JACK BENNY PROGRAM, THE
[From The International Jack Benny Fanclub website
http://www.jackbenny.org]
On March 29, 1932, Jack Benny appeared on a fifteen-minute
radio program hosted by a Broadway columnist for The New York
Daily News named Ed Sullivan. At least a portion of his
monologue was provided by one of his vaudeville writers (and
co-author of Chasing Rainbows), Al Boasberg. His first line
was "This is Jack Benny talking. There will now be a slight
pause while everyone says, 'Who cares?'"
Douglas Coulter of N. W. Ayer, the advertising account
executive for Canada Dry, heard and liked Jack's performance.
Jack was signed to be the emcee of The Canada Dry Ginger Ale
Program, on CBS at 8:00PM on Mondays and Thursdays. George
Burns recommended that Jack use comedy writer Harry Conn to
provide him with new jokes for each program. The program
featured bandleader George Olsen and his wife, Ethel Shutta
(Shoo-TAY), providing music interspersed with Jack's
commentary and commercials. By the end of 1932, radio editors
voted him "Most Popular Comedian on the Air" against
competition that included Eddie Cantor, Ed Wynn, Fred Allen,
Burns and Allen, Al Jolson, Jack Pearl (Baron Munchausen), and
the Marx Brothers.
Al Boasberg continued as a gag writer in addition to Harry
Conn. The two wrote separately, although the latter was much
more vocal about being Jack Benny’s writer. A critical Conn
contribution was the part of a girl from Plainfield, New
Jersey. As Sadie had demonstrated a good comedic timing sense
during their vaudeville days, Jack asked her to play this
brief role on the July 27, 1932 program. The audience reaction
was immediate and positive, and she was introduced as regular
cast member Mary Livingstone over the next few weeks. It was a
role that became so inseparable from her that she signed
autographs with the new name, and eventually changed it
legally.
Although there was some gentle fun poked at the product from
the very first show, the brass at Canada Dry was not amused.
On one show, Jack read a "telegram" from a North African
Canada Dry Sales Manager: "I was driving across the Sahara
Desert when I came across a party of people who had been
stranded in the desert for thirty days without a drop of
water, and they were ready to perish from lack of liquid. I
gave each of them a glass of Canada Dry Ginger Ale, and not
one of them said it was a bad drink."
Canada Dry's last show with Jack was on January 26, 1933. But
with his new-found popularity, Jack was soon signed by General
Motors. The Chevrolet Program began on Friday, March 3, 1933,
at 10:00PM on NBC Red, with Frank Black’s orchestra and singer
James Milton. Jack Benny was now 39 years old. The format of
the program continued to evolve, with less music and a sketch
in the second half of the show. The program moved to Sundays
at 10:00PM on October 1, 1933. However, GM President William
Knudsen didn’t find Jack funny and dropped the show on April
1, 1934.
General Tire immediately picked up sponsorship on Friday,
April 6, 1934, added bandleader Don Bester and vocalist Frank
Parker, plus announcer Don Wilson. While the series was
short-lived, both Sam Hearn (Schlepperman) and Frank Nelson
(“Yesssss”…although the bit was developed later) made their
first appearances on the General Tire show.
Another person debuted in Jack and Mary's life in June of
1934, with the adoption of two-week-old Joan Naomi. They had
arranged to adopt an unborn child, but when the mother was
late in delivering, Mary went to the adoption agency and saw
Joan. By the time the original child had been born, Jack and
Mary had already fallen in love with their new blonde,
blue-eyed girl.
Yet another person came back to Jack from his past in 1934.
When auditioning actresses to play a mediocre girl trio, a
heavy-set blonde, slightly unkempt woman tried out for one of
the parts. Jack did not initially recognize her as Mary Kelly,
and was shocked that this once lovely and vivacious woman had
been so ravaged in eight years. She pleaded with Jack for the
part, as she was divorced and needed the money. He conceded
and included her occasionally on the show, but was always
pained by people laughing at her because of her appearance.
By summer, General Foods had taken notice of Jack’s work. Knox
had the monopoly on the gelatin market, and General Foods was
in search of someone to pitch their relatively unsuccessful
Jell-O product. They contracted with Jack for thirteen weeks,
and slotted him to begin Sunday, October 14, 1934, at 7:00PM
on the NBC Blue network. By the end of the 1934-35 season,
Jack’s ratings were third of all shows, handily beating Ed
Wynn, Fred Allen, Bing Crosby, and radio veterans Amos n Andy.
On November 3, 1935, Kenny Baker joined the cast replacing the
immensely popular Frank Parker and a short-lived Michael
Bartlett. He developed the role of the "timid tenor", a naive,
silly young fellow with a beautiful voice. Women of all ages
took to him, and he developed a following on his own merits.
The show of May 24, 1936 is the last one that Jack broadcast
as a New York resident, moving the program permanently to Los
Angeles except for occasional remote broadcasts.
Harry Conn continued as Jack’s writer, but became increasingly
disgruntled that he wasn’t receiving enough money for his
efforts. He saw Jack’s father in Miami Beach, and informed him
that without his writing, Jack would be nothing. Jack and Mary
arrived at a party, Mary sporting a new fur coat; Conn’s wife
declared, “My husband’s brains paid for that coat!” Conn
finally demanded that he be paid a salary equal to Jack’s,
which Jack refused but countered with a substantial raise.
Conn broke off contact and left town, providing no script for
the June 7, 1936 program.
Phil Baker loaned Sam Perrin and Arthur Phillips to Jack on
the preceding Thursday to write the missing script. Jack
summarily fired Conn, and teamed Perrin and Phillips with Hugh
Wedlock and Howard Snyder to finish the last two weeks of the
season. Sam Perrin would continue to write for Jack,
periodically at first, for nearly 40 years.
The 1936-37 season was a pivotal time for the Benny show, with
Ed Beloin (recommended by Fred Allen) and Bill Morrow joining
as head writers; they would continue in that capacity for
seven years. Phil Harris and Andy Devine also joined at the
start of the season. Al Boasberg provided additional jokes
until his unexpected death in 1937. The story goes that the
last line Boasberg ever wrote was for Eddie “Rochester”
Anderson, who first appeared as a train porter on March 28,
1937. The audience reaction to Rochester was so positive that
the character reappeared, and Jack eventually hired him away
from the railroad to be his butler.
Jack and Fred Allen had been friends for years, and had a
healthy professional respect for each other's comedic talents.
Morrow and Beloin were in full swing of developing and
refining the character-based humor of Jack's program, while
Fred Allen relied a great deal on his own writing, topical
commentary, unusual guests, and unbridled ad libbing. Jack
almost always stuck to the script, whereas Allen could talk
without a script for long periods of time. Both had kidded the
other on their show, with Jack doing a send-up of Allen in a
skit entitled "Clown Hall Tonight" on April 5, 1936. By the
end of 1936, Jack's program was number 2 overall in the
ratings, while Allen's was losing its audience.
It was during an unscripted 15-minute segment of Allen's Town
Hall Tonight called "The Town Hall Varieties" on December 30,
1936 that a young man named Stuart Canin appeared. He was a
10-year-old violinist who played Shubert's "The Bee" (not to
be confused with "The Flight of the Bumblebee") masterfully.
On the East Coast version of the program, Allen commented, "A
little fella in the fifth grade at school and already he plays
better than Jack Benny." Since the segment was unscripted and
no copies of the West Coast broadcast have been found, we
cannot be certain exactly what was said on the show that Jack
would have heard. But it was enough to inspire Jack to spend
much of the first half of January 10, 1937 show panning Fred
Allen. This started a heated comedic feud that would last,
more or less, until Allen's death 20 years later. During that
time, Jack and Fred always remained each other's friend and
admirer.
Also in 1937, the Bennys hired architect Carlton Burgess to
design and build a house for them at 1002 North Roxbury. At
this time, a running gag on the Benny program was the "Buck
Benny" sketches where Jack played a Western-style sheriff. On
the I-beams above the living room and in the foundation, the
workers painted the names of Jell-O's six delicious flavors
(strawberry, raspberry, cherry, orange, lemon, and lime) as
well as the major Buck Benny characters and actors. Those
words remain there to this day, although hidden by the ceiling
and floor.
In 1938, George Burns and Gracie Allen were having dinner with
a man named Albert Chapereau and his wife at "21." His wife
was sporting a very wide diamond bracelet. As a small child,
Gracie had pulled a boiling pot off the stove, and it had left
permanent burn marks on her arm. Because of this, she always
wore long-sleeve blouses. On seeing this diamond bracelet,
George realized that wearing that, Gracie could go out with a
shorter-sleeve dress and hide her scar. Chapereau offered to
sell George the bracelet for $2000, and George accepted.
George told Jack about the purchase. Mary then asked Jack to
buy her a diamond pin from Chapereau, and Jack did so for
$350. Shortly thereafter, Chapereau's German maid informed the
Customs Bureau of his smuggling activities, as she was angry
over some anti-Nazi remarks he had made. Two of the goods were
traced to George and Jack, and they were charged with
possession of smuggled property. George pled guilty to the
charge, and received a fine of $15,000 and a
one-year-and-one-day suspended sentence. During the trial,
Jack was mercilessly reprimanded by the prosecuting attorney,
John Cahill, even to the point of Cahill yelling at him to
"sit up straight." Jack pled innocent to the charge but was
found guilty, and received a fine of $10,000 and a
one-year-and-one-day suspended sentence.
Throughout this time, Jack appeared in a variety of movies:
Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934), Broadway Melody of 1936
(1935), It's In the Air (1935), The Big Broadcast of 1937
(1936), College Holiday (1936), Artists and Models (1937),
Artists and Models Abroad (1938), and Man About Town (1939)
which debuted at the Genesee Theatre in Waukegan. The entire
radio program and movie cast (including Dorothy Lamour) was
transported there for the June 25, 1939 debut, and was one of
the largest gatherings ever in Jack's home town.
The regular cast now included Jack, Mary, Rochester, Kenny
Baker, Phil Harris, and Don Wilson. At the end of the 1939
season, Kenny Baker left the show (again, reasons conflict
depending on the source). Mary heard an air check recording of
a young tenor from New York, and suggested that they audition
him. The young man sang a few songs, and then was told to take
a break. After a bit, Jack took the studio microphone and
said, "Oh Dennis," to which the young man responded, "Yes,
please?" With these words, Dennis Day broke up Jack, the cast
and crew, and began a career with Jack that would last for
almost 35 years.
While Jack's radio program continued its successful run, Jack
also made some of his most memorable movies: Buck Benny Rides
Again (1940) - perhaps the best movie representations of a
radio program, Love Thy Neighbor (1940) - a screen elaboration
of his feud with Fred Allen, Charley's Aunt (1941) - another
screen remake of the stage play featuring Jack in drag, and To
Be Or Not to Be (1942).
Ernst Lubitsch, the master behind many movies including
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo's last triumph), had written To Be or
Not To Be specifically with Jack in mind for the lead male.
Carole Lombard was cast as his leading lady, some say at
Jack's insistence. The chemistry was exquisite, and the movie
was unparalleled in Jack's career. On December 7, 1941,
America found itself at war and the company was still shooting
the film. Jack broadcast his radio program that night as
usual, with only two interruptions for news bulletins during
the musical numbers. America's involvement made the movie
story about the Polish underground fighting the Nazis was now
even more timely, and the cast celebrated the movie's shooting
completion on Christmas Eve.
On January 12, 1942, Carole Lombard left on a tour to promote
war bond sales, and the film was in final editing. While
returning home late in the evening on Friday, January 16, Jack
and Mary saw the headline in Saturday's paper, announcing that
Carole Lombard had been killed in a plane crash. She had taken
an earlier flight in order to get home to her husband, Clark
Gable. Jack was devastated beyond words, wanting to go to the
crash site but knowing that it would make no difference. The
Benny program of January 18 was cancelled and replaced with a
half hour of music and Dennis' singing.
To Be Or Not to Be debuted quietly on March 6, 1942, played
down by the studio due to Lombard's tragic and untimely death.
Meyer Kubelsky and Jack's sister, Florence, attended a showing
of it in Miami Beach. When Jack appeared at the beginning in
Nazi uniform and saluted Hitler, Meyer immediately stormed out
of the theatre. After avoiding Jack's attempts to contact him
for a few weeks, he finally answered the phone. When Jack
said, "This is Jack, your son," Meyer responded, "You're no
son of mine!" After bending Jack's ear for supporting Hitler,
Jack persuaded him to go back and watch further to see that
his character is actually making fun of the Nazis. Finally
Meyer calmed down, and went on to see To Be Or Not to Be 46
times.
On February 22, 1942, the Benny program started doing shows
from military camps and bases. The format of the shows was
decidedly different, with the characters playing much more to
the audience than in the regular shows. Initial locations were
close enough to Los Angeles to enable the cast to be close to
home (San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Ana, etc.) and
intersperse camp and regular shows.
By the end of the 1941-42 season, sugar was being rationed.
General Foods wasn't able to keep Jell-O on the shelves, and
chose to switch Jack to Grape Nuts and Grape Nuts Flakes.
During the summers, Jack toured in Europe and the Pacific USO
shows with Larry Adler, Martha Tilton, Ingrid Bergman, and
others. Jack also made more movies: George Washington Slept
Here (1942), and The Meanest Man in the World (1943).
Writer Bill Morrow went into the service at the end of the
1942-43 season, and Ed Beloin decided to try his hand at movie
writing. During the summer, Jack and business manager (and
Babe Marks' second husband) Myrt Blum hired the team of George
Balzer, Sam Perrin, Milt Josefsberg, John Tackaberry, and Cy
Howard. Howard left the team after 13 weeks to go into movies,
but the rest of the team stayed on for the next 12 years (and
some until Jack's death 21 years later). By the end of the
season. Jack had offers from several other sponsors and
broadcast his last show for Grape Nuts on June 4, 1944. The
Lucky Strike Program debuted on October 1, 1944.
Jack made one more starring appearance in a film: The Horn
Blows at Midnight (1945), a quirky fantasy about an angel sent
to destroy the world with a trumpet blast at midnight. The
movie had a limited run and received mixed reviews, but was
eventually enshrined forever as a "stinker" by the continual
ribbing it was given on the Benny show. Ironically, it was
recreated (and somewhat revised) on The Ford Theatre of March
4, 1949 with great success.
In 1946, Jack approached Taft Schreiber, a Vice President at
MCA. Lew Wasserman and MCA had recently done an excellent deal
for moving Amos and Andy to CBS, and Jack's latest contract
with the American Tobacco Company was less than lucrative. In
June, 1947, MCA created Amusement Enterprises, Inc., for
production of the Benny show and other properties. Jack would
own 60%, Myrt Blum 30%, and the other 10% belonging to Jack's
lawyer and accountant. Schreiber then renegotiated with
American Tobacco for Jack to receive $10,000 per show and
Amusement Enterprises to receive $27,500 per show. Amusement
Enterprises also produced a show starring a then-unknown, Jack
Paar, as the Benny 1948 summer replacement.
By November of 1948, CBS made Jack a lucrative offer of $2.4
Million for Amusement Enterprises. NBC countered, sending a
contingent of three lawyers to negotiate with Jack. NBC made
the mistake of including John Cahill in that contingent, the
man who had verbally assaulted Jack during his smuggling
trial. Privately, Jack said, "Even if they gave me a better
offer, I'd still turn them down."
The IRS prosecuted Jack for filing the profit as a capital
gain, rather than straight income. After numerous appeals, the
Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack. This became a landmark
case for future celebrities who owned their own production
companies.
On December 26, 1948, Jack broadcast his last show for NBC,
and on January 2, 1949, his first show for CBS since the
Canada Dry series. It was a highly unusual move to make such a
change in the middle of the season, but it precipitated the
move of other shows such as Burns and Allen, Red Skelton, and
Bing Crosby. CBS' philosophy was that there was a new medium
on the horizon, and they would have the stars to succeed when
television became a reality.
On May 8, 1949, Jack did a test program for television at CBS
Radio Studio A. Guests included Isaac Stern, Lum and Abner
(Jack was a friend of Chet Lauck, who played the role of Lum
Edwards), the Andrews Sisters, Rochester, and others.
Unfortunately, it seems that any recording of this program has
been lost to the ages. However, it was clear that Jack would
be able to transfer his comedic talents to the small screen.
While still maintaining the radio program, Jack traveled to
New York to do his first television shows on October 28, 1950.
His first line was: "I'd give a million dollars to know what I
look like!" The first show (and likely subsequent ones) was
shown live to the East Coast, and broadcast at a later date
for Western viewers due to the lack of coast-to-coast
television transmission facilities. The 1950 show ran 45
minutes, as Jack thought that half an hour was too short and
an hour was too long. Subsequent shows were half-hours, and
aired on January 28, April 5, and May 20, 1951. Early guests
included Dinah Shore, Ken Murray, Frank Sinatra, Claudette
Colbert, and Ben Hogan.
On November 4, 1951, Jack broadcast his first show from the
new CBS Television City in Los Angeles. The budget for radio
had been reduced, and the shows began to reflect it. Guest
stars went from people such as Ronald and Benita Colman,
Tyrone Power, and Gene Kelly appearing each week or every
other week, to stars appearing once every month or two, and
often friends of Jack who would appear for reduced or no
salary. On June 1, 1952, Phil Harris broadcast his last
regular show with Jack. Sources vary on why he left, but Phil
himself said that he had just "had enough", didn't want to go
into television, and preferred to concentrate on helping Alice
raise the family. He was the first member of the
well-recognized Benny cast to leave, after being on the
program for 16 years.
However in some ways, Mary can be considered the first to have
"left" the program. In 1948, Jack had started transcribing his
radio show. At the end of that season, Mary had talked with
Jack about leaving the program due to the overwhelming stage
fright she had developed over the years. However, she was
persuaded to continue with the program by recording her lines
at home, with either her brother (Hilliard Marks, also the
show's producer) or George Balzer giving her the cue lines.
Another woman stood in for her during the actual performance
(these stand-ins included daughter Joan Benny, the script
secretary Jeanette Eyemann, or occasionally an unknown
actress), and Mary's lines edited in at a later time.
Ironically, on a couple of occasions the stand-in would fluff
a line and get a good audience reaction, requiring Mary to
fluff the same line intentionally in her home recording. Mary
was not eager to follow the program to television, although
filming of the show persuaded her to appear on selected
appearances through the mid-50s.
While doubling between radio and television, the writers
started creating running gags for the radio show. One of the
most long-lived was born on September 30, 1951 when Jack
"wrote" the song When You Say I Beg Your Pardon, Then I'll
Come Back to You. His trying to get the song published or
performed by a notable celebrity ran until the end of the
television series, with it being performed by people ranging
from Frank Sinatra to Lawrence Welk to Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Other running and reused gags include Mel Blanc delivering
"cimeron rolls" and a few versions of the Beverly Hills
Beavers (a fictitious Boy Scout-type group that Jack led)
performing their version of Jack's show. To handle the extra
writing, Hal Goldman and Al Gordon were added to the writing
staff.
Also, many scripts were reused between radio and television.
Jack dreamed he was married to Mary with Joan as their
daughter on both radio and television. He also had visits from
the IRS confirming that he spent only $17 on entertainment in
a year, with the agents confirming such with the Colmans on
radio and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Stewart on television. Jack was
awakened by a DJ at 4AM and hit the jackpot in Las Vegas on
both media.
The television shows fit two basic styles: the "in one"
(theatre term referring to an act done at the front of the
stage before a closed curtain) and the situation comedy. "In
one" shows would start with Jack's monologue (something he had
discarded in radio years prior), the introduction of a guest
and banter with Jack (and possibly a musical performance or
two if they had that capability), and a skit in the second
half. Situation comedy shows would have Jack, often at home,
dealing with various storylines and surrounded by Rochester,
Don Wilson, Mary, Dennis Day, Frank Nelson ("yessss?"), Mr.
Kitzel, and various other characters. These shows more closely
mirrored the format that had become so familiar on radio. On
some occasions, the first half would be "in one" and the
"skit" would be a situation comedy.
Around 1952, Jack began to rediscover his love of the violin.
He took his practicing seriously this time, working for hours
in the bathroom adjoining his bedroom. He began giving benefit
concerts with a combination of monologue and serious concert
work, starting with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Jack had
long made comedy of his mediocre violin playing, but he was
now playing Mendelssohn and Rimsky-Korsakov as opposed to "The
Glow Worm" and "Love in Bloom". Isaac Stern became his
informal manager, connecting symphony orchestras with him.
When Jack once wondered aloud at why a symphony orchestra
would want to hire him over Isaac Stern, Stern replied, "We
real important violinists can only get $5.50 a ticket--but
somebody as rotten as you--for you, they can charge a hundred
dollars a ticket!" Jack also had a running joke that at most
concerts, the expensive seats are down front. In his, the
cheap seats were down front, and got more expensive the
further away you sat. "For $200, you don't have to come at
all!"
By 1953, it was clear that the golden age of radio was over.
Jack began doing his television programs every three weeks for
the 1953-54 season, and every two weeks for 1954-55. The radio
program featured several reruns during the 1954-55 season. On
May 22, 1955, Jack's last regular radio program was aired.
There was no major fanfare in the show--it was simply another
Jack Benny program, with Mel Blanc clowning as Twombley, the
sound effects man (undoubtedly a reference to sound man Gene
Twombley, husband of Bea Benadaret who was also a semi-regular
on the Benny program). Jack's radio programs would continue to
be rebroadcast as "The Best of Benny" from October 28, 1956 to
June 1, 1958.