How To Be a Yellow Jack (Benny)

One joke, two people. One person laughs. Another person gets offended.

That’s something which happened to Jack Benny in 1938.

The Benny radio show, especially in the 1930s, specialised in movie parodies. Reading between the lines, Benny must have received permission first from the studio that made the movie. One was on October 9, 1938 when he did a send-up of the dramatic movie “Yellow Jack,” released earlier in the year. The Greenville, S.C. News had a preview.

Jack Benny, Fugitive Of Resort Mosquito, Is Air 'Yellow Jack'
Jack Benny, a fugitive from a summer resort mosquito, will present his own version of the film success, "Yellow Jack," during the broadcast with Mary Livingstone, Kenny Baker, Don Wilson, and Phil Harris' orchestra over the NBC-WFBC network today at 7 p. m. Jell-O is the sponsor.
With the presentation of this epic of the Cuban swamps, the Benny theater project will launch another of its seasons of dramatic repertoire designed to replace the Punch and Judy show. At present Benny is too busy squashing the rumors that he will play the title role in "Yellow Jack" to make comment on his season's plans. Every since Jack posed as the leader of the dwarfs in "Snow White," he's been avidly searching for another vehicle in which he can be called "Doc." Therefore, Jack magnanimously leaves the leading role of the sergeant to Phil Harris, to play Doctor Jack, the insect killer.
In addition to making his season's bow on the program, Andy Devine, the only member of the Benny gang who appeared in the film version of "Yellow Jack," will tackle the dual duties of playing a soldier and acting as technical advisor for the Benny drama. He will head a squad composed of Kenny, Don, and Rochester. Mary Livingstone will play the nurse whose fondness for Doc Benny is exceeded only by her affection for the rest of the soldiers in the medical corps.
Kenny Baker, who recently had a little trouble in Mayor Andy Devine's Van Nuys traffic court, will sing "I Used To Be Color Blind." Phil Harris and the orchestra, with an eye to getting in solid with the boss, will play "What Have You Got That Gets Me?" from Jack's new picture "Artists and Models Abroad."

Cliff Nazarro and his double-talk routine make an appearance, and Frank Nelson is the dispatcher on a police radio. But who played the mosquitoes? That question obsessed syndicated columnist Tom E. Danson, who apparently went to the producers of the Benny show find out. He reported back in his Radiologic column of October 8th, after reviewing Bette Davis’ performance on air in Arch Oboler’s “Alter Ego”:

Another Milestone Reached
Another milestone has been passed, another hurdle overcome. Almost too much progress has been made in radio this week. It never rains but what it pours . . . or something.
First we have a sponsor actually allowing a dramatic actress to wax dramatic in a manner intelligent to radio. Now we have soundmen discovering how to simulate the ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz of billions of mosquitoes. Think of it! Whatll they do next?
Achievement Result of Jest
As something of a paradox, this remarkable achievement might never have been made possible at this early date if Jack Benny, in a display of jest, hadn’t scheduled for this Sunday a radioized version of “Yellow Jack.”
As everyone knows, the villain of the piece is a jabbing, germ-laden mosquito of the finest Cuban variety. And all he has to say in the script is, “ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.”
Noise Easy To Make
Now to make a “ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz” on a typewriter is a very simple procedure. You merely push the shift key down and jab at the spot marked “Z” until you get tired, then you release the shift key and jab some more. And you get XXX (oops, slips dont count) ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz. Simple, eh? But Mr. Soundman found it not so easy a task for radio. Sometimes I feel sorry for those poor devils. He tried vocal gadgets, electric vibrators, buzzers, door bells, cow bells—but none sounded like mosquitoes. Particularly those of the Cuban variety.
Radiomen Are Pioneers
But was he stumped? Certainly not. Radio is a virgin field. Its constituents are pioneers. Here was a job to be done, and he done it, sans fanfare. When you hear the Benny broadcast Sunday, the sound of the mosquitoes will be made by a small wooden frame over which has been stretched dozens of little rubber bands. The soundman will wave this frame up and down in front of the mike, and out of your loudspeaker will swarm billions of mosquitoes. Not just any old mosquito, but those of the Cuban variety. Radio marches on!

Danson was having a little fun with it all, but the send-up was no laughing matter for Si Steinhauser of the Pittsburgh Press. He griped about it the day of the broadcast and then again in his column of October 11, 1938, subtitled “Radio Comics Forget Tradition Of the Theater, ‘Keep It Clean’ – Offensive Gags On Headline Programs.”

And to Jack Benny, a fellow whom we applaud and admire as America's Number One comedian, we can but comment:
"We're astounded that you went through with your radio version of 'Yellow Jack," a burlesque of the story of Major Walter Reed and his associates who died that they might save others from yellow fever.
"At the Walter Reed General Hospital, Takoma Park, Md., during the World War, thousands of maimed American boys were cared for. Some had no eyes, no hands, no feet. Yet they whispered prayers of thanks that they were cared for in the greatest military hospital in the world, a structure erected as a memorial to Walter Reed and his comrades, who had died in line of duty.
"For weeks during the war the Stars and Stripes remained at half-mast at Walter Reed as hundreds of men gave their last gasp there. Years have passed since then, but the memories of those days will never dim. They weren't funny. Nor, to us, was 'Yellow Jack.'
"An appropriate part of your broadcast, we thought, was your remark: " 'Mosquitoes sting.' And Mary's reply: 'So does this program.' "

Well, I liked. Call me an entophobist or some such label if you want. By the way, I don’t know about the wooden frame, but the script for the episode states that Blanche Stewart and Pinto Colvig played mosquitos. Colvig, the voice of Goofy in the Disney cartoons, was the original voice of Jack Benny’s Maxwell before beating it to Florida and the Max Fleischer studio.