King For a Day

The phoney feud between Jack Benny and Fred Allen lasted for almost 20 years. It began in radio and even made an appearance on television, though Allen was not a force on TV and his career had plummeted after his radio show ended in 1949.

Among fans, the highlight of the feud may have been on the Allen show of May 26, 1946 when the studio audience went out of control while stagehands removed Benny’s clothes at the end of a sketch. Allen wrote in Treadmill to Oblivion that he hated when comedians—he named Eddie Cantor—would do something visual just to get a rise out of the people in the seats and to the loss of the people listening. However, perhaps in this case, the home audience could visualise what was happening.

Noted critic John Crosby loved Allen and he was particularly fond of this broadcast. He quotes from it in his column of June 5, 1946 in the Herald Tribune syndicate.

As a side note, I promised some time ago to republish, for historical interest, Crosby’s earliest columns. Many of them are irrelevant today; they dealt with one-shot or local New York broadcasts. However, below, find the columns of May 27, 28, 29 and June 3, 4 and 7. The column from May 30, 1946 (there was no May 31 column) was on Jack Benny and you can find it in this post, while the June 6, 1946 column was about John J. Anthony’s programme and it is in this post.

Radio in Review
By JOHN CROSBY
Mr. Fred Allen, who has adenoids where his tonsils are supposed to be, turned his attention a week ago Sunday to those radio programs in which people from the audience are showered with gifts as a reward for making fools of themselves in front of a microphone.
Allen is radio’s Voltaire. His with is sharp as a razor and he usually turns it against abuses in radio that cry out for satire. I inserted that last sentence as both an explanation and apology for running off with so much of Allen’s material and embodying it in this column. I feel Mr. Allen’s satire on radio is so healthy that is deserves, as it were, a second showing. If you heard Allen that Sunday, I’m sure you would like to relish some of his humor again. If you didn’t, your attention should be called to his parody.
* * *
This skit was called “King for a Day” and Mr. Allen was very ably assisted by Jack Benny, his guest star. It wasn’t as funny as Mr. Allen’s previous satire on the husband-and-wife breakfast programs, but it was very, very funny indeed. Before the satire started, Mr. Allen said to Jack Benny: “People don’t want entertainment today. A radio show has to give away nylons, ice boxes, automobiles.” That’s too true to be funny, and is a sad commentary on the people who flock to these affairs.
At the outset of his parody, Mr. Allen inquired genially: “Did you folks in the audience like those hundred dollar bills you found on the seats when you came in?” The audience, of course, screamed: “Yes.”
“Good,” continued Mr. Allen. “If you want more, there’ll be a big bag of money at the door. On the way out, just help yourself.”
The first contestant in “King for a Day” was ninety-eight years old and there was some question as to the advisability of making him king for a day because, he said, he didn’t think he’d last through the day. This problem was happily settled when Mr. Flog missed the jumbo-jackpot question which was: “Who was the sixth President of the United States?” Mr. Flog’s answer was Mary Margaret McBride, which isn’t correct.
* * *
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Mr. Allen. “But, Mr. Flog, for making such a swell try, here is a gift certificate. Present it at La Guardia Airfield and you will get a brand new B-29 and a polka-dot, form-fitting parachute.”
The next contestant was Jack Benny, thinly disguised as Myron Proudfoot, who said he had worked in a baker “long enough to know a crumb when I see one—and I see one.” Mr. Proudfoot, hereinafter referred to as Mr. Benny, got the right answer to the jumbo-jackpot question (John Quincy Adams, in case you don’t know) and was presented with a genuine, no-splash canoe paddle from Schnooks Sports Nook, a chromium pitchfork from Tiffany’s and 200 pounds of self-hardening putty from Hemmingway’s Hardware Store.
Benny was also informed he would be guest of honor at a banquet at Hamburger Heaven and would act as a judge in a chicken-plucking contest in New Jersey. At this point, the parody almost got out of hand when several of Mr. Allen’s assistants removed Benny’s coat and trousers in order to run them through a pressing machine. “Give me my parents back,” screamed Benny. “Allen, you haven’t seen the end of me.”
“It won’t be long now,” said Mr. Allen pleasantly.
* * *
I only hope all the masters of ceremony of all the gift programs were listening in and squirming. Incidentally, Fred Allen is the swiftest artist with an ad lib in radio. That Sunday there were two remarks that were not in the script but got into the show. The first came when a joke got a delayed reaction from the audience, which then burst into applause.
“That’s right,” commented Allen sourly, “anything you don’t understand—applaud. That’s what they do in Hollywood. They just come in to applaud and get warm and then go home.
The second ad lib came when Jack Benny was reminiscing about his violin playing act in vaudeville. “I stopped every show,” said Mr. Benny.
“Except this one,” observed Mr. Allen.
How am I going to get through the summer without Fred Allen? I’m afraid I’ll have to do my own work.”