Little did I know this was a long established, tried-and-true tradition in broadcasting dating back to the radio days.
We’re not talking about Milton Berle lifting gags. Whole programmes were carbon-copied if they were a success, some not so well as others. After Jack Benny’s writer, who helped develop Benny’s format of stooges and a sketch, departed under not-so-pleasant conditions, he felt he could do Benny’s show just as well as Benny. So he duplicated it. CBS picked it up. It lasted 13 weeks. Then there were a number of comedy shows in the mid-‘40s starring sincere-but-socially-inept young men, including Mel Blanc, Alan Young and Eddie Bracken.
This unbylined article appeared in the Pittsburgh Press of January 16, 1937.
Originate a Radio Stunt And Watch Your Imitators Follow
Who Sets Mode for Program Might as Well Pass It Along, for If It Clicks It Will Promptly Bob Up Elsewhere, Perhaps a Bit Changed
Radio has developed an odd set of rules about ownership of ideas. No man with an idea for a program has any right to keep it for himself. If the program becomes successful a lot of other program makers immediately take over the idea, with whatever improvements they can think of.
Within the industry they merely follow the current mode much as a man might start wearing bell bottom pants if some of his neighbors did. Anyone who talks about theft of ideas is treated with the gentle courtesy due an innocent new to big business. Radio is Communist about ideas. The dull boys share what the bright ones originate.
There was a time, back in pre-radio days, when comedians bought jokes and considered them their private property. If another comedian stole jokes there were howls of agony and denunciatory ads in Variety, the theatrical weekly. Frequently the despoiled comedian would pick up a burly acrobat friend and pay a call to the man accused of themt [theft].
Jokes are now in the public domain. Anyone in radio considers it his right to use anything that appears in print or on the air. Writers for comedians maintain files, gathered almost entirely from humorous columns and magazines. The magazine writers who think of the jokes in the first place complain frequently, but they are the innocents who are smiled at. Those writers don't get much money selling their jokes to the magazines, and around radio people who don't get much money don't get much respect. The radio script men who take the jokes and put them into comedy routines get the money.
George Burns Talks
George Burns tells a story about a small time vaudeville couple spending all its savings on a novel finish to the act. Bookers saw it in the tryout theater and advised, "Not a bad act, but you should change that finish. Better finish with a song and dance." "But everybody finishes with a song and dance," the man protested.
"That's right. And everybody's working except you.”
"If everybody is doing something," George points his moral, "it must be all right. We'll do it, too."
Jack Benny was the one who developed the idea of making a whole group—conductor, soloist, stooges, etc.—into a little informal stock company. He understood the radio rules and probably did not give it a thought when Burns, Baker and a lot of others took as much of his idea as they could use. Don't get the idea this is said in any spirit of disparagement. I am certain Jack would be furious if anyone accused these good friends of using a Benny idea dishonestly.
O’Keefe Original
A Walter O'Keefe program started playing games with its audience this fall. "Show Boat" executives liked the idea and adopted it. Major Bowes did not create the original idea of an amateur show, but he was the one who adapted it to radio with the gong and amateurs telling their sad or comical stories. Before the Major even landed on a network there were amateur programs going full blast with gong and everything else.
Amateurs were added to Fred Allen's program against his wishes. Harry Tugend, a writer working with Fred at the time, made some fiery remarks at one of the program conferences. “I come from the theater, and there we would consider that idea as belonging to Major Bowes. Taking it would be theft."
The executive group liked Harry and considered him a very competent author, but, as Harry said, “They just waited until I finished and paid no attention."
Radio Has Rules Radio understands its rule, but the courts have lagged behind. Tess Gardell had spent many years on the stage as "Aunt Jemima," but she wanted more than a sponsor was willing to pay to bring the character to radio. So the sponsor engaged a less expensive singer and simply called her "Aunt Jemima" instead. Miss Gardell was awarded something over a hundred thousand dollars in court, but the case has been appealed.
Barbara Blair, who had appeared in Herman Timberg's vaudeville act as "Snoony," came into radio with the character and also used the comic dialogue Timberg had written. Under the law, not yet modernized to conform to radio customs, Timberg was able to sue for a whopping sum for each of the 40 network stations on which the program was broadcast. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, but it was easily a record price for any author's couple of minutes of dialogue.
Such cases straying into court are, of course, exceptions. Radio really is Communistic about ideas—except that the executives call each other such things as "J. H." or "L. W.," instead of "Comrade."
Why not? Everybody knows "Seinfeld" was considered an innovation only by a generation that had never heard of "The Jack Benny Show."
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