Besides his radio show beaming out on the NBC Blue (WJZ) network, his musical comedy Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (see it here) was on screens.
Jack had started out the 1934-35 radio season with a new sponsor—General Foods, makers of Jell-O. The contract must have been a comparatively good one. Radioland magazine at the end of 1933 didn’t list Jack among the top ten money earners when he was sponsored by Chevrolet. Things were different a year later, as reported by the Associated Press.
Santa Gives Radio Stars Fat Contracts
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, Dec. 20 (AP)—Santa Claus has dropped in already on many of the top-notchers of radio.
It isn’t the old gentleman’s dropping in alone that has ushered out a burst of early Christmas cheer—it’s the breath-taking contracts he’s dropped into many a prematurely hung sock or stocking.
To Eddie Cantor has gone the bulkiest gift of the lot to date. When the heavy-browed comedian returns to the air in February, he will top them all with a contract calling for $10,000 a Sunday—divided $7,000 for himself and $3,000 for needed program make up.
This figure isn’t so far above the amount due Kate Smith beginning with her new series, Christmas Eve. Altogether she will be making $7,150 per week, $5,000 for a Monday night show, $1,500 for a local station appearance and $650 for her Wednesday matinee.
The Revelers’ Quartet will rate $1,500 per microphone singing. Edwin C. Hill can figure up approximately $2,500 for four programs a week as commentator. The highest paid orchestra on the networks is declared to be the Fred Waring group at $6,000 for one program, or $10,000 for two a week.
It was in this $6,000-a-week class that Santa already has placed Will Rogers, Ed Wynn, Jack Benny, John Charles Thomas and Morton Downey. Out of his $6,000 for two programs Downey must pay the orchestra and narrator.
Santa has not done so badly by some others, too, as the following list shows:
$5,000—Phil Baker and his accordion; Rosa Ponselle, operatic soprano.
$4,500—Grace Moore, soon to start a new series; Bing Crosby and Lawrence Tibbett.
$3,500—Guy Lombardo’s Orchestra and Fred Allen.
$3,000—Roxy (S. L. Rothafel), Burns and Allen, and Joe Penner.
$2,800—Rudy Vallee.
$2,500—Helen Hayes, beginning a new series soon, and Nino Martini.
$2,000—Stoopnagle and Budd and Alexander Woollcott.
$1,200—Gertrude Niesen.
More stations continued to pick up Jack. KSTP in Minneapolis-St. Paul added his show on December 16. A few weeks earlier, his reach extended across the Pacific as he was heard on KGU in Honolulu.
343 requests for photos.
281 telling him that he was swell.
196 seeking charity.
72 offering advice on investments.
37 constructive criticisms.
17 offering their services as writers of humorous material.
37 wanting to know how to break into the ranks of radio comedians.
4 claiming that they were distant relatives.
11 reporting that they had heard his gags before in some way or another.
Jack’s show was on the air two nights before Christmas. Here’s a summary from the December 23 edition of the Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin.
The Christmas spirit will run wild as Jack Benny is heard over WIBA tonight at 6 o’clock, with Mary, Frank, Don, and Don Bestor’s Orchestra. Jack will receive a lot of silly present[s] from Mary, Frank and the two Dons. Nothing will surprise him, however, and Jack may even have a card or two up his sleeve. Mary has had the true Christmas spirit for about a month and has written another poem. Whether this ever reaches the microphone is highly problematical, but she’s ready for it.
Apparently Mary’s poetic muse ran wild on the show. A copy of the script has disappeared from various collections, but Kathy Fuller-Seeley points out it was recorded for posterity in this article of the same day in the Pittsburgh Press.
Mary Chimes In With Her Ode To Xmas
She’s a Bit Early But If You’re Healthy You Can Stand Her Poem
Mary Livingstone thinks it’s all right to give father applause for Christmas and let him pay the bills.
Ever since Mary broke out with her “Oh Labor Day, Labor Day,” she has been laboring under the delusion that folks wanted more of her poetry. She got by with one on Thanksgiving Day, feeling sorry for the turkey as she pushed it in the oven.
“And now,” as the announcers say, here’s Mary saying “I’m a couple of days early with my Christmas poem but what do you care as long as you’re healthy?”
CHRISTMAS
By Mary Livingstone
Just as you and I expect it.
And we’re happy as of yore
‘Cause we have not been neglected.
We get stockings from our brother
And more stockings from Sis and mother,
Stockings from our friends and bosses—
We wish we had four legs like hosses.
And our boy friends—they get neckties.
Everybody gives them neckties,
Purple, brown, pink, blue and yellow.
What else can you give a fellow?
And our mothers—what do they get?
Checks for twenty, should be fifty
Or a hundred if you’re working.
It’s your mother, so be gift-y.
Now comes father, poor old daddy.
For him, what has Santa Claus?
He pays all the bills for Xmas
So we all give him applause.
So—come on, folks—get the spirit;
Do things in a great big way.
Now’s the time to give the presents.
Not on good old Labor Day.
Somehow, Jack and Mary fit in a live performance over the holidays. Jack was greeted by the mayor of Jersey City on the 28th before he and Mary and their revue hit the stage at the Stanley Theatre that evening.
The only down-side of December for Jack was his attempt at going on the legitimate stage. Producer Sam Harris had signed Jack to star in a satire written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind called “Bring on the Girls.” It opened December 13 at Parsons’ Theatre in Hartford. Despite the big names, the play never really worked. Critics liked the first act but, despite re-writes, Kaufman and Ryskind couldn’t get the rest into shape. You can read more about the failure in this post.
As 1935 began, Jack carried on with entertainment career. It had only another 40 years to go.
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