The Jack Benny Program: Difference between revisions
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The show returned to CBS on [[January 2]], [[1949]], as part of CBS president [[William S. Paley]]'s notorious "raid" of NBC talent in 1948-49. There it stayed for the remainder of its radio run, which ended on [[May 22]], [[1955]]. CBS aired reruns of old radio episodes from 1956 to 1958 as '''''The Best of Benny'''''. |
The show returned to CBS on [[January 2]], [[1949]], as part of CBS president [[William S. Paley]]'s notorious "raid" of NBC talent in 1948-49. There it stayed for the remainder of its radio run, which ended on [[May 22]], [[1955]]. CBS aired reruns of old radio episodes from 1956 to 1958 as '''''The Best of Benny'''''. |
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* [http://jackbenny.libsyn.com: ''Jack Benny Program Podcast''] |
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==Television== |
==Television== |
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Revision as of 17:05, 10 July 2007
 Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, and Rochester (Eddie Anderson) in a group portrait. | |
| Other names | The Jack Benny Show The Canada Dry Program The Chevrolet Show The General Tire Show The Jell-o Program The Grape Nuts Flakes Program The Lucky Strike Program |
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | NBC (Blue) (05/02/32-10/26/32) CBS (10/30/32-1/26/33) NBC (Red) (03/03/33-09/28/34) NBC (Blue) (10/14/34-06/21/36) NBC (Red) (10/04/36-12/26/48) CBS (01/02/49-05/22/55) |
| TV adaptations | The Jack Benny Program (1950-1965) |
| Hosted by | Don Wilson |
| Starring | Jack Benny Mary Livingstone Eddie Anderson Phil Harris Dennis Day Kenny Baker Mel Blanc |
| Created by | Jack Benny |
| Written by | George Balzer, Sam Perrin, Milt Josefsberg, John Tackaberry |
| Original release | May 2, 1932 – May 22, 1955 |
| No. of episodes | 931 |
| Opening theme | Love in Bloom/The Yankee Doodle Boy |
| Ending theme | Hooray for Hollywood |
The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, was a radio-TV comedy series which ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century comedy.
Radio
With Canada Dry Ginger Ale as a sponsor, Benny came to radio on The Canada Dry Program, beginning May 2, 1932, on the NBC Blue Network and continuing there for six months until October 26, moving the show to CBS on October 30. With Ted Weems leading the band, Benny stayed on CBS until January 26, 1933.
Arriving at NBC on March 17, Benny did The Chevrolet Program until April 1, 1934. He continued with sponsors General Tires, Jell-O and Grape Nuts. But in 1944, the practice of using the sponsor's name as the title faded out, and the show was then known as The Jack Benny Program. Lucky Strike was the radio sponsor from 1944 to the mid-1950s.
The show returned to CBS on January 2, 1949, as part of CBS president William S. Paley's notorious "raid" of NBC talent in 1948-49. There it stayed for the remainder of its radio run, which ended on May 22, 1955. CBS aired reruns of old radio episodes from 1956 to 1958 as The Best of Benny.
Television
The Jack Benny Program was telecast on CBS from October 29, 1950, to September 15, 1964, and on NBC from September 25, 1964, to September 10, 1965. 343 episodes were produced.
The television show was a seamless continuation of Benny's radio program, employing many of the same players, the same approach to situation comedy and some of the same scripts. The suffix "Program" instead of "Show" was also a carryover from radio, where "program" rather than "show" was used frequently for presentations in the non-visual medium.
The Jack Benny Program appeared infrequently during its first two years on CBS TV. The show then ran every fourth week for the next two years. During the 1953-54 season, half the episodes were filmed during the summer and the others were live, a schedule which allowed Benny to continue doing his radio show. From 1955 until 1960, the show was on every other week, and it was seen weekly after 1960.
In his unpublished autobiography, I Always Had Shoes (portions of which were later incorporated by Jack's daughter, Joan, into her memoir of her parents, Sunday Nights at Seven), Benny said that he, not NBC, made the decision to end his TV series in 1965. He said that while the ratings were still very good (he cited a figure of some 18,000,000 viewers per week... although he qualified that figure by saying he never believed the ratings services were doing anything more than guessing, no matter what they promised), advertisers were complaining that commercial time on his show was costing nearly twice as much as what they paid for most other shows, and he had grown tired of what was called the "rate race." Thus, after some three decades on radio and television in a weekly program, Jack Benny went out on top.
In Jim Bishop's book A Day in the Life of President Kennedy, JFK said that he was too busy to watch most television, but that he made the time to watch The Jack Benny Program each week.
Cast
- Jack Benny - Himself
- Eddie Anderson - Rochester Van Jones
- Don Wilson - Himself
- Dennis Day - Himself
- Mary Livingstone - Herself, although in real life she was Jack Benny's wife, on air (TV or Radio) she only played a friend to Jack. Sometimes she was presented as a date, sometimes as a love interest and sometimes she was just there. Her role changed from plot to plot and she was never a steady girlfriend for Jack.
- Mel Blanc - Carmichael the Polar Bear, Professor Pierre LeBlanc, Sy the Mexican, Polly (Jack's parrot) and many other assorted voices. An occasional running gag went along the lines of how the various characters Mel portrayed all looked alike. He was also the sound effects of Jack's Maxwell automobile.
- Frank Nelson - the "Yeeee-essss?" man. He was constantly the person who waits on Jack wherever he was, from the railroad station, to the clerk in the store, to the doorman, to the waiter. Frank always delighted in aggravating Jack, as apparently, he was constantly aggravated by Jack's presence.
- Sheldon Leonard - a racetrack tout who frequently offered unsolicited advice to Benny on a variety of non-racing-related subjects. Ironically, he never gave out information on horse racing, unless Jack demanded it. One excuse the tout gave was "Who knows about horses?" His catchphrase was "Hey, bud...c'mere a minute."
- Joseph Kearns - often played the role of Ed, the superannuated security guard in Jack's money vault. Ed had allegedly been guarding Jack's vault since (variously) the founding of Los Angeles, the American Civil War, the American Revolutionary War, or when Jack had just turned 38 years old.
- Artie Auerbach - Mr. Kitzel, who originally started out as a Yiddish hot dog vendor selling hot dogs during the Rose Bowl. In later episodes, he would go on to lose his hot dog stand, and move on to various other jobs. A big part of his schtick involved garbling names with his accent, such as referring to Nat King Cole as "Nat King Cohen." He often complained about his wife, an unseen character who was described as a large, domineering woman who, on one occasion, Kitzel visualized as "...from the front, she looks like Don Wilson from the side!" He would often sing various permutations of his jingle, "Pickle in the middle, and the mustard on top!"
- Dale White - Harlow Wilson
- Bea Benaderet and Sara Berner - "Gertrude Gearshift" and "Mabel Flapsaddle," a pair of telephone switchboard operators who always traded barbs with Jack when he tried to put through a call. Whenever the scene shifted to them, they would subtly plug a current picture in an insult at Mr Benny such as "Mr Benny's line is flashing!" "Oh, I wonder what Dial M for Money wants now?"
- Ronald Colman and his wife, Benita - as themselves. Not actually members of the cast, they were among Benny's most popular guest stars, portraying his long-suffering next door neighbors. Dennis Day often impersonated Ronald Colman. In real life, the Colmans lived a few blocks away from Benny's home.
Earlier cast members include:
- Kenny Baker (singer/actor) - the show's tenor singer who originally played the young, dopey character replaced by Dennis Day
- Andy Devine - Jack's friend who lived on a farm with his ma and pa. He usually told a story about his folks and life around the farm. His catch phrase was "Hiya, Buck!"
- Phil Harris - a skirt-chasing, arrogant, hip-talking bandleader who constantly put Jack down (in a mostly friendly way, of course). He referred to Jack as "Jackson." An on-air joke explains this by having Harris say "It's as close to 'jackass' as I can get without being fired or getting into trouble with a censor."
- Schlepperman (played by Sam Hearn) - a Jewish character who spoke with a Yiddish accent. He would return again as the "Hey, Rube!" guy, a hick farmer from the town of Calabasas who always insisted on referring to Jack as "rube."
- Larry Stevens - Tenor singer who substituted for Dennis Day from November 5 1944 to March 10 1946, when Dennis served in the Navy. Came back as a guest star and substituted for Dennis in a few episodes.
- Mary Kelly - the Blue Fairy, a clumsy, overweight fairy who appeared in several storytelling episodes
- Blanche Stewart - performed a variety of characters and animal sounds