Battle of the Comedy Sexes

While scrolling on line, I spotted the caricatures you see below that were sent on the Associated Press wire. So I decided to post the drawing and the article that went along with it.

This appears to be one of those stories where the writer asked a number of celebrities being interviewed some side questions, then banked them for a compilation feature piece for later publication.

This story appeared in papers in 1948. As it was written on the East Coast, it is devoid of opinions of West Coast radio comediennes or comic actresses, such as Gracie Allen, Cass Daley, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, Marian Jordan and many others (this is not an excuse for you to comment “You forgot {insert name here}.”).

There is validity in the points raised. People will listen to old radio shows or watch aged animated cartoons and won’t laugh because they don’t get the references. I imagine gags on Bob Hope’s shows about ensigns or top sergeants went over big with his military audiences in World War Two, but they do nothing for me.

I chuckle about the columnist’s disdain for Henry Morgan. Morgan expressed disdain for women, especially ex-wives who wanted his money.

Cynthia Lowry spent years in Los Angeles reviewing television shows, but she was no fluff reporter. She was assigned to France by the A.P. during the war and got a first-hand look at the horrors of the Belsen concentration camp in Germany in March 1946. She died in 1991.

Comedians Differ on Why Women Laugh, or Don't
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
(Associated Press Newsfeatures)
New York, June 26.—Women laugh at jokes because they have sense of humor.
Just a minute, now, let me finish. This isn't my opinion. I'm just reporting it. It's what some of America's top comedians think. Except Henry Morgan: He thinks women just laugh at things men don't think are funny. I don't think Henry Morgan is funny.
A couple of lady comics think women laugh quicker, sooner and harder. Maybe you think they are prejudiced, so we'll amplify that later.
Jack Benny does not think questions about women's sense of humor calls for gag answers.
"Men and women respond to about the same things in the way of humor," he said. "I'd go a little heavier in the sex angle with an audience of women. But not too rough. That would embarrass them."
Fred Allen, another veteran of vaudeville, puts it somewhat differently. He thinks the world is quite simply divided into people with a sense of humor and people without a sense of humor.
"If they have one, they laugh," said, "If they don't, they don't. But it isn't question of whether it's woman or a man.
"Women will laugh at gags about styles or stocking shortages," he continued thoughtfully. "Men will laugh at golf jokes, gags about horse racing. But they're just laughing at things they know about. Women don't play the horses much.
"A college professor will snicker it someone trips over some ivy by a university building. A garbage man will laugh if someone slips in the swill. They're both laughing at basic thing—only in settings they are familiar with. But they laugh because they think it's funny—not because they are men.”
Jack Haley, one of the stars of "Inside U. S. A.,” agrees that it is familiar things that make people laugh. But he thinks women are more likely to laugh at "light things" than men.
"Men like heavy humor you can put your teeth in," he says. "Women go for more frivolous stuff. There's no better, more responsive audience in the world than bunch of women—all women."
He thinks there are many men more comedians than women because "humor is an aggressive thing." He didn't explain that.
Paul Hartman, a master of humor in dancing and now starring in "Angel in the Wings," said women laugh as hard as men, but are likely to laugh at different jokes.
"For instance, women in an audience will always go for the classic burlesque: A man pantomiming a woman adjusting her girdle or trying to find an unfastened garter. We've got a sketch in our show built around some military slang, but it never goes over to a matinee audience. Women just don't understand military slang."
Then there's this Henry Morgan.
"I've often noticed women laughing," said Morgan, "but usually only at the minor calamities that befall men. If women had sense of humor why should they on being women?"
Gracie Fields thinks men and women laugh equally hard at the same jokes—it they're familiar with the subject matter.
"But," she adds, "women catch on to a gag faster every time."
Nancy Walker, star of the musical comedy hit "Look Ma, I'm Dancin'," is the summer-upper.
"Dames," she said, "are the quickest, smartest people in the world, but they spend most of their lives trying to keep men from knowing it. Just about the only time they don't have to cover up and let their hair down is when they're all together at matinee.
"Then they'll laugh and whoop louder than anything you ever heard at anything that strikes them funny. They get the gags quicker. But just at matinees. They don't act that way when they go to the theater with their men in the evening."

Has Jack Got a Rumour

When gossip magazines have written about someone for 20 years, it’s likely difficult trying to find something new to publish.

Evidently, this was the situation the Radio-TV Mirror found itself in.

The magazine gave Jack Benny its Best Comedian in Radio award in 1952. At that point, he had been in radio for 20 years. What could it write that was different?

Cleverly, one writer found a way. Rather conveniently, a “rumour” surfaced that Jack was going to quit radio.

While network radio was slowly sinking into the sunset, Jack had no intention of getting out radio. Even at the end of his radio run in 1955, attempts were being made to keep his show on the air. By then, the sponsor money wasn’t there.

The rest of the information in the magazine’s gush-job was nothing new. Most of it seems accurate. Whether the mother quotes are, is your guess. The story of how Mary got on the radio was oft-told but not true. The script for her debut exists and her real name is on it. And Jack was born in Chicago, not Waukegan as he said frequently.

Jack Benny — Mr. Showbusiness Himself
By PAULINE SWANSON
EVERYBODY loves a rumor. And a guaranteed gasp-provoker going the rounds in Hollywood at the moment is that Jack Benny—Jack Benny!—will quit radio for good to devote all his time to television.
It’s a monstrous notion. Jack Benny, after all, is radio, on the top for at least eighteen of the twenty years he has been hello-ing everybody within earshot on Sunday nights—some 25,000,000 everybodies, at latest count.
Two thousand of his show business pals crowded into the New York Friars Club last November, on the occasion of his twentieth anniversary on the airways, to call him the greatest—Mr. Show Business himself. You readers of Radio-TELEvision Mirror have been voicing this sentiment in your own way, year after year voting him your Favorite Radio Comedian.
Why, Jack Benny even has an Act of Congress to guarantee that the 7 P.M. Sunday night hour on the air is his forevermore.
Jack Benny quit radio? It’s a nasty rumor, and it shocks everybody—everybody, that is, who doesn’t know Jack Benny.
His close friends aren’t. Most of them have known Jack for almost all of the 43 years he has been in show business (he’s been entertaining people, you know, for four years more than the 39 he grudgingly admits to—Who’s Who says he’s 58). Friends have seen him do some crazy things. Crazy like a fox. Like quitting vaudeville, when nobody could top his earnings or his audiences, to take a flyer in the new “talkies”—then as immature and brassy a medium as a lot of people think television is today. Like quitting films in turn, when he had an ironclad, gold-lined contract for something approximating life, to go back to the stage because he couldn’t stand being cut off from direct contact with the audience, with the people out there in front.
And, of course, everybody knows by now the legend of Jack’s third big walkout—when he left the stage where he commanded a weekly salary in four figures and the biggest, brightest lights on the marquee, to “go into radio.”
Legend by now, too, his first broadcast back in 1932—a guest shot, for free, with Commentator Ed Sullivan. Jack walked up to the terrifying mike, his jitters concealed by dint of heroic effort, and said, “Hello, folks. This is Jack Benny talking. ... There will now be a brief pause | while you all say ‘Who cares?’”
Twenty-five million of you cared, it turned out ... Jack Benny floated, with apparent ease, to the top of the heap again. Radio was his. His mother, had she lived to see it, would have been pleased. It was she who had dinned into her young son’s head the maxim he has lived by: “It is not enough, Benny, to be good enough. It has to be as good as you can make it.”
The last words she said to him, as he sat beside her deathbed, were: “You'll keep on studying.”
A new medium, new techniques, a whole field of younger, fresh competitors ... of course he would have to accept the challenge, and never stop “studying” until he had licked it—not just when it was good enough, but when it was as good as he could make it.
Mrs. Kubelsky would have understood. So, for the record, does the other woman who has molded Jack Benny’s life . . . his wife for twenty-five years, Mary Livingston.


It was for Mary, really, that Jack in the early thirties took his first flyer in films. They lived a normal life for a while. They had a house—rented, but it stayed in one place—and they actually went to bed at night for a change, and got up in the morning! Mary was in seventh heaven, until she began to feel that Jack was not. “You'd better go and see Mr. Mayer,” she said, “and tell him ‘thanks so much but I quit.’”
He did.
Mary’s place in the radio show came about even more accidentally than her bit in the vaudeville act. An actress failed to show up for a broadcast, and Mary was on.
That was twenty years ago, and Mary has been a fixture on the show ever since. ‘ It could have been twenty minutes ago to Mary’s stomach. She has never gotten over her stage fright, her show-time jitters—original source of her now famous giggle.
Mary would have begged off radio years ago if Jack—and their audiences—had permitted it. Now, especially, that their daughter Joan is a Stanford freshman, all pal and no problem, Mary would like to be free to enjoy their new comradeship.
Mary could see Jack go into television—and without her—without a pang. And the rumors that he might don’t shock her one bit.
And, let it be said without further ado, they don’t shock Jack.
They couldn’t, inasmuch as he started them!
From the day he made his first TV appearance—those first shows, incidentally, may have delighted the audience, but they didn’t satisfy Jack; they weren’t “as good as he could make it”—Jack has hammered at everybody who would listen to him that he is fascinated with television.
“It’s like going back to the theatre .. . you know you make contact .. . the audience is there,” he says.
It’s the old, intimate show business again, and Jack Benny feels thirty-nine again, experiencing it. But there are a few problems. A sponsor, a contract ... to say nothing of his high-powered and highpriced staff. Some of them have been with him for eighteen years. And TV doesn’t pay their kind of prices.
It wouldn’t surprise anybody who really knows Benny if Jack made the leap, anyway, and shelled out the money himself to keep his co-workers in the style to which they have grown accustomed.
People who buy the picture of Jack Benny—which he has created himself, of course—of the nickel-pinching skinflint, who exacts a lawn-mowing as well as a solo for Dennis Day’s weekly twenty-five dollars, would simply never believe that Jack Benny is unmindful of the importance of the dollar. They would never believe he could exchange radio’s lush profits for television’s comparative peanuts cheerfully once he was convinced that, in the new medium, he could entertain more people more effectively. But it’s true.
Some of his greatest shows he has done for considerably less than nothing—in Iran, for instance, and Egypt, and Sicily, Italy, New Guinea, Australia, the Marianas, the Marshalls, the Gilberts, the Solomons and Kwajalein, where he took his troupe during World War II. Ask any G.I. if Jack Benny was funny under front-line pressure? And even they, probably, wouldn’t believe the actual fact that Jack spent $100,000 of his own money in telephone line charges in order to be able to get the show to them.
But he did; entertainment is giving.
Last summer, he took a troupe to Korea—when many a younger, hardier man was begging off—traveled 30,000 miles in everything from a jeep to a helicopter, slept— no more than four hours a night—in a dirt-floored tent, and gave.
He came home, a friend says, “Looking like hell broken physically and mentally.”
But he caught up on his sleep, told the world that it was the greatest experience of his life and he would go again at the drop of a hat.
He talked of nothing but “those wonderful guys” slugging it up and down Korean mountains.
And their wonderful jokes.
Their jokes—just as on the air it’s always Rochester, or Phil Harris, or Mary, or Dennis Day who grabs off the big laugh, while the boss brings down the house with “We... ll.” A great entertainer, Jack Benny.
A giver.
And once he decides, if he does, that he can give you more on television than on radio—which has called him the Greatest and made him rich—you’ll be seeing him regularly in your living rooms.

Jack Benny's Comedy and Violin

Perhaps it was the vaudevillian in him, but Jack Benny always liked being on stage.

Yes, there was an audience in front of him in the radio days, but he went city-to-city with a company in the 1930s, did the same thing during the war, performed at the Palladium in London, appeared in Vegas in the ‘50s and then began to perform concerts all over North America until his death in 1974.

One of his stops in 1965 was at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe. The usual chat with the media took place. By this time, it must have been tough finding original questions to ask. Jack was moody and could get dismissive with reporters who asked him trite things like “Are you really cheap?” An entertainment writer for the Reno Evening Gazette put together this story for the Aug. 7 edition.

Benny Describes the 'Benny' Character
Aphorisms are usually hokum or are contradicted by other aphorisms. But sometimes one finds the mark, as "You're only as old as you feel" does in the case of Jack Benny.
"You know I'm past 70," Benny mused, "but I'm darned if I feel like a man that age. As a matter of fact, I feel better now than I did when I really was 39."
Benny was relaxing in his Harrah's Tahoe South Shore Room dressing room, his hands poking out of a shantung robe to busily work on a between-shows snack of pancakes and milk.
"Things were hectic in the old days," Benny said between bites, his famed blue eyes gaining in sparkle. "Every show seemed so important. Now, I take things in my stride." Then he smiled and added, "After all, at my age, where am I gonna go?"
The famed comedian is starring in Harrah's through Aug. 22 with singer, Wayne Newton, and dancers, Brascia and Tybee.

Resting in his dressing room, Benny fails on all counts as a Benny has helped form many temperamental star.
He's a gracious man, slightly more serious in demeanor off-stage than on, totally lacking in the mock pomposity he has indulged in for years in the entertainment world. Speaking with him is like speaking with someone you've known for decades. And you do speak with him. He isn't out to "prove" anything to anyone. Benny has the ease and humility of a man who knows himself well.
Of course, the unmistakable voice, the innocent blue eyes, the casual gestures are the same backstage or on.
"I stay young I suppose because I just can't stop working,” he said. "This is a youthful business, and I have young people on my tv shows and on-stage here, like Wayne (Newton), a fine young man and great talent," Benny said.
"Retire? I honestly don't think I ever will, though I would like to devote a whole season to giving concerts. I dearly love giving concerts.”
Benny has helped for many symphony orchestras and kept others financially afloat by taking part in fund-raising appearances in all parts of the country.
"The whole thing is satire on the concert musician," Benny, a serious musician and violinist in his own right, said. "I come out in white tie and tails and everything deteriorates from there.
"Of course, I don't charge a fee for the appearances, only my traveling expenses. It's my hobby and the thing I get the biggest kick out of."
The comedian practices playing violin to the tune of two hours a day. "Sometimes here at Harrah's, I get together with some of the boys in Leighton Noble's band and we have impromptu musicales down in the band room." Finishing his pancakes, Benny leaned back in a soft, overstuffed chair and spoke of comedy.
"Most of the jokes flow out of the characters themselves," he said. "Like on a radio show a long time ago, we did a few gags about my being stingy. It seemed to go over, so we did more the next week. And that's the way a character evolves."
Other jokes come from "real life," Benny said.
"There's a story I tell about my great friend, George Burns. In the story, I'm waiting for George in my hotel room, standing on one foot, stark naked, with a book balanced on my head, a glass of water in one hand and a rose in the other," he recounted. "As I tell it in show, George suspected something and sent the maid in ahead of him!
"Actually, the joke really happened, except that George wasn't expecting anything and it was a bellhop who came into the room first. You have to embellish a little, he said.
And what of the radio-tv-stage character, "Jack Benny?" Has the creator ever grown weary of his creation?
Benny thought for a moment, then shook his head, "No," he said, "I don't think so. The 'Jack Benny' character has lot of facets. It includes stinginess, vanity, all the human frailties. No, I think I like ‘Jack Benny.’

What was the show like? Here’s a review from the San Francisco Examiner, Aug. 10.

The Incomparable Jack Benny
By STANLEY EICHELBAUM
No comedian is quite like Jack Benny. There is certainly no one around with his sense of dignified, subtle clowning, or with his ability to play the straight man, by unleashing an outrageous barrage of dry, dead-pan wisecracks, which break up an audience even before it realizes that he intends to be funny.
In his current show Harrah's Club on Lake Tahoe, Benny saunters on stage at a leisurely, rolling gait, looking rather like a nattily-groomed stockbroker. His poise and posture are impeccable. And his timing is no less perfect than Big Ben's.
To an obviously rapt mob of admirers, he comments on his phenomenal youthfulness and then confides that he is finished pretending to be only 39. "I've now reached he declares, with a murderous, baby blue glare. Then, he confides that he, too, has a clan--like Sinatra--but that at his coterie is called Ovaltine a-Go-Go. It consists of Edward Everett Horton, Ed Wynn, Walter Brennan and Spring Byington, who meet regularly for a game of whist. "And whatever money we win pays for our visits to the Mayo Clinic," he explains.
SIXTH SUMMER

Since this is Benny's sixth summer pilgrimage to Harrah's-Tahoe, he has every right to indulge in family matters—to talk about his wife Mary and their recent 38th anniversary. "It can happen," he remarks, with a certain nonchalance, "even in show business. And I wouldn't trade Mary for Elizabeth Taylor, or Richard Burton.”
The quips are relentless, ticked off with supreme aloofness and tempered with that Jack Benny look of righteous indignation, specially when he invokes his celebrated trademark—being the most confirmed cheapskate in public life.
As always, he surrounds himself with proteges—formers who are led to believe that they would be washing dishes, were it not for Benny's helping hand. But they are permitted (even encouraged) to insult their immortal employer, to have the last word in a stabbing exchange of wits.
DANCE TEAM
So when a lithe and attractive dance team, Brascia and Tybee, complete their impressive acrobatic whirls, Benny is ready to make a pass at Miss Tybee, but is outsmarted by Brascia, who happens to be her husband.
Benny then cedes the spotlight to Wayne Newton, a tall, boyish and enterprising pop singer with an exuberant and folksy style that goes directly to the heart of an audience, particularly those who are won over by clean-cut youth and boundless vitality. With the energy of a windmill, he swoops down on such sure-fire old favorites as "Swanee" and "Rockabye My Baby," until the crowd whimpers for more.
'RED ROSES'
And after a bouncing rendition of "Red Roses for a Blue Lady," he throws himself at the first rank of tables, shaking hands at random (with exultations of "God bless you!”). He simply bubbles over with inexhaustible humility. And frankly, his light-up-the-sky charm wore me out.
But if you happen to drive up to Tahoe, you should drop in on Jack Benny and his companions, who also include the Moro-Landis Dancers and Leighton Noble's orchestra. His show is remarkably pleasant and ingratiatingly funny. And he'll be there through August 22nd.

After Tahoe, Jack returned to television. NBC had cancelled his series but signed him to a number of specials every year. And there were always his concerts. The “Jack Benny character” wasn’t far out of view.

The English Loved His Drawling Legs

Jack Benny and his writers never wasted a lot of potential material. They managed to wring laughs out of all kinds of things.

One was Jack’s sojourns to the Palladium in London. Afterwards, listeners to his radio show would hear gags about how Jack ridiculously puffed up opinions about his performances. The fact was the English enjoyed Jack as much as American audiences.

He set sail for England after the end of the 1947-48 season, the first time he had appeared there since 1931. The United Press reported he got a ten-minute ovation from a capacity audience on opening night. Beverly Baxter reviewed it for the Evening Standard of July 23, 1948 and took a nationalistic slight at something rather innocuous.

MISSING FROM HOME --the star turns of ENGLAND
On Monday of this week Mr. Jack Benny, of the U.S.A., arrived at the Palladium with his radio colleagues, Mr. Phil Harris, Miss Mary Livingstone and Miss Marilyn Maxwell.
A great crowd assembled to give them welcome, and Mr. Val Parnell was able to congratulate himself again on the great success of his star-spangled season.
Mr. Benny, with his drawling legs, his wistful imperturbability expression, and his pleasant voice, is a considerable artist. Anyone who can reduce the vast spaces of the Palladium to the intimacy of a morning room must be taken seriously. Nor was he content merely to reproduce the personal badinage which a corps of script writers supply for his weekly radio programmes.
It is true we heard about his meanness, and his age, as well as his low opinion of Mr. Fred Allen—all pleasant reminders of his war-time programmes—but he did try to brings us into the picture. I liked particularly his explanation of why he had left Claridges and gone to the Savoy: ”They're so stuffy at Claridges that you've got to be shaved before you can go into the barber shop.”
BRAVO, BENNY
WHEN he asked Miss Livingstone, who, as all Western Civilisation knows, is Mrs. Benny, to sing a kissing duet with Mr. Harris we had a glimpse of his powers as a mime. Utterly effortless, and with the very minimum of movement and expression, he conveyed what might be described as the commercial torment of a producer who has placed his wife in another man's arms. Let there be no mistake about it. The Big Shot in the Benny Show is Jack Benny.
Nevertheless Mr. Harris is a notable American import. He is one of those big, nimble-footed men with enough vitality for a battalion, and possessed of a contagious sense of fun. In fact, a perfect foil to his senior partner.
But now I must mention something creditable yet disturbing in connection with Mr. Harris. He had just completed a number when he leaned over the microphone and said words something like these: "Ladies and gentlemen, last week Jack and I discovered a dancing team of two English boys. We think they're fine and I hope you will think so too. So let's give a big hand to these English boys."
IN OUR TEMPLE
THERE was nothing but generosity in the Harris gesture, but it sounded in my ears like a colonial governor introducing a pair of dancing coolies at his garden party. Here in the Palladium, the shrine and temple of British variety, we are asked to give a hand to two of our own countrymen. Not for them our discrimination or criticism, but just—kindness. After all, Mr. Parnell, who is a most able producer, cannot escape his share of the responsibility. Week after week the headliners arrive from New York or Hollywood, thus proclaiming to the listening world that there are no stars in the English skies. Yet it was in this very theatre that the late George Black put British variety on a pinnacle again after it seemed to have gone into a hopeless decline.
It may be that our music hall artists need a New Look. Certainly the Americans have proved that they do not have to descend to “blue jokes” and embarrassing gestures to draw the crowd. The excuse is made that in the provinces a comic cannot survive unless he gives the people vulgarity, and that possible it is not to have one version for the provinces and another for London.
Let the case of Sid Field be the answer. He was a favourite for years in the provinces before Mr. Black discovered him, and he never trafficked in dirt.
I am sorry that, the pleasantries of Benny and company should have me into this serious vein, but periodically, in politics and the arts, there has to be a campaign to revive a pro-British feeling in Britain. Clearly this such a moment. Perhaps Mr. Phil Harris lit a beacon in Oxford-circus.

The Observer of July 25 had these words:

Jack Benny
ON Monday, to the delight of a packed house, the Palladium became a temple for the worship of visiting film stars. Jack Benny, the presiding deity on the stage, disarmed us immediately by remarking that he knew he looked much younger on the screen! Mr Benny is not a red-nosed comedian; he is a charming, polished, comic actor with a deceptively easy style and cumulative effect. He jokes gravely in a deliberate, lazy voice, and—rare feat among funny-men—he listens beautifully. He gives an air of spontaneity to a cunningly-arranged act; this includes Phil Harris, who is so full of himself he quite fills the theatre, and is great fun. But though his associates stand in the limelight, it is Mr. Benny, with deprecating shrug and resigned expression, who always manages to be at the centre of things. He and his company are here for two weeks only; Nota Benny. P.F.

As for the rest of the cast, Dennis Day appears to have taken most of the summer 1948 off; he was heard in the Disney film Melody Time. Don Wilson stayed in Hollywood as his wife headed for Hawaii; she divorced him next year. Eddie Anderson went on the road, including a trip to Canada. We’ll have more on that next weekend.

A Date With a Date

Jack Benny’s radio show made stops outside of Los Angeles after moving there from New York in the mid-1930s. It even returned to New York, especially if Fred Allen could be booked for mutual visits on the air.

One of Jack’s fairly regular destinations was Palm Springs, starting in 1941 and ending at Christmas time in 1954 during the final radio season. Jack’s writers seemed to find inspiration there, even using it for one of his Christmas shows where he harasses clerk Mel Blanc through indecision. There were jokes about dates, the quickly-changing climate and high prices. And there were several variations on the “Murder at the Racquet Club” story, no doubt pleasing Charlie Farrell, whose club got plenty of free publicity. (One wonders if Farrell’s appearances revived his career, as he filmed My Little Margie on TV in the mid-‘50s).

The Desert Sun published stories about Jack and the show in its Feb. 21 and 28, 1941 issues, and took advantage of the situation by selling “Welcome Jack” ad space to various businesses. Here’s what the paper of the 28th said about the broadcast; this was the final season Jack did a second live broadcast for the West Coast.

Benny Broadcasts Give Palm Springs Fine Publicity and Entertainment; Will Repeat Programs Next Sunday
Jack Benny and his crowd of inimitable entertainers had Palm Springs literally sitting in the aisles last Sunday. What's more he's repeating the process next Sunday. And while stores, newspapers, Chamber of Commerce, hotels and others are fully appreciative of the wonderful publicity and entertainment he is giving the town, they will breathe a collective sigh of relief when it's all over. This ticket demand, all concede, has been too, too tough.
Next Sunday’s national broadcasts will take place, as did last Sunday’s, at the Plaza Theatre at 4 p. m. and 8:30 p. m. It is anticipated that Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow, Benny’s writers, again will devote a good part of the script to Palm Springs. Certainly Palm Springs got its full share of notice last Sunday. Jello may have been paying for the program, but Palm Springs got most of the attention.
Nothing Like It Before
This village has never witnessed anything like the Benny broadcasts. Accustomed to celebrities of every kind and supposedly blase, it went into a dither about Benny. And the comedian did well by the town. So great was the demand to see the broadcasts that the theatre was jammed half an hour before each broadcast. People were even sitting in the aisles.
For the half hour before actual broadcast, Benny wise-cracked, smoked his cigar, strolled up the aisles. Phil Harris and his orchestra helped out in the impromptu entertainment. The actual broadcasts were perfect half hours of comedy and music. Denny Day’s singing entitles him to his top ranking as a singer of popular songs. Don Wilson, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Rochester and the rest all provided superb entertainment.

Columnist Roy Medby of The Desert Sun pronounced the following in the same issue:

JUST TO AVOID being accused of taking advantage of defenseless readers we are announcing here and now that we are going to say a little something about Benny. You know, Jack Benny. So, if you’ve heard enough about the guy, better check out right here.
* * *
WE WISH we would follow our impulse to write about things, such as the broadcast, right after they happen. We are all stirred up then and bubbling over with pretty words. But, as usual, we’ve waited a few days. The warm enthusiasm is still there, but we’ve lost the fancy words. They were only two-bitters anyhow, so you haven’t missed anything. But to get back to Benny. What a show-man that guy is!
* * *
PERHAPS WE ARE a little naive in our pleasures and enthusiasms. But we will say forthrightly and without equivocation that we enjoyed that Benny show about as much as anything in the way of entertainment that we have ever come across. And we cannot ever remember any instances in which Palm Springs got even remotely so much good publicity, whether it paid for it or not.
* * *
WE FIGURE THAT any guy who likes this village well enough to hand it publicity worth twenty thousand bucks, at a conservative estimate, can come around and play in our yard any time. We figure too, that when he does the thing twice in order not to disappoint a lot of people who couldn’t get into the first broadcasts, he ought to have at least a vote of thanks.
* * *
AND AS A LAST little word, just to you personally, Mr. Benny, when you get around to passing out permanent ducats or something, to all of your broadcasts, don’t forget to put our name down good and heavy. You have long had our vote for the best and cleanest entertainment in radio.

There were some pretty enjoyable shows from Palm Springs. And a couple that were disjointed. The broadcast of Apr. 11, 1948 not only suffered a drop out that was filled with studio music, but ran so long that a scene with Paul Lukas was cut short because of time. The following week, Sam Goldwyn and Jack broke each other up, and then Goldwyn unexpectedly changed a line, getting laughs from the audience as Jack explained what had happened.

After Mary Livingstone twisted a line from “grease rack” into “grass reek,” Jack berated her the following week on the Dec. 10, 1950 show from Palm Springs, saying there was no such thing. The police chief of the city showed up to prove otherwise to the delight of listeners.

The gang spent part of Dec. 1951, 1953 and 1954 in Palm Springs.

Writer Milt Josefsberg goes into a number of Palm Springs stories in his book, including one about something that happened off the air.

Jack's favorite night spot was Charles Farrell's Racquet Club. One night he drove there alone to have some coffee and talk with a few friends. After a couple of hours he left and started to drive back to his hotel at a leisurely pace. Jack was an extremely careful driver, so as he drove down Indian Avenue and heard a police car's siren and saw the flashing red lights behind him, he was sure that the law was after someone else, not him.
He was wrong. The police car pulled alongside and Jack realized that he was their quarry, so he drove his car into an open parking space, wondering what law he had violated. His wonder turned to fear as one of the two policemen in the black-and-white car jumped out, drew his gun, and sharply ordered him out of his car with his hands up.
When Jack opened his door to exit, the cop got his first clear look at Jack and he gasped in recognition and amazement, "Mr. Benny!"
Jack said, "Y-y-yes. What did I do?"
The policeman carefully put his gun away and said, half-amazed and half-apologetic, "You stole this car." Jack smiled at this and thought it might be some sort of practical joke. He told the policeman, "Look, it's mine. I drive a black Cadillac Coupe De Ville." Then he told him the license number. The policeman motioned Jack to the front of the car and pointed to the license plate. It was an entirely different number.
What had happened could only have happened to Jack. Another man driving a car that was identical in make, year, model, and color had parked alongside of Jack at The Racquet Club. Jack came out, walked to where his car was parked, got in, put the key in the ignition, and it fit perfectly. However, when the other man came out, he got into Jack's car, which was an exact duplicate of his, but for some reason his key didn't fit Jack's ignition. He phoned the police, and they spotted Jack a few seconds later.
Jack then drove back to The Racquet Club with the police, and they told the worried victim that they had apprehended the car thief. Then Jack came in and the man's eyes nearly popped out of his head. He kept saying, "They'll never believe this, they'll never believe this."
Jack laughed and said, "They will because I'll give you an autographed picture which says 'To the man whose car I stole.' You won't even have to pay me for the picture if you'll drop the charges."

Not only did Jack broadcast from Palm Springs, he and his writers came up with set-up shows on both radio and TV with the plot revolving around him on his way to the city.

Carnegie Hall in Bloom

Jack Benny’s radio show began in New York, but when the film capital beckoned, he packed up and moved to Los Angeles. He and his cast made periodic returns to city—for personal appearances, war-time morale-boosting shows for the military, and in the early days of TV when network shows came out of Big Town (there was also the jewellery smuggling trial, but we’ll skip that).

In January 1943, Jack was in the east for several reasons. Wherever he went, reporters would follow.

Billboard assigned someone to a rather large news conference to push a charity event. Jack never failed to give reporters some kind of amusing angle to put in their stories. This one appeared on January 16th.

Benny Ad Lib Session Launches Drive
NEW YORK, Jan. 9.—If there were any doubts left in the trade as to whether or not Jack Benny could show his face in public without a script, they were dispelled Wednesday (6) when Benny treated upwards of 500 cohorts, hangers-on and lunch time expendables to an ad lib session which marked the opening gun of the drive of the amusement division of the Federation of Jewish Charities.
Benny, guests of honor at the two-buck-a-head feed at the Hotel Astor, threw plenty of good-natured but well-aimed needles at Paramount (Barney Balaban is chairman of the drive), and there were enough Para big shots on the dias [sic] to cringe with laughter.
Louis Nizer, Paramount attorney and banquet orator, in introducing Benny with the eloquence these affairs always seem to bring out, cited the comedian's contribution to the morale of the armed forces and even quoted Sigmund Freud on humor and the will to carry on.
Benny, however, said that even Freud couldn't ask him to be funny after signing a donation pledge. There isn't a worthier cause, said Benny, but he suspected that Balaban, in his letter asking him to appear, addressed him as "Dear Jake," so that "If I didn't appear it would make me feel as tho I were turning down a relative."
One of the reasons for Benny's coming to New York, in addition to appearing at eastern army camps, is to arrange a deal for him to produce his own pictures. Said he's working on a deal with United Artists now to "write, produce, direct, finance and blow my brains out." Paramount came in for a bit of heckling in his reasons for switching to Warners. Not only, he related, did he get tired of trying to steal his pictures from Rochester, but the straw that broke his back was that his next picture was to be The Life of Booker T. Washington. Said that under his first independent schedule he hoped to star Bob Hope and Fred Allen in The Road to Grossingers.
Only other speakers were Judge Samuel Proskauer and Davis Bernstein, Loew executive. Advice from the judge was to give plenty this year and deduct it from income taxes. Bernstein said that naval officers at Lakehurst Air Station, where Benny made an appearance, told him that nothing done so far has built up the morale and efficiency of the men stationed there as much as Benny's visit.
Benny, in a more serious vein, told the gathering that he was really honored to have this clambake tossed for him, because it's the first testimonial dinner in New York where he was the guest of honor. Back in the old days, he related, he was always toastmaster at the Friars, but couldn't get the top spot because the two people who had the guest of honor racket tied up were J. C. Flippen and Doc Michel.

There was a bit of inconvenience for the Benny gang during one military stop. The Hollywood Reporter told readers on Jan. 12th:

Jack Benny Certain Sherman Was Right
Rigors of war-time traveling for theatrical troupes were impressed upon Jack Benny and his troupe on their present tour of eastern Army camps. Arriving in Bangor, Me., recently in sub-zero weather, Benny's gang could find no red caps or taxicabs at the depot, so the company of 39 carried their luggage for six blocks to a hotel.
They ran the gauntlet of autograph seekers, who clamored for the frozen-fingered Benny to sign his name, but none offered to carry his bags. Next day they rehearsed in a cold theatre because of the fuel oil shortage, and that night did three shows to accommodate all the men at Dow Air Field.
Returning to Boston the following day, the blue-nosed performers rode all day in an unheated coach, with no dining car attached. They missed lunch and didn't have dinner until after 11, when their show at the Boston Navy Yard was over. They left Boston at 1 a. m. that night, arriving in New York in the cold dawn.
The Benny troupe has scheduled future shows at the Maritime Service Training Station at Sheepshead Bay, New York; Camp Lee, Virginia; Fort Mead, Maryland; Quantico, Virginia; Norfolk Navy Yard, and then around Toronto, Chicago, Great Lakes and St. Joseph, Mo. Transportation expenses of the troupe are being paid personally by Benny.

There was another reason for Benny to surface in New York City in January 1943. It found its way into the plot of one of his radio shows. The New York Times of January 14th had this story:

JACK BENNY SET FOR VIOLIN DEBUT
Comedian Will Invade Carnegie Hall at Concert on Sunday to Help Paralysis Fund
TO PLAY 'LOVE IN BLOOM'
Oscar Levant Will Be the Piano Accompanist in Super-Special Arrangement of Favorite
Jack Benny's prowess as a violinist will undergo its most severe public test on Sunday evening, when he invades New York's shrine of classical music, Carnegie Hall. This was announced yesterday by Basil O'Connor, president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, under whose sponsorship Mr. Benny's performance will be held.
The occasion for his appearance is a concert for the benefit of victims of infantile paralysis, in which Metropolitan Opera and concert stars will participate. The other artists will be Marjorie Lawrence, who recently recovered from paralysis; Gladys Swarthout, Jarmila Novotna, Jan Peerce, Ezio Pinza and John Charles Thomas of the Metropolitan Opera; Josef and Rozina Lhevinne and Oscar Levant, pianists, and Isaac Stern, violinist. Deems Taylor will be master of ceremonies.
The first announcement that Mr. Benny would "do his stuff" came several days ago. But when the foundation's publicity department sent out a release giving the news there was an unexpected reaction from some of the recipients. Three of them telephoned excitedly demanding explanations and accusing the organization of pulling their legs.
E. A. Powers, campaign director for Greater New York, realized the seriousness of the situation. He told all and sundry to come to his office yesterday afternoon and they would see for themselves that it was no joke.
Skeptical, reporters turned up. So did Jack Benny. And Oscar Levant, too. There was no kidding. And each bought—and paid for—five tickets. Photographers took pictures to prove that to the world, too.
But, you may ask, why was Oscar Levant there ? The answer is Simple. He will be Mr. Benny's accompanist.
The press was told that the performance will be the comedian's "much discussed, long awaited debut as a concert violinist." But no one need take that too seriously. Jack says it will be both serious and funny.
What is he going to play? "Love in Bloom," of course. Persons close to Fred Allen say he does not dare try anything else. Anyway, this time it will be a super-special arrangement for piano and violin.

Ben Gross of the Daily News Ben Gross didn’t review the concert, but he waxed about the Benny radio broadcast in his column of Jan. 18th:

The Jack Benny broadcast last evening (WEAF-7) abounded in laughter again. Oscar Levant proved an amusing guest star, even if the burlesque on "Information Please" was not so funny as it might have been. A new comic to radio, a funster named Besser, made his bow in a wacky stooge role. His rather effeminate spoof was a veritable riot with the studio audience. Being present at the broadcast, I naturally wondered how he sounded over the loudspeaker. On returning to the office, my assistant, Bill Levinson, remarked: "That fellow Besser was very funny, but not quite the howl over on the air that he seemed to the visible audience." Benny's easy going, casual technique improves with the years, and, as for Dennis Day, the singer, he, too, is becoming more and more of an outstanding comedy attraction. P.S.— All of the aforegoing was but the prelude to the real wow of the evening, Jack's appearance as a violin soloist at a benefit show in Carnegie Hall.

Three thousand packed Carnegie Hall. The Times story on the 18th about the concert mentioned “sporadic clashings of a cymbal” during the Benny/Levant performance. But we’ll leave the final word to Jack’s “foe” as reported by Ed Sullivan in the Daily News on Jan. 20th:

After Jack Benny tied up the Carnegie Hall show in a knot, with Oscar Levant at the piano, Fred Allen sneered to Alfred Hitchcock: “First time a violinist combined his debut with his farewell performance.”

Allen, of course, was joshing. And years after his death in 1956, Jack was still on stage with his violin, raising millions of dollars for various causes. They were stopped only by Benny’s passing in late 1974.

Indestructible Benny

There may not have been a comedian who was analysed so much during his time as Jack Benny.

Over the years, we’ve posted a number of articles from columnists explaining the appeal of Benny and his show. Jack talked about it himself at the time as well.

This article is from Leon Gutterman of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. What may be interesting is a great deal of credit was given to his irregular supporting cast. Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris and Mary Livingstone were the only people to be mentioned at the start of each radio show. Anyone else got credit for their performances only on rare occasion. An exception might have been Mel Blanc, whose name Jack mentioned as the show was unfolding on the air. Unlike other radio shows, you wouldn’t hear “Appearing tonight were…” though credits were given on the Benny television programmes.

The writer got Schlepperman’s catch-phrase wrong, but his column otherwise sums up the Jack Benny show that people remember today.

It was published Oct. 13, 1950.

OUR FILM FOLK
Why Jack Benny Is the Indestructible Comedian
Jack Benny has returned to the nation's air waves for the 19th season of his comedy career in radio. And he has come back, as always, in his familiar role of the balding, penny-pinching patsy, but his CBS program as in the past, will be replete during the coming year with new riotous laugh skits, new characterizations, new guest surprises. At least that's what Jack tells me.
This indestructible quality of the great wit's character creation and a show format flexible enough for a perennial infusion of fresh idea material and talent point to the secret of his enduring and inimitable success. As one newspaper editor once wrote: "Benny hasn't, as is so persistently rumored, been doing the same thing for 18 years. He wouldn't have lasted that long if he had."
Comedy situations in a Benny program season had, year after year, been marked by freshness and originality. New characterizations, his own and those of an odd assortment of fellow actors and actresses, have paraded across; the script in endless procession. His guests, too, have been spectacularly impressive, as witness the case of the Ronald Colmans, who appeared 16 times on the show.
But the program personalities, including the whimsical portrayals of regular cast members, are probably the most memorable highlights of the Benny saga. Among those who turned up last season was Frank Fontaine, a new comedian, playing a mentally retarded sweepstakes winner named John L. P. Sivony [sic]. Mel Blanc, a regular, (the voice of Bugs Bunny) did a week-by-week impersonation of Al Jolson. Jack himself added another facet to his characterization, that of the naive treasurer of the Beverly Hills Beavers, a boy's club.
Once, there was an ostrich in the script, and even a polar bear named Carmichael. Jack kept Carmichael in the cellar and Rochester was his keeper. At the time, the husky-voiced valet was in an endless search for a gas man to do some repairs. The versatile Mel Blanc played Carmichael. Blanc now is the voice of the Benny parrot, which keeps Rochester from delivering soliloquies while doing the household chores. Its screams drive him to distraction. Blanc is also Benny's French violin teacher. He is the coughing, sputtering voice of the rattletrap Maxwell auto as it tunes up, and he doubles as well as the rhythm-tongued train announcer calling out Azusa, Cucamonga and other weirdly-named stations.
Buck Benny Rides Again
Who doesn't remember the famous Buck Benny of the long-running "Buck Benny Rides Again" sequence? Andy Devine, whose entrance line was "Hiya, Buck" was the chief stooge of this comedy turn. The skit ceased with the release of the Paramount film "Buck Benny Rides Again." in which Jack and most his fibbers appeared.
Mr. Billingsley was a quaint character dreamed up and played by Ed Beloin, a former Benny writer. A subnormal, self-appointed house guest, Mr. Billingsley consistently made wry comments at the wrong time in a dry voice. Beloin, never an actor, always had Benny worried that he'd miss his cues or fluff his lines.
Another witty specimen knocked on the Benny door anouncing [sic] "A telegram for Mr. Benny." The role was played by Harry Baldwin, Benny's secretary, who would glow with Barrymore-like pride at the end of each performance, over his laconic line.
Mr. Kitzel, a current fabrication, is played by Artie Auerbach, former New York newspaper photographer. His "peekle in the meedle with the mustard on top" and his baseball stories are laugh toppers. Mable Flapsaddle and Gertrude Gershift, the Benny telephone opertors [sic], enacted by Sarah Berner [sic] and Bea Benadaret [sic], tie the program in knots with them saucy badgering of the boss.
Schelepperman’s "Howdy Stranger"
Off and on the show have been Sheldon Leonard, Sam Hearn, Frank Nelson and many other stooges. Leonard is the racetrack tout with the soft, patronizing voice. Hearn played Mr. Schlepperman, whose greeting, "Howdy, Stranger," stirred a ripple of chuckles. Nelson is often heard as the haughty floorwalker, the butler or some generally nasty type, with a mocking "Yeahus" when addressed.
Jack's main foils of course, have come in for equally hilarious typing. Tenor Dennis Day is the timid mama's boy who is always asking for his salary, and Phil Harris is ribbed as a lady-killer with a predilection for word-mangling and liquid refreshments. Rochester as the extrovert valet and chauffeur constantly befuddles the harassed Benny. Mary Livingstone, Jack's wife, is the heckling girl friend whom Benny constantly threatens to send back to the hosiery counter at the May Company department store.
Practically every important figure in show business has guested on the Benny funfest, but Fred Allen's visits have been among the most notable. Jack and Fred carried on a feud for years, on their own programs. Every once in a while they crossed over for mutual calls, letting the quips and sparks fly at close range. "If I had my writers here," Jack once exploded, "you wouldn't talk to me like this."
Benny at His Best
For years, the Benny comedy situations have run the gamut of thing that could possibly happen to Jack Benny has been satirized. Last season, for example, he did a takeoff on an actual operation on his nose, and in another skit he roved through the script for several weeks spending his money like a drunken sailor after a can of tomatoes fell on his head and put him out of his mind. It was Benny at his best.
To his sheer delight, the fabulous funnyman has taken the worst beating from his stooges of any comedian in radio history. Everything about him is mercilessly lampooned . . . his thinning hair, his baby blue eyes, his age (39 years), his romantic attractiveness, his Maxwell, his money vault, his thriftiness and his fiddle. A few years ago his writers even dreamed up a contest in which listeners were invited to send in letters of 25 words or less dwelling on the theme "I can't stand Jack Benny because . . ." More than 500,000 letters poured in. Benny revelled in the scheme.
That's why Jack Benny is the indestructible comedian, who never changes himself but keeps his show over fresh with funsters. That's the secret of his 19 years of radio success.

A Day With the Family

It’s no surprise Dennis Day came across in real life as a family man.

He had ten children.

Day appeared from obscurity to take over the vocalist’s job on the Jack Benny show in 1939. Nobody on the show was certain Day—that was the name they gave him—would make it. To hedge their bet, they brought on veteran actress Verna Felton to play Dennis’ overbearing mother. Felton was funny, but Benny and his people agreed Day was capable of handling the role without assistance, so Felton’s mother was reduced to occasional appearances.

As it turned out, Day developed a pretty good flair for comedy, both in the context of his quiet and silly character, and when it came to a small group of imitations, which the writers started putting in the show. He did funny versions of Jimmy Durante, the Mad Russian (Bert Gordon as Eddie Cantor’s foil) and Ronald Colman, and some over-the-top accents that were perfect for Benny’s sketches.

All this resulted in Colgate-Peet-Palmolive signing Day for his own radio series. When television came around, he starred in two short-lived series in the 1950s, but started raking in the big money when he headlined in Las Vegas.

Despite this, he seems to have been removed from the glittery world of show business celebrities, no doubt helped by publicity along those lines.

Here’s an example. TV Guide published this two-page profile on June 4, 1954.

Four Days Make One Weak
Dennis’ Children Keep Life Hectic For ‘TV Bachelor’
Brentwood, Cal., is one of those money-sprinkled suburbs whose shopping center is archly referred to as “the village”; whose winding roads bear names like Tigertail and Saltair and whose few remaining unsold lots are priced higher than a kite in an updraft. Being a sub-suburb of suburban Beverly Hills, it is loaded with movie and TV stars on a high turnover basis.
Now, in the film capital, a star’s home is rarely associated with the star himself. It is almost invariably "the old Gloria Swanson place” or “the former Rin Tin Tin manse,” regardless of who might be footing the current utilities bill.
An exception to this rule-of-thumb is the Dennis Day farmhouse, located north of Sunset Boulevard in the outer reaches of Brentwood. Day and his wife, the former Peggy Almquist, bought the place from its builder, who was not a star, thereby assuring its future pedigree as “the old Dennis Day place.”
The pedigree is going to have to wait awhile, however, as Dennis and his wife have remodeled it with a careful Irish eye on future expansion. They are the early settler type and, with four young McNultys all under the age of six, they are both early and settled.
Right here it should be explained that in this woodsy little corner of Brentwood the Days are known as “the McNultys,” Dennis’ real name being Eugene Patrick McNulty. The children, Margaret, 1; Michael, 3; Dennis, Jr., 4, and Patrick, 5, are known strictly as “the McNulty children.”
It’s the end of a perfect Day, you might say, when the kids rush out to meet their particular Mr. McNulty. That workaday character, name of Dennis, disappears, and in his place there’s only “Daddy.”
With four Indians of Irish descent on the premises, Dennis generally finds himself up by 7:00 A.M. whether he likes it or not. Breakfast is a pleasant sort of bedlam—the kind only parents can ever become accustomed to. After that, it’s up to Peggy McNulty to get her husband piled into his car, the two older boys piled off to nursery school and the other kids piled out from underfoot.
On weekdays Dennis generally gets home fairly late, just in time to try to calm the children with a quick story before their bedtime. He and Peggy like a quiet dinner together and spend most evenings watching television. Sunday, however, is family day. Dennis leads the entire brood off to church, after which the four Indians rule the roost and keep their father stepping.
An Irish Stew
A favorite Sunday occupation is a family barbecue, with Dennis himself presiding at the open pit built into the den’s huge brick fireplace. In warmer weather the backyard pool becomes the general meeting place, fairly crawling with McNultys. Dennis has four brothers and a sister, plus enough nieces and nephews to stock a small school. The canyon neighborhood, in fact, is rapidly becoming known as McNulty Gulch.
Aside from the occasional fishing sorties, which are strictly a mother-and-father deal, the McNultys are as tightly knit a family group as Hollywood boasts, and keep pretty much to themselves in their canyon hideout. Dennis keeps a firm hand on the children’s reins, and labors mightily to keep their natural, exuberant tendencies within limits.
Hams Must Age, You Know
Patrick, the oldest boy, already has some of his excess energy siphoned off into show business, having appeared on one of his father’s TV films in the role of Dennis himself as a young boy. Whether or not the others will follow suit is something Dennis is not yet prepared to say.
“They’re too young at the moment,” he says matter-of-factly, “to do anything but get in and out of trouble. But they’re Irish and they’re mine, and it’s quite possible there is a small amount of latent ham in them.”

I’ve always liked Kenny Baker as a vocalist more than Day, though I’m not excited about the kinds of songs both were required to perform, but Day was more talented of the two. While Andy Williams and Perry Como were bigger on television, Al Martino and Johnny Mathis were bigger on the record charts, and rock would be embraced by young people, Day still attracted fans who wanted to see the singer they heard for years on a radio show with a comedian they loved.

The Blanc Two-Step

An almost fatal car accident didn’t stop Mel Blanc. (You can read an account about it in this Yowp post).

He continued recording voices for Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. He had formed Mel Blanc Enterprises to produce humorous commercials. And there was a happy, Christmas-time reunion on the Jack Benny television show in 1961.

But he obviously slowed down. In looking through newspapers in the first half of 1963, I can find only two on-camera appearances—one with Benny and another, somewhat improbably, with Arthur Godfrey.

Godfrey had been ubiquitous on CBS television in the 1950s. Things had changed by the end of the decade, perhaps because of the discovery that he wasn’t as charming and laid back in real life as he was on camera. It didn’t quite kill his career. He co-hosted part of a season on Candid Camera in 1960 before walking off annoyed at the show’s owner, Allen Funt (who didn’t have much good to say about Godfrey, either).

The network was still interested in Godfrey’s talents and signed him to host specials. One in early 1963 featured Blanc. It turned out the two men had something in common, as Earl Wilson reported in his column of March 8, 1963. As you might have expected, Blanc had a Jack Benny story.

INJURED, BUT THEY'LL DANCE
Arthur Godfrey and Mel Blanc—each survivor of a near fatal auto accident, each held together by silver plates and pins—will try to forget March 18 that they've had to use canes . . . and will try to dance on TV.
Mel Blanc, while still on a cane, learned about this ambitious undertaking when he reported to the big red-head Arthur (who’ll be 60 in July) for rehearsal for CBS' "Arthur Godfrey Loves Animals" TV show.
"Tell me about your accident," Arthur said first.
"Well, this leg here had 22 breaks in it . . . I had five fractures in my spine . . . I was unconscious for 21 days . . . they kept telling my wife, Estelle, that I couldn't make it . . . she'd cry and beg them 'Please don't say THAT!" . . . there were 18 doctors on duty at the UCLA Medical Clinic . . . practically all of them worked on me . . . I was in a cast eight months, but it was two months before they could put me in a cast . . . “I've still got six silver screws through my leg . . .”
Blanc’ll do Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Speedy Gonzales, and Pepe Le pew, the French skunk, as well as the sound of Jack Benny’s expiring Maxwell, on the Godfrey show.
"THE ONE MAN who never forgot us when I didn't know whether I'd pull through," Mel said, "was Jack Benny. He’s come to see us every 10 days."
“One night we were having chicken-in-the-pot in the kitchen. He said he had to go to dinner at Dave Chasen's, but he'd just have some soup with us. Pretty soon he said he'd have dinner with us, and have dessert at Chasen's. Then Estelle brought out dessert and he said ‘Never mind, I’ll just have coffee at Chasen’s.’ He wound up going to Chasm's for an after-dinner drink."

A news release about the special said “With Mel Blanc, Arthur gets a taste of the wiles of Bugs Bunny when the sassy rabbit tried to fast-talk him into a television appearance while Sylvester and Pepe Le Pew interrupt with idea of their own.” The Boston Globe’s review added Blanc demonstrated the voices of “Sweetie Pie” and “baby Deeno.” Percy Shain evidently needed to watch more cartoons.

There was an interesting and unique follow-up to this story in the Fremont Tribune of June 17, 1963. The columnist in this Nebraska newspaper was not an entertainment writer. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. We’ll leave him with the last line, again showing the selflessness of a supposed 39-year-old.

Reflections
Two Entertainers Offer Lesson in Enduring Woe
By CHARLES S. RYCKMAN
The capacity for achieving amazing triumphs over physical handicaps seems to be in some people in proportion to the severity of the disability. The most complaining and despairing sometimes are those with minor and temporary impairment of their bodily faculties.
Those with major loss of physical powers, and especially those with long and perhaps permanent experience with agonizing suffering, often rise to the highest peaks of endurance and accomplish the greatest degree of mastery over the tragedies with which they must live for the remainder of their years.
The current activities of two great entertainers offer vivid illustration of these facts. Radio and television personality Arthur Godfrey is one. The movie and TV veteran Mel Blanc is the other. They appeared together on Godfrey's television program in March, supporting themselves on canes. They danced, told jokes, kidded each other and themselves, treating their own disabilities so lightly and casually that viewers had little understanding of the bitter hell both men have known, and still must know as long as they live.
Arthur Godfrey was an auto accident victim many years ago. He has had so many operations he has lost all count. His body is so pieced and patched that what he was born with and what now holds him together are so intermingled that identification, like the lady's hair color and her hairdresser, is known only to his surgeons.
* * *
Mel Blanc went down into his purgatory by the same route, but much later. One leg had 22 fractures. There were five breaks in his spine. He was unconscious for 21 days. It took two months to get him in condition to wear a cast, and he wore the cast for eight months. He still has six silver screws in the formented leg.
But you knew mighty little of this as they danced, gagged and entertained millions of people. They themselves seemed scarecely conscious of the tortured road by which, they had come. They know about it, well enough. Neither is a stranger to pain and fear nor ever will be again.
And, for a wry item, of all Mel Blanc's friends only one was a constant visitor at his bedside through-out the long months of his ordeal. That was comedian Jack Benny, who works so hard to develop an image of himself as a selfish man.

And the Michael Goes To...

How could Jack Benny win an award from a television academy before he ever appeared on TV?

Simple. He didn’t win an award for television.

In case you’re confused, we’ll sort it out.

The year was 1950. Jack’s award did not come from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which gave out the Emmys in January that year in a ceremony from Los Angeles. His honour was handed out in March by the Academy of Radio and Television Best Arts and Sciences in New York. Benny’s radio show was still going strong, so the Academy feted him for his radio show.

From what I can tell, this was the first and only time this Academy mounted an awards ceremony. While the winners were announced in the national press, the ceremony itself was not broadcast on radio or TV, and it avoided the notice of the show biz bible, Variety.

The awards were called the “Michaels.” Who Michael was, I leave you to discover.

The International News Service wire wrote, in part, on March 22, 1950, the day after the awards.

GODFREY SHOW UP FRONT
Dinah, Bing top list for radio-TV ‘Oscars’
NEW YORK (INS)—The Academy of Radio and Television Best Arts and Sciences made its first annual awards for the year's best performances in those fields last night to a host of celebrities including Walter Winchell, Jack Benny and Arthur Godfrey.
The radio and video awards were made at a reception and dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as the first annual designations in several radio and TV classifications in what is hoped will be the equivalent of the movie "Oscar."
The winners were chosen by a field of top experts in radio, newspaper, magazine, educational and sociological fields from throughout the country. [The AP reported there were more than 1,250 judges]
[...]
• • •
NOT ALL those honored could be present personally. Among the radio and television celebrities present were Tex and Jinx Falkenberg, singer Monica Lewis, Columnist “Bugs" Baer and Mrs. Baer, Mrs. Wendell Winkle, RCA president Frank Folsom and CBS vice president Hubbell Robinson.

Radio Daily had a full list in its story:

Award Winners Named At Dinner In Waldorf
Winners in 27 categories were named last night as recipients of the first annual "Michael" Awards, sponsored by the Academy of Radio and Television Best Arts and Sciences. The awards were announced by Ed Sullivan at a $25-a-plate Awards Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, which was co-sponsored by the New York Heart Fund.
Winners listed in one-two-three order were as follows:
News & Commentary (radio)—Walter Winchell, ABC; Edward R. Murrow, CBS; Lowell Thomas, CBS. Comedy & Variety (radio)—Jack Benny, CBS; Amos 'n' Andy, CBS; Godfrey's Talent Scouts, CBS.
Education, Forums, Etc. (radio)—American Town Meeting, ABC; People's Platform, CBS; Meet the Press, MBS.
Religions Programs (radio)—Greatest Story Ever Told, ABC; Eternal Light, NBC; Family Theater, MBS.
Drama (radio)—Theater Guild on the Air, NBC; Lux Radio Theater, CBS; Railroad Hour, NBC.
Educational Documentaries (radio)—You Are There, CBS; Living, NBC; United Nations Series, NBC.
Agricultural (radio)—Farm & Home, NBC; CBS Farm News, CBS: American Farmer, ABC.
Music (radio)—Telephone Hour, NBC; Voice of Firestone, NBC; NBC Symphony. NBC.
Children's Programs (radio)—Let's Pretend, CBS; Juvenile Jury, MBS; Greatest Story Ever Told, ABC.
Outstanding Comedian (radio)—Groucho Marx, CBS; Jack Benny, CBS; Bob Hope, NBC.
Outstanding Comedian (television)—Milton Berle, NBC; Ed Wynn, CBS; Sid Caesar, NBC.
Outstanding Dramatic Actor (radio)—Everett Sloane, House Jameson, Staats Cotsworth.
Outstanding Dramatic Actor (television)—Ralph Bellamy (Man Against Crime), Charles Heston (Studio One), Everett Sloane.
Drama (television)—Philco Playhouse, NBC; Studio One, CBS; Ford Theater, CBS.
News & Commentary (television)—Camel News Caravan, NBC; Headline Clues, DuMont; Leon Pearson & News, NBC.
Variety Programs (television)—Toast of the Town, CBS; Texaco Star Theater, NBC; Talent Scouts, CBS.
Children's Programs (television)—Kukla Fran & Ollie, NBC; Mr. I Magination, CBS; Singing Lady, ABC.
Sportscasters Mel Allen, Bill Stern, Harry Wismer, ABC.
Promising Stars—Dave Garroway, Abe Burrowsm Jack Carter, Fran Warren.
Special Citations — Lawrence Tibbett, Paul Winchell, Fred Waring.
Outstanding Dramatic Actress (radio)—Helen Hayes (Electric Theater); Agnes Moorhead (Suspense); Ann Sothern (in Theater Guild's "Burlesque").
Outstanding Dramatic Actress (television)—Gertrude Berg, CBS; Felicia Montealegre; Faye Emerson.
Top Feature Vocalist (radio & TV)—Dinah Shore, CBS; Jo Stafford, CBS; Monica Lewis.
Top Male Vocalist (radio & TV)—Bing Crosby, CBS; Frank Sinatra; Perry Como, NBC.
Outstanding Radio Writer Cy Howard for “My Friend Irma" and "Life with Luigi"; Norman Corwin; Morton Wishengrad.
Outstanding Producer Director (radio)—Homer Flickett for "Theater Guild on the Air"; Fletcher Markle; William Keighly.
Outstanding Producer Director (television)—Worthington Minor for "Studio One" and "The Goldbergs"; Mark Daniels; Burr Tillstram [sic].
Program of the Year (radio)—You Are There, CBS; "Could Be" by Norman Corwin, NBC; "Sister Carrie" (NBC University Theater).
Program of the Year (television)—Godfrey's Talent Scouts, CBS; Eisenhower's Crusade in Europe, ABC; Kukla, Fran & Ollie, NBC.

The Michael wasn’t the only honour Benny got in March 1950. Radio Daily made this declaration on its front page of March 10.

BENNY ACCLAIMED TOP PERSONALITY
Crosby, Hope And Amos 'n' Andy Also Rate High With Radio Editors In Radio Daily Poll
Jack Benny has been acclaimed "the greatest radio personality during the last 25 years" in a questionnaire poll of 330 of the nation's radio editors completed yesterday by RADIO DAILY.
In naming Benny many of the radio editors supported their choice with comments about him as a master show-man who has consistently presented top comedy programming over the years. Second choice of the radio editors was Bing Crosby who ran close to Benny in the balloting while third place resulted in a tie between Bob Hope and Amos 'n Andy.
In selecting Benny most of the radio editors wrote in their non-commercial choice. This honor went to the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt, of whom one editor wrote: "He relied almost entirely on radio to instill confidence, faith and courage in this nation."
Comments were many and varied among the radio editors in awarding the honor to Benny. Among them were:
"Jack Benny for his personal accomplishments and those he has helped to stardom."—Nat Lund, Seattle Times, Seattle, Wash.
"Jack Benny is not necessarily the best or the greatest judged in terms of pure talent—but he deserves the title of 'greatest' in the sense that his radio characterization has not only become a national tradition, but has maintained itself as such in the top levels of public acclaim longer than any other." — Ben Gross New York Daily News.
"If by radio personality you mean entertaining personality, I'd say Jack Benny." — Peg White, San Diego Journal, San Diego, Calif.
"If F. D. R. is barred from competition, I'll throw my vote to Jack Benny who had led the way so many years."— John Crosby, New York Herald-Tribune.
In taking the poll RADIO DAILY asked radio editors one question: "Who Was the Greatest Radio Personality During the Last 25 Years?" Editors were invited to comment on their selection.
Among other personalities who received ballots in the poll were Walter Winchell, Arthur Godfrey, Lowell Thomas, Major Bowes, H. V. Kaltenbom, Alexander Woollcott and Will Rogers.
Jack Benny, currently starred in the "Jack Benny Show" on Columbia Broadcasting System Sundays from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m., EST, under sponsorship of the American Tobacco Company, first entered radio 18 years ago.
Started In 1932
Back in 1932, Benny bumped into columnist Ed Sullivan one night in a Broadway restaurant. Sullivan asked him to guest on his radio program the following evening. "But I don't know anything about radio," Jack protested. "Nobody does," Sullivan replied.
Benny offered to give it a whirl, gratis, and on this first broadcast of his life introduced himself with a line now immortal in radio, "This is Jack Benny talking. Now there will be a brief pause for everyone to say, 'Who cares'?"
First Commercial On NBC
Millions did care, as Benny soon found out. The same year, 1932, he had a sponsor and a network program on NBC. He was a sensation from the start, zooming to the top in rating sweepstakes and helping to put radio on its first real pants. He has remained at the top, or pretty much so, ever since, a national institution and trail-blazer in radio comedy.
The "Jack Benny Show" has remained virtually constant in basic pattern through the years, evidence of its tested value as a style of entertainment. As everybody knows, Jack doesn't tell the jokes himself, though he is a master wit. He is the "unhappy" target for the barbs of his radio gang.
As a master showman, Jack Benny's genius is universally recognized. His knack of building personalities into stars of their own right is well known. Dennis Day, Eddie Anderson, who plays Rochester, and Phil Harris are notable examples of his star system.
Benny and his company moved over to CBS from NBC in January, 1949, and since then his Lucky Strike broadcasts have been a Sunday night feature from Hollywood.

The day before the survey results came out, Radio Daily published the latest Pacific Hooperatings. Jack’s show was number one at 40.9, with Bergen and McCarthy next at 33.1. Incidentally, Dennis Day was 11th at 19.6, while Phil Harris and Alice Faye followed at 18.9.

Jack continued to popular. It took another 15 years before he succumbed to glum ratings. 1932 to 1965 is a pretty good run for anyone.

The Horn Blows

On a whim, I decided to flip through some newspaper clippings about Jack Benny in May 1945.

You could certainly get your fill of Benny then, on radio and on the big screen.

Jack’s last show before summer break was on the 27th, with Larry Adler as his special guest. The show also featured Prof. LeBlanc (Mel Blanc), a “typical American family” soap opera announcer (Bea Benaderet), Speedy Riggs’ mother (Elvia Allman), and a plug for Yhtapmys Soothing Syrup with Jack chuckling in the background over Frank Nelson’s delivery.

But he wasn’t through with radio yet. On the 29th, he and Keenan Wynn co-starred in “Please, Charley” on NBC’s This is My Best at 9:30 Eastern. It was based on Lawrence Riley’s humorous short story. Then the following night at 11:30 Eastern, he emceed the second half of a two-hour Seventh War Loan show on the network. His gang was there, as was Ronald Colman to lend some seriousness to the proceedings. On May 16, he appeared from Hollywood in a segment of the series for wounded servicemen, The Road Ahead, airing on the Blue network at 9 Eastern and hosted by Clifton Fadiman.

Among the clippings is a story by Tom Dammann in the May 11th edition of the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune. We quote part of it:

SAN FRANCISCO, May 11.—No gathering of people is complete without funny incidents. The United Nations Conference is no exception. [...]
The other evening, to show you what we mean, we were standing with a large crowd just outside the Opera House to watch the delegates arrive for a plenary session. [...]
Where’s Rochester?
Finally a long black limousine drove up and the crowed quieted, awed, because here perhaps was a Molotov or Stettinius. Out stepped a handsomely dressed man and three well gowned women. The crowed craned its neck, including us. Here was obviously a delegate of importance, but who was he? He walked hurriedly up the steps, followed by the three women. He got just inside the door when a sailor in the crowd recognized him.
“JACK BENNY!” the sailor hollered.
And it was Jack Benny, with Mary Livingston [sic] and two friends. He turned and shouted “Hiya, folks,” and went on to watch the proceedings. The crowd laughed.

It seems others got to meet Jack in the flesh during his trip to the Bay area. His May 20th show came from San Francisco. Before and after the broadcast, the cast took part in an “I Am An American Day” show at the Civic Auditorium. As for the show, it made the May 19 edition of the Fulton Daily Sun-Gazette of Missouri.

Dudley Payne, Hospital Attendant 2-c at the U. S. Naval Hospital in Oakland, Calif., and son of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Payne of Fulton, will play with a navy band on the Jack Benny radio program at 6 p. m. Sunday night.
Young Payne, who plays trombone, has written his family that he is a member of a band which has been judged the best at his base, and will make a guest appearance on the nation-wide radio show tomorrow night. In his letter he said, "If you hear an extra loud note on a trombone, that's me!"
He has been stationed in California almost two years and is movie projectionist and in charge of the sound equipment at the hospital. In this capacity, Payne has met and worked with many famous radio and motion picture stars and has written home often of his interesting and amusing experiences.

Jack stayed after the broadcast, as we learn from the Vallejo Times-Herald of May 22.

Comedian Jack Benny, accompanied by members of his radio troupe, entertained Mare Island Hospital patients at a program in the hospital garden yesterday. After the outdoor show, Benny toured wards to meet patients unable to leave their rooms.

Feature films and Benny didn’t mix, at least according to legend, but in May 1945 he could be seen in movie theatres across the country. Some theatres were playing It’s in the Bag, in which he had a cameo with Fred Allen. Others were advertising his appearance in Hollywood Canteen, released in late December the previous year.

And then there was The Horn Blows at Midnight.

Benny fans know he used this unusual film as a whipping boy, whipping up laughs on his radio show. At the time, it got mixed reviews, more so, I believe, than any other film he made in the ‘40s. The Oregonian’s Drama Editor wrote on May 16:

Benny Film Needs Help
Jack Benny came to the Orpheum screen Tuesday in “The Horn Blows at Midnight.” The film proves definitely that Mr. Benny should have stuck to his violin and “The Bee.”
However, died-in-the-wool Benny fans will pehaps gather joy from this production for it does hold a few laughs.
The story is one of those dream affairs with the comedian playing the role of a third-rate trumpet player on a radio program. He falls asleep as the program is about to go on the air. The picture is devoted from this point to the Benny dream.

The Louisville Courier-Journal of May 11 had a different take.

Not since the heyday of Harold Lloyd has a comedian created so much unalloyed hysteria in audiences as does Jack Benny in his roof-top escapades in “The Horn Blows at Midnight,” [...]
Mr. Benny, we might add, is very pleasantly cast in this film, playing with a droll sense of bewilderment and timidity.

Jack put his name to a column that was kind-of about the movie. The only version I can find is in the Charlotte News of May 26, 1945.

That There Benny Fellow Is A Card
(Editor's note: The following story by Jack Benny was apparently hidden away in an old show since the picture he refers to has long since been completed. Proceed at your own risk.)
By JACK BENNY
HOLLYWOOD — Oddly enough, my day starts in the morning. At 6 A. M., an alarm clock rings in my ear, so I take it out of my ear and go back to sleep. About half an hour later I hear a bell ringing again, but this time it's a telephone call from the Make-up Department of Warner Bros. Studio, urging me to hurry over — because putting enough make-up on my face so that I will look ten years younger, is equivalent to making a "Dogwood Sandwich". I would resent that if there weren't a clause in my contract telling me to "SHUT UP". So I inform them that I will rush over to the studio as soon as I comb my hair. But they tell me not to bother because they got it there and it’s combed already.
It is now 6:30 and still dark, so not wanting to wake up Mary or my daughter, Joanie, I tip-toe through the hall, slip out the front door, ease down the curb where my convertible is parked. Just as I open the car door, I hear a window being raised, and Mary's voice raised even higher yelling, "It's about time you got home." I would give her an argument but I recall that she had "that same certain clause" put in our marriage license: so I throw her a kiss and drive off.
COFFEE TIME
In no time I am at Schwab's Drug Store where I always stop in for my morning cup of coffee: 5 cents, plus doughnuts; 15 cents, plus sales tax $1.30. Finishing my breakfast, I jauntily flip a 10-cent tip on the counter. It comes down tails so I have to leave it there. This is the third time it's b[words missing] and I'm really becoming quite popular.
Anyway, I jump in my car, drive through Laurel Canyon to Burbank, and there in spite of yesterday's rain, stands Warner Bros. Studio. As I pass through the main entrance, I wave a cheery hello to the gateman, who waves back and yells, "STOP." So I back up, show him my studio pass which has my picture on it. He seems quite interested, and shows me a picture of his wife and son; so I show him a picture of Mary and Joanie. At this point we are even. Then he shows me a picture of his dog, so I show him a picture of a girl I used to go with in Waukegan. The competition being too tough for him, he lets me through, and I park my car right between Barbara Stanwyck's and Ann Sheridan's which keeps my motor from getting cold.
And so to work making love to Alexis Smith and Dolores Moran in "The Horn Blows at Midnight."
Editor's second note: Ho. Hum. And unquote.

Here’s the oddest Benny connection I found in newspapers of May 1945. I don’t know the background behind these panel cartoons, if some Hollywood war bond campaign organisers asked the stars for captions. But several of them have Jack’s name on them. The ones below were found together in the May 30th issue of the Goldsboro News-Argus. Goldsboro, coincidentally, is where L.A. Speed Riggs of the Benny opening/closing commercials worked as a tobacco auctioneer.