Art Imitates Life

Jack Benny was not an unmarried man with a valet named Rochester and a boarder named Mr. Billingsley. That was the phoney, on-the-air Jack Benny.

Yet there were parts of the Benny radio show that were true. He did grow up in Waukegan, Illinois. Mary Livingstone did have a sister named Babe (née Ethel). Rochester (Eddie Anderson) did race a horse named Burnt Cork in the Kentucky Derby. Phil Harris did like to imbibe once in a while.

This means there are occasions whether a listener wonders whether something that happened on the show has a basis in fact. One example is on the broadcast of October 12, 1941. The dialogue goes:

Jack: Don, have you heard any reports on our opening program last Sunday, you know, comments, reactions and so forth?
Don: Why, yes, Jack. Some people seem to like it very, very much.
Jack: Uh huh.
Don: Some people thought it was fairly good.
Jack: Uh huh.
Don: And some people...
Jack (interrupting): Well, yes, sir. Well, Don, I thought the press was exceptionally nice this year. For instance, PM gave us a lovely notice. In fact, you could almost call it a rave.
Mary: Tell him about the Daily News.
Jack: Yup, PM said our opening program was really a humdinger. Very nice, don’t you think?
Don: Oh, wonderful.
Jack: And Radio Guide liked it and Billboard, the theatrical paper, seemed to think we had a hilarious show.
Mary: Tell him about the Daily News.
Jack: Mary, it just so happens that Ben Gross, radio editor of the News, didn’t like the program and he’s entitled to his opinion. I have no hard feelings toward Ben.
Mary: You haven’t, eh?
Jack: No.
Mary: Then why did you try to get Errol Flynn to beat him up?

It’s very safe to see Jack didn’t sic Flynn onto Ben Gross. But was it true? Did Gross pan the opening show? Did PM give it a rave review?

Here is an instance when radio imitates real life.

PM gave Jack’s show almost two-thirds of a page, including a photo—the programme was broadcast from New York, the newspaper’s home base. Here’s the article, unbylined, from October 6, 1941, the day after the broadcast.

King Benny Rides Again
VENDOR: Hot dogs, hot dogs. . . . Get your red hot dogs here. . . Hot dog, old timer?
MR. BENNY: Yes. . . .Give me two. . . .
VENDOR: Yes sir. . . . D’ya want the reg’lar, or the king size?
Thus, in his typical topical vein, the nation’s favorite mummer of Americana, Jack Benny, returned to his 30,000,000 weekly listeners last night (WEAF 7), with a sur-fire [sic] skit that might have been entitled Mr. Benny at the Ball Game, or Down In Front.
Except for a characteristic opening-night nervousness, from which Jack genuinely suffers after nearly a quarter century in show business, the Benny show last night was just what the 30,000,000 want: a spate of discomforture for Jack, the penny-pincher; acid comments by Mary Livingston [sic]; a few well timed phone calls from Rochester, the oppressed but irrepressible valet; a song, a dance, and a hearty sales approach from 200-pound [sic] Don Wilson, the Jello announcer. You might say that Jack Benny, in his 11th radio year, and starting his eighth season for Jello, was in mid-season form.
Some listeners may have noted, however, that last night's Jello program lacked the intimacy that is its hallmark. That was because last night's broadcast came from the full-sized, 800-seat Ritz Theater in Manhattan (it will next week, too), whereas the Benny programs originate ordinarily in a 300-seat NBC studio in Hollywood. There, the studio audience usually finds itself part of the show; in Manhattan, Benny the Phenomenon has to strut the stage.
The reason NBC sets Benny up in a big studio whenever he can be lured to Manhattan is the unprecedented demand for broadcast tickets. This year's requests haven't been counted up yet, but last year, for his broadcast from Manhattan in the spring, there were 50,000 requests for the Ritz Theater's 800 seats.
Jack is notoriously the most fretful and nervous of all the big-timers, and he was even "nervouser and nervouser" last night. After the last rehearsal, which ended about 6, he paced up and down back as though ducking a hot-foot. He lighted cigars that were already lit; his eyes had a faraway look; he sat down, then got up.
When he finally went on the air, this nervousness continued for a while. He perspired; his hands and his script trembled as though he were an amateur; he lip-read all the others' lines and nodded with the punch lines. After the first 10 minutes of the show, this stopped. The laughs relaxed him. At the sign off, he even said good night to his daughter Joan, out in Hollywood.
Although the standard radio contract runs in multiples of 13 weeks, and the usual radio season is for 39 weeks. Benny this year is doing only 35 broadcasts. He can, if he wants, take off two weeks later in the season. He has also eliminated the repeat broadcast for the west coast, thus ending a long-standing radio custom traceable to the differences in east coast and west coast times. Instead of repeating, in person, the Benny program is now rebroadcast by transcription.
Jack, who is paid $18,500 a week (out of which he pays all hands on the program, including the band and maestro Phil Harris), is the only performer in radio who has the foregoing privileges. He won them last year after a long battle with General Foods, makers of Jello.
The fight got so far advanced that when it looked as though lack and Jello wouldn't get together, NBC did an unheard-of thing, they gave Jack, the comic, the option on the NBC-Red (WEAF) 7 p.m. Sunday time segment. This was the first time in radio history that a performer, and not a sponsor, got an option on broadcast time.
What prompted NBC to this unprecedented action was its desire to continue its hold on the 30,000,000 listeners who tune Jack in Sunday nights. Furthermore, Jack still has that same time option; it means he is still boss. As one General Foods rep-representative [sic] observed wryly:
“Jack can fire us almost any time he wants to.”



And what of Ben Gross’ review? Here is it from the same date.

Jack Benny aired his premiere from New York City, with Mary Livingstone, Rochester, Phil Harris, Dennis Day and others of his legendary company on hand (WEAF-7). For the first time, a transcription instead of a an [sic] "in person" rebroadcast was used for the West Coast. I mention this first, as I dislike having to come to the point, which is simply this: Last evening's show was not up to Jack's old standard. And the fault was not in the star, dear Brutus, but in the material. For his initial venture of the season the boys who pound the typewriters were below par. But Jack is a fellow who quickly remedies such defects. The chances are he'll be back next Sunday with a whale of a show.

It turns out Gross was listening to Mary and Jack’s dialogue about his critique, and he commented on it a week later in his column:

Those of you who heard Mary Livingstone last evening know that, just because we didn't like Jack Benny's show last week, he had tried to sick Errol Flynn on us. And you know what Flynn does to columnists! So, come to think of it, we had better be careful this morning . . . But all kidding aside, Jack's second broadcast (WEAF-7) was a great improvement on his first. It had plenty of laughs. The script was still not up to the high mark of last season and the cast still seemed a bit nervous. But the show's getting into stride and by next week, it should be up to its old form.

Incidentally, neither Radio Guide nor Billboard had a review of the show in their issues which hit stands on October 11, the only editions after the first show and before the second. So it appears, in this case, art imitates life. Sometimes.