The Majority Rules at the Writers Table

Wonder no longer if you were curious about how Jack Benny’s writers put together his radio show. A shortened explanation is outlined in this 1947 syndicated story.

As a side note: I found one version dated October 17th in the “Daily Dialings” of the Latrobe Bulletin written by Alice G. Stewart. Two weeks later, the same story appeared, word for word, written by Leon Gutterman of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Either someone wrote under a pseudonym or some pilfering was going on.

HOLLYWOOD—“The play's the thing” has been a truism ever since Shakespeare first said it—and now, more than ever, it applies to radio programs.
Jack Benny is a firm believer in the adage and one of the reasons for his tremendous popularity is the fact that he was one the first comedians in radio to unfasten his bankroll to lure top writers to his show.
The four happy lads who help Jack entertain his 25,000,000 listeners every Sunday night at 7 (EST) are Sam Perrin, Milt Josefsberg, George Balzer and John Tackaberry. Not only do large salaries keep these boys content, but the privilege of working with the keen editorial mind of Jack Benny and the fact that the comedian is one of the nicest men in show business, all contribute to making the Benny gang “one big happy family”.
The routine of fashioning a Benny script differs from that of most other programs. After the regular Sunday broadcast, Jack and his four writers meet in the script room and lay out the rough outline of the next week’s program. Monday is vacation and on Tuesday, Perrin and Balzer get together and start working on one part of the show while Josefsberg and Tackaberry write another part.
In the meantime, Jack Benny is thinking of the show as a whole and they all get together early Thursday morning to get down to the serious business of the first script. With Benny acting as a fifth writer and editor, the show is written, line by line and scene by scene, while Jeanette Eymann, the script girl, takes the script down in shorthand.
Although Jack Benny can insist on handling his program any way he sees fit, realizes that no one is infallible and always concedes to the majority opinion on a difference of opinion.
By Saturday at noon, the script is in good shape and the entire cast, along with producer Hilliard Marks, sit at a round table for a reading and timing. Benny and the writers spend the rest of the afternoon in the script room editing, polishing and very often re-writing, since a funny scene on paper can very often be dull when read.
On Sunday, the cast reads the new and fairly final script before a microphone at NBC where it is carefully timed. The comedian and his writers again huddle to cut or add to the script so that it will be exactly twenty-nine minutes and thirty seconds from the time that you hear “Hello folks, this is Jack Benny” to the closing, “We’re a little late folks, goodnight”.