empress’ political power. …Oh really? Now, if you were an Emperor or Empress would you have ANY political body capable of taking away your power? I thought that was the point of being the Emperor or Empress! I mean, every Emperor in every movie ever has been a dictatorial tyrant! Plus, you name a fantasy cliché, and it’s been worked into the movie somewhere!

Now that’s why it sucks as a regular sword-n-sorcery movie. But this was supposed to be a Dungeons and Dragons movie. Good thing it’s the title or you really wouldn’t be able to tell. They mention—but do not use—one specific D&D spell, and use a couple of other spells that may be the ones from game…but might not be. In the game, you go through old ruins or caves and fight monsters. Well, nobody in the movie actually fights monsters. There is some weird monster guy with, like, purple skin and three eyes that I’ve never seen in the Monster Manual! Worse yet, they throw in some Beholders, clever and dangerous monsters from the game, but in the movie they’re used as watchdogs by villains minions! On the up side, they only have about forty-eight seconds of total screen time.

So, if producer/director Courtney Solomon is such a D&D fan, you would think he’d want to celebrate the property by making a good movie, right? So what the heck happened? Well, on an interview on CHUD.com, he explains why it wasn’t his fault. First off, he explains that you don’t get into the movie business to make money; you get into it because of “the passion”. …Yeah, I can see two sides to that argument, so I’ll let that slide. He says he liked D&D and wanted to make a movie, so he bought the rights. But, he was young and dumb and gave up certain decision-making rights to the person in charge of TSR. He knows now what a big mistake that was. Nothing screws up the creative process worse than a corporate mindset. This CEO person, who knew nothing about the movie biz, had final say on the script, the director, and I don’t know what else.

After screwing around with her for a few years, she lost TSR (apparently she didn’t know too much about that business, either), and it was purchased by Wizards of the Coast. Inexplicably, Wizards did not seem to want the movie made. They wanted to buy back the movie rights, but Solomon wouldn’t sell. Even though the movie project was based on what was now their property, they wanted the movie to fail. (Of course, seeing what Wizards of the Coast has since done to Dungeons and Dragons, I have no trouble in believing this.) So they “made” him use an older, poorer incarnation of the script instead of the one he wanted to use. And so he went along with that, instead of selling back the rights. But, you know, it wasn’t his fault.

I don’t know, as a fan, I would think having NO movie based on the property I am a fan of would be better than having a VERY BAD movie based on it. Not to mention a VERY BAD movie that would be a blemish on my career! Oh well, what do I know? I’m just an idiot posting his unwarranted and questionably-informed opinions on the internet! I’ll tell you, though; if the title hadn’t been “Dungeons and Dragons” I don’t think this movie would’ve stayed in theaters more than one weekend!

As it turns out, there are enough D&D fans that the movie did make some money. I think it was still a terrible flop the way Hollywood reckons things, but it made some money. In fact, it made enough that a sort-of sequel was made. It’s called “Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God”, and went directly to DVD and the SciFi channel. This sequel is much better! For starters, it’s just plain watchable! It’s got more flavor, more personality, better characters, and a better-constructed plot than the first one! Plus, it has some sly references to actual D&D material! And just so you don’t think he’s a total schlub, I’ll point out that Courtney Solomon is one of the producers.

Well, I can’t really think of anything else to say, except that all concerned with this movie (and I use that term loosely) should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for helping to deliver this piece of crap to all those trusting fans. I guess they need more stories about D&D players who go nuts and kill people so they’ll be afraid to release something this bad ever again.

And now, as the final insult, I’m gonna use my handy-dandy D&D percentage dice to randomly determine a particularly low rating for this turkey! In case ya don’t know, percentage dice are just a pair of ten-sided dice used to roll a number between 01 (I’d rather get a root canal every day for the rest of my life) to double-0, which means 100, or in this case, that somebody slipped me loaded dice when I wasn’t looking! But I’ll just give them a roll, like that…

and roll a 23, which is far more than it deserves!

But, hey, that’s just one idiot’s opinion! If you’re a glutton for punishment, you can rent the movie from Netflix, or even buy from Amazon…or the discount rack in the grocery store! But my advice to you is: DON’T!

And that’s all I have for now, folks! Thanks for listening, I feel a little better now! It’s not good to keep that stuff bottled up, but at least you know I only get worked up over important stuff! Anyway, come on back here next month when I’ll talk about… well I don’t know what! Gee, I guess I’ll have to tune in, too, to find out! See ya then!

-----Your Buddy, Oddcube




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