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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