Did You Hear the One About...

A symbiotic relationship bloomed between columnists and stars. Columnists needed to fill space. Stars needed publicity. What better way than for a star (well, their PR people) submitting a joke to a print reporter to finish off a column with a little fun?

It happened all the time, once upon a time. Sometimes it seems odd. One never thinks of Alan Reed as a comic, but I’ve read a bunch of old columns that go “Alan Reed says...” followed by a somewhat corny observation about mothers-in-law or bosses or some such thing.

Jack Benny found his name in print the same way.

A nice gentleman named Phil Wala has collected a bunch from the early ‘30s, before Jack was appearing on radio. We’ve found a few others prior to that. They all come from Walter Winchell, back before he became rabid and vengeful, destroying friendships in his path. I think the one about Frank Fay was closer to truth than humour. Evidently, straight vaudeville was considered dead in 1930. And though we still use “Brits” and “Yanks” as contractions today, others employed once upon a time aren’t deemed as tasteful any more.

Winchell’s stuff showed up on various days depending on the newspaper, so these dates aren’t all accurate for all newspapers.

December 28, 1928
Jack Benny, vaudevillian, brings back the one about the student who was on the university football team, but was never allowed to participate in any of the games for three years, being on the bench all of that time. One day the captain gathered the eleven in the clubhouse and warned them that they had to win the game. "It is imperative, he yelled, "our good name is at stake."
Then he looked around and observed the lad who warmed the bench for three years sitting in a box of resin.
"What the hell's the big idea, sitting in that resin?" he asked. "You don't think I want to slip off that bench in such an important game, do you?" was the retort.

February 13, 1930
Jack Benny telegraphs that during his travels west he discovered a vaudeville theater still open in Duluth!

April 27, 1930
It is Jack Benny’s tale of the heavily-insured old man who left his young bride while he went on an ocean trip. The shop was wrecked and all hands drowned except the heavily insured old husband.
A month later when he was delivered at an English port he cabled this message: "I was the lone survivor of a shipwreck. Please break the news gently to my wife."

June 1, 1930
Eddie Conrad and Jack Benny were talking about rival comedians in Hollywood.
"Howz Frank Fay doing out there?" asked Conrad.
"Very good," was the retort, "but not nearly so good as he thinks he's doing."

June 5, 1930
JACK BENNY, the two-a-dayer, tells the one about the drunk who zig-zagged into a third rate restaurant and clapped his paws madly for some service.
A waiter, whose right leg was shorter than his left, suddenly appeared.
"I'm in a hurry," hiccoughed the stew, "Just bring me a swish sheez "shandwish."
The waiter with the gimpty leg gimped away, bobbing up and down on his crippled stem.
"Aw!" bellowed the impatient drunk, "if you have to go down shtairs for it—then the hell with it!"

July 19, 1930
Jack Benny, of "Vanities," who wasn't arrested because they didn't know him with his clothes on, says that things are getting worse in Chicago. "I just heard," he bellows, "that the gunmen out there have giyen the Chicago police 24 hours' notice to get out of town!"

March 24, 1931
Jack Benny, the nimble-witted monologist, is appearing in Baltimore this week. Last week he played one of those immense sized movie theatres in Washington. "The house was so large," he writes, "that they do not hire a manager every four years. They elect a governo !"

March 27, 1931
One of the newspapers contained a layout of photos of Mayor Walker. One showed hizzoner in a beret and bed sheet, another, on a stage coach driven by cowboys, and one pictured him in New York.
"Look," said Mrs. Jack Benny to Jack, "here's one of him in New York."
"Hmmm," hmm'd Benny, "they must have snapped that one quick."

May 31, 1931
Jack Benny tells of the two long idle vaudevillians who were growling to each other about their professional brethren.
"Show business is gettin worse 'n' worse," said the first as they ankled up Broadway through the Furious Forties, "the minute you think up a new joke or a new sit-cheeashun, what happens? Along comes some rat and he steals it from you. You can't tell a gag at the Palace any more and expect it to be yours exclusively after the opening matinee!"
As he grumbled, a messenger boy on a bike was felled by a taxi, which sent the kid sprawling.
"Humph!" growled the other with disgust, "get a load of that pirate! Chaplin got laughs with the same stunt year ago!"

June 5, 1931
Jack Benny of the Big Time says that maybe it is a good thing that the Sharkey-Carnera fight has been called off.
"I'm afraid," says Jack, "that Sharkey couldn't hit Carnera high enough to foul him."

June 7, 1931
At the Palace Joe Wong, a China lad, and his oriental act start the program.
Jack Benny, the master of ceremonies, follows the turn. "You must admit," says Benny with a poker face, "that we have an unusual act to begin the show—a Chinese act! Gosh, I always thought in vaudeville you had to have Japs or better to open!"

July 5, 1931
And it was Jack Benny who said that he a horrible dream. He dreamed Dracula ran into Jimmy Durante.
"And what happened?"
"Dracula ran like Hell!"

July 19, 1931
Jack Benny relates the one about the dialecticians, who crashed a snooty and exclusive country club which also featured swimming, fishing, boating, tennis, etc. On their first day at golf they drew the states and frowns of members, because they were attired in overalls, instead of golf outfits.
"Of all things!" they heard people say, "they do not even know what to wear for golf! What etiquette!"
The next day at breakfast, however, the members were kindlier, for the dialecticians were smartly attired in white shirts, ducks, red ties, white shoes and golf sweaters.
But their prestige was lost again when they put on silk top hats and Moe turned to Jake and chirped: "Jakey—deed you remamber to breeng de feeshing teckle?"

September 14, 1931
Jack Benny's thrust at Abe Lyman (at the Palace): "Aw, if your musicians didn't show up what could you do with that stick?

October 2, 1931
When Jack Benny, the big-time comic was in London recently he discussed Evelyn Laye, the British star, with his booking agent there.
"Her name," said the agent, is not 'Ev-lin' but 'Eve-a-lyn'!"
"But it always sounds so funny," said Benny, "to hear you all say 'Eve-a-lyn' when you mean 'Ev-lin.'"
"Please," begged the Englishman "It sounds just as funny to us to hear you Americans say 'Ev-lin.' Don't forget. After all, we came first!"

November 16, 1931 (Okay, this is from O.O. McIntyre, not Winchell)
Jack Benny tells of the dialect Bronxite who popped into a delicatessen to look around. He inquired the price of various articles, such as preserved fruits, home made cakes, roast turkeys and the like.
Finally, pointing to a hefty Kentucky ham, he asked the price. As he did so there was a violent clap ot thunder and vivid flash of lightning.
Cowering and looking upward, the Bronxite whined: "Can't I even esk?"

April 17, 1932
Jack Benny says that too many of us try to stop the show and only succeed in slowing it up.

This pretty well brings us up to when Jack’s show for Canada Dry debuted May 2, 1932. It’s conceded he got the job from his appearance on Ed Sullivan’s 15-minute show on March 29, 1932 on CBS. “Sisters of the Skillet” was on at the same time on the Blue Network while the Red Network was airing “Mary and Bob.” One of the many fish stories that grew over time was that the Sullivan appearance was Jack’s first on radio, which is poppycock. We’ve given a number of examples; one was on September 4, 1931 on the NBC Red network.