Jack Benny, Sailor and Lyricist

Laughter can fight an enemy.

Jack Benny could tell you that. During World War One, he was in a U.S. naval uniform entertaining not far from his native Waukegan, Illinois. He was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in May 1918 and that’s where legend has it he cut a lot of the music from his vaudeville act and added a comic monologue. No doubt it was a welcome morale boost to the men in uniform.

Since this is before jokes about the Maxwell and being heckled by Mary Livingstone, the question comes up about what exactly did he do in his act?

An eyewitness had the answer for Washington Star amusements writer E. de S. Melcher in the paper’s Oct. 24, 1934 edition.

THIS for you, Jack Benny. Thought it might remind you of the old days—a couple of them anyway:
“Dear Mr. M————: I read with interest your summary of Jack Benny’s career which you printed in the Sunday Star, and thought you might be interested in one or two additional items. During the war Benny and I, along with about 100,000 others, fought and bled for our country at the Great Lakes Training Station. I was just a humble hospital apprentice. Benny—well. I doubt if he knew himself what his rating was, but he was nominally attached to the station headquarters and his real job was to act as entertainer at the various recreation halls scattered over the camp—boost the morale, and so on. And a very good job he made of it, too.
“I first saw him in action one evening at the Red Cross Recreation Building on the hospital grounds. The hall was packed with convalescent patients, with a good quota of doctors, nurses and hospital corpsmen. When the Red Cross director announced that the next act would be ‘Benny Kubelsky and his jazz fiddle,’ there was a big outburst of applause that made me think that we were in for something good. Benny came strolling out, with the same bored, nonchalant manner that he has today, and looking very much as he does today except that he was wearing a sailor’s uniform, with a white hat stuck over his “starboard eyebrow” (do you know which is your starboard eyebrow, sir?)
“He started playing—he really played the violin in those days, instead of carrying it—and in less than 5 minutes I was one of his most enthusiastic admirers, which I have remained ever since. I have never heard any one who could play jazz on a violin as he could, and his dry, satiric humor laid me out cold. I was not alone in that, for from the minute he came out he had the crowd in the hollow of his hand.

“After a few numbers he stopped to let the applause die down, looked the crowd over sadly and said: ‘Gosh, when I think of it. Six months ago I was getting a good salary in big-time vaudeville: and here I am, playing jazz on a fiddle for a bunch of dumb gobs — and for 30 bucks a month.’ Whistles, cat calls and miscellaneous noises greeted this remark. Benny asked the crowd what it wanted him to play next, and on learning that they wanted ‘The Darktown Strutters’ Ball,’ he tucked his violin under his chin, then put it down, glanced mournfully at it and said: ‘It’s a shame to treat a fine instrument like this. No use playing anything good, though — you guys wouldn’t appreciate it.’
“In the moment of silence that followed, some one in the back of the hall gave Benny the bird. It was a beauty. Benny raised his eyes soulfully to the calling and said, ‘Ah, my public, my public!’ “However, Benny and his public understood each other thoroughly. The applause he got after each number made the rafters ring. The prize number was one of Benny’s own compositions, a catchy little thing that started off:

“‘Monday roast beef. All you little rookies, we wish the same to you.
Tuesday haa-ash.
Monday roast beef.
All you little rookies, we wish the same to you,’

“And so on, with additional lines for each day of the week, through fish for Friday, Saturday inspection and Sunday lunch.
“I have always considered Benny to be a wit of the first rank, and I think it is a credit to the intelligence of the Great Lakes personnel that they appreciated so thoroughly his brand of humor. During the intervening years I have seen him whenever I had a chance, and this Saturday evening will find me at the National to witness his initial venture into the ‘legitimate theater.’ I haven’t read the reviews yet, but I have no doubt about the outcome. Very truly, “EUGENE GUILD.”

You don’t think of Jack Benny as a song-writer, but the U.S. Copyright office actually registered the running gag song “When You Say I Beg Your Pardon, Then I’ll Come Back to You” in Benny’s name on October 19, 1951. (Today, it is registered both in Jack’s name and that of his arranger, Mahlon Merrick).

His help for the war effort went beyond camp shows. The Great Lakes Bulletin of October 24, 1918 talks about how Jack and others from the Training Station “worked indefatiably [sic] night and day, playing and singing at the many street booths in Chicago’s loop district and in the hotel lobbies during the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive...Wherever these talented man stopped and entertained thousands of dollars worth of bonds were sold and a large measure of the credit for putting Chicago over the top belongs to them.”

Among the names are Edward H. Sobol, the pioneer television director at NBC and Edwin E. Confrey, a pianist and composer better known as “Zez.” Confrey and Benny had an act called “Fooling Around With Piano and Fiddle” and the Bulletin of February 25, 1919 reported they were booked for vaudeville as soon as Confrey could get his discharge. But on March 12, Jack was doing a solo act at the Orpheum in Madison, Wisconsin, using the name “Ben K. Benny.” More laughs were ahead—and a little over 20 years later, more soldiers to entertain.

Funding for this post came from The Kathy Fuller-Seeley Foundation.