Self-Effacing Benny And the "Old" Days

Did Jack Benny write some of his own guest columns in newspapers? Perhaps. But he had a highly-paid team of writers who he could draw on to do it for him.

I won’t speculate whether Benny actually scribed this piece that appeared in the New York Herald Tribune (and elsewhere) on May 17, 1959. It has the gentle ribbing of television that you’d hear on Benny’s radio show, not to mention Benny’s own self-putdowns. I’m at a bit of a loss to understand why he calls his TV show the “Jack Benny Hour.” I don’t think it was ever named that during the ‘50s (I’ve been puzzled for many years why some shows are label themselves an “hour” when they are only a half-hour long. Billy Graham’s “Hour of Decision” was one).

It may seem a little odd reminiscing about something that happened only nine years earlier but while television wasn’t particularly new, real network TV had only existed for about two years at that point, having ballooned from fewer than a dozen stations around 1948, all in the East, Chicago or Los Angeles.

Jack Benny Reminisces
(John Crosby is on vacation. While he is away his column will be written by guest columnists from the television trade).
By JACK BENNY
Some years ago, after I’d done my first television show, I was asked to write a guest column. I called it "Vaudio to Video Via Radio," and it dealt with my impressions of the then infant medium of television. Those were the days of TV-B.C.—that's Before Cowboys.
It’s a little odd to read the words you wrote years ago in the light of what's happened since. A lot of the things I Was worried about then seem silly now, after I’ve been on television for so many seasons with my own half-hour show plus special shows like my May 23 Jack Benny Hour. You should see what I've got to worry about nowadays.
Anyhow, some of the remarks I made in my innocence and youth (I was only 30 at the time, nine years ago) gave me pause; others gave me a good laugh; and a few gave me chills. Before I had my secretary burn every copy, I jotted down a few of my statements in that column and offer them herewith.
"The day after my video show," I wrote, "I was walking down Broadway and I heard a woman say to her friend, "There’s Jack Benny, that new comic I just saw on television . . ." (Now they say, "There’s Jack Benny, that old comic I saw.")
In those days, of course, I was still on radio. I wrote, "It had always seemed to me that to go on television while continuing to do my radio show might be biting off more than I could chew." (The president of C.B.S. Radio agreed; he told me I should stick to television. The president of C.B.S. Television felt just the opposite.)
I was also worried in those days, about my format. To wit . . . "There was something about doing an hour show that didn’t feel right to me—an hour show without dancers, tumblers or other extraneous acts might be too long." (Today, a number of critics feel that my half hour show is too long.
"We rehearsed a scene in which I call Dinah Shore on the phone to ask her to appear on the show. She tells me her price is $5000, and I practically faint from the shock." (I did the same gag with Gary Cooper this season, only his price was $10,000 and I didn’t bat an eye or move a muscle. I think the doctors called it temporary paralysis.)
"Experience and proper organization can and eventually will simplify the creation of TV programs." (I should have saved a copy and sent it to my producers.)
Then I wrote, "We had Mary talk about getting three stations at the same time. She said that all night I kept shooting it out with Hopalong Cassidy to see who would marry Gorgeous George . . . (Hopalong Cassidy won, and they’ve lived happily ever after.)
"The $64,000 question," I continued, "which no one can really answer at this time, is whether television will wear out comedians?" (The answer to that one is simple . . . Television won't but the $64,000 Question almost did.)
"When we got to the cab, Milton Berle was sitting there waiting for us. He said he’d left his rehearsal just to come down and give me some technical advice. And then...he briefed me on the art of how to close your eyes when you’re getting hit in the face with a pie." (Today Milton is a very sophisticated comedian. He believes you should keep your eyes open when being hit by a pie.)
Jack Warner was on one of my early shows. “Speaking about ‘The Horn Blows at Midnight,’ Mr. Warner explained that if it were a little better, he might have gotten his money back from the theatres, and if it were a little worse, it would have been a natural for television.” (Since then Jack Warner released “The Horn Blows at Midnight” to television. This was part of the motion picture industry’s campaign to drive people back into movie theatres.)
Anyhow, these are some of the things I said nine years ago. And nine years from now, why, then I’ll do a guest column making fun of this one.