Cigars, Cards and Gadgets

Ernie Kovacs is considered a genius with a unique kind of humour by many. Fortunately, some of his work was preserved and is available on discs for home viewing.

Examination of his comedy seems to have been a byproduct of his sudden death in 1962. In checking through newspaper columns about him in the mid-1950s to his death, writers seem to have focused on his lifestyle instead of his on-camera entertainment. There were plenty of stories about his expensive cars, his 20-room New York City apartment, and his spending. That includes on cigars and gambling.

Two columns that came out within days of each other in February 1960 dealt with his love of gadgets. First up, is this syndicated offering.

Gadgets, Guns, Preoccupy Comedian Ernie Kovacs
By STEVEN H. SCHEUER
(McClure Syndicate)
Ernie Kovacs is a guy who loves gadgets. In between stunts like apes dancing to "Swan Lake," Ernie has always had innumerable props performing odd ways, some of which went over with a dull, but imaginative, thud.
Like his shows, Kovacs' Hollywood hillside home is also jam-packed with gadgets. A huge gate at the bottom of the drive is opened electrically by pushing a button.
A visitor hears Kovacs' voice mutter, "Who's there," and then the gate swings open. On the mail-box next to the gate is a flashlight which turns on its beam in the direction of Ernie's den when the mailman deposits the mail.
"That's so I don't have to walk down the hill thirty times a day to check the mail," says Ernie.
• • •
His den, a converted garage, is the hub of the Kovacs universe. He sits at a desk when not playing poker or gin rummy at a nearby table, and communicates with the world either by writing or by phone.
The phone company must love Mr. Kovacs. His bills run around $2,000 a month as he calls London, Paris and New York without any monetary twinge.
He also has just about everything the phone company has dreamed up so far. Behind his desk, some 80 feet of wire are connected to phones, intercom systems to the main house, a radio, a record player and even a TV set. Ernie's knowledge about all these contraptions is basic. "I know that two wires leading to the function must not be crossed," he says proudly.
• • •
When he finds room for a new gadget, Ernie simply calls the phone company and says: "What have you got that's new?"
"This question has brought a stream of men bringing things like a wire recorder that answers the phone. So Ernie doesn't have to pick up a receiver, he hates that, the phone is hooked up to a loud-speaker on the wall, and all he has to do is listen.
Through his household intercom system and loudspeaker, Ernie can even hear his youngest child, Mia, age almost one, breathe in her crib. The microphone is at the head of her bed.
While gadgets have a certain pull for Ernie, so do guns. There are guns on all four walls in his den, dueling pistols, high-powered rifles like a 270 Wetherby Magnum, and old Chinese cannon.
• • •
"I've grown up with guns," Ernie explains, lighting up a big cigar. It was 4:30 in the afternoon and Mr. Kovacs had just arisen.
"I was a good shot when I was nine. I've also turned Edie (wife Edie Adams) into a pretty good shot. She never hunted before, 'til last year in Vegas.
"I took her out and put up some three-inch targets. She hit three consecutively at three hundred yards. That's like picking out the pupil of a moose's eye."
At home with his guns and phones, Ernie can sit down and write except that every few minutes a voice comes over the loudspeaker and Mr. Kovacs has to talk back. How he gets any time for his writing is a wonder.
"And then I have my gin rummy or poker as an added diversion," said Ernie.
• • •
Like his hero, Fred Allen, Kovacs tries to write most of his material. He writes his own silent commercials and the clues on his panel show, "Take A Good Look," which is sponsored by a cigar company.
He also writes 10 spots for Monitor radio a week and he has two books he must get on with for his publishers.
"About all I do is get up and get, through the bills and the mail and then I blow another day," said Ernie.
At the moment, he is looking for other writers to do his radio work. But he doesn't look too hard because he feels better with his own material.
His mother can always spot material Ernie doesn't write and she lets him know about it.
• • •
"I go on a comedy show and other writers give me their stuff. I do it, but I don't feel at ease, or feel comfortable with it.
"I just have to do it my way. You see, I don't tell jokes. I couldn't do it. I don't know how. I have to ramble on."
With the bills paid and the mail sorted and the novel put off for another day, Kovacs calls his cronies like movie director Mervyn LeRoy and a card game is in the making.
Is Kovacs as handy with cards as with comedy?
Ernie shook his head. "You have to have a killer instinct to be a food card player, and I don't have it. I just like to play."

Here’s another. Same angle, different content.

Ernie Kovacs Keeps Adding Rooms To Store His Gadgets
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
Hollywood Correspondent
Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
HOLLYWOOD—A mad collection of gadgets and assorted objets d'curious once enabled Ernie Kovacs to star in a half-hour TV show in which he didn't say a single word.
After visiting the Kovacs home, I know where Ernie got the idea. He lives in a world of gadgets and objets d'curious.
If a movie heroine can be a "Gidget," Ernie could be called a "Gadget." His home keeps growing all over a Hollywood hillside, collecting things as it goes, to Ernie's mock horror:
"We eventually may have to use pogo sticks to get around all this junk."
Not to be dragging in a movie plug, but “Wake Me When It’s Over” is Ernie’s latest movie and a tour through the Kovacs home leaves you thinking, “We Me When You Think It’s Finished.”
Movie Screen Outside
There's the projection room that Ernie says will go over the garage, with the screen up on the hillside, the steam room, and only Ernie knows what else, but you can be sure it will be something.
What was once a garage is Ernie's pad.
There's a balcony, a fireplace right out of an old English castle, with a dozen steak knives stuck into the soft wood mantle ("handy," Ernie explains); there's a spotlight over a poker table which has a six-inch thick polished hardware top; brass cannon on a coffee table point their muzzles directly at visitors, and a couple suits of armor stand around for use as king-size ashtrays.
Amidst it all and up to his knees in books, records, magazines, papers and cigar ashes, Ernie swivels in front of a desk that looks like it was mussed for "Person to Person."
There are four telephones, an electric pencil sharpener, a gadget to clear the air of cigar smoke, a panel of buttons to operate outside gates, recorded music, the air conditioning system.
There is an intercommunication system over which Ernie tries out his "Take A Good Look" TV program chatter on wife Edie Adams in her "pad" 260 feet away from Ernie's desk.
The cigar smoke air-cleaner is the only gadget not working at the moment. "It was giving me a sinus condition," he laughed. "It was like having my desk in a wind tunnel."
Despite the four telephones, one of Ernie's New York friends has promised to increase the number to five. "The last time he was here," Ernie tells it, "he said he wanted to give me another phone with an unlisted number just for him to call out on and to call me when he's in New York."
The panel of buttons, often covered with a foot of papers, letters, books and scripts, may have to go, says Ernie. "I'm thinking of putting in a panel with flashing lights up there on the wall, along with a pressure gauge for the new steam room."
He may be launching rockets from that desk yet. The adjoining house ends in Edie's room, some 260 feet away where things are all black and white stripes with a zebra-skin couch and a clothes closet that reminds you of the Holland Tunnel after a collision between two clothes delivery vans.
In-between are rooms and rooms, and little things like a five-foot-high world globe too big for Ernie to encircle with his arms.
“There are only two like it,” he says. “Ike has the other one. I don’t know if he fainted when he got the bill, but I did.
Ernie’s swiveling desk chair put his eyes on target of a fancy box of chocolates and he frowned. “Now why didn’t the maid take that out of here? Dust I don’t mind but a box of candy makes me nervous.
A shortage of ice cubes makes him nervous, so he has a cube-maker with a capacity of 1800 a day.
No telephone at his elbow makes Ernie nervous, too, so there's still another one in his car.
And a gadget to record his voice back at home. If all those wires get crossed, man, he's in trouble.

Kovacs moved from California to New York, despite objections from his wife, Edie Adams, who loved to work in the theatre. Ernie didn’t. “It’s overrated,” he told Bell Syndicate columnist Margaret McManus in 1961.

But his decision was based on money. He was offered movies. “Such easy work, six weeks at a clip, and for so much money,” he explained to McManus. “This has all been here while I have been knocking my brains out on television for peanuts. Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

The money was $200,000 a picture, guaranteed, plus expenses, rent money for an Italian villa, and a 25% cut of the net profits of the first of four films. Still, he had to continue to do TV to pay debts. Dutch Masters sponsored Take a Good Look, a game show where Hans Conried and other panellists had to guess at something based on a series of Kovacs sketches.

It was different. But so was Ernie Kovacs.

When Jack Benny Didn't Need His Writers

Command Performance may be the best-known of several variety-request programmes put together stateside for airing on Armed Forces Radio during World War Two.

Movie and radio stars contributed to the war effort, with stage shows at military camps overseas and at home, taking part in Victory Bond and War Stamp drives, dropping in to the Hollywood Canteen, and appearing on Command Performance, Mail Call, Jubilee and other shows aimed specifically at servicemen and women far from home.

Among the stars was Jack Benny. He was a huge success on one Command Performance, as reported by the Newspaper Enterprise Association’s Hollywood columnist. This appeared in the Los Angeles Daily News on Oct. 17, 1944.

Benny ad lib tops Hope, Allen
Raise the hand of Jack Benny as the winner in the ad lib battle of the century. He left Fred Allen, Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante speechless. And that, brother, deserves a special Academy Oscar.
It happened at "Christmas Command Performance USA," Hollywood's Christmas present to Uncle Sam's armed forces overseas. It was the greatest radio show in history and we'll tell you all about it later. But right now you're going to hear how Benny mopped up the stage with Allen, Hope and Durante.
The four comics, plus Jerry Colonna and half a dozen other stars, were called back to the footlights immediately after the show for a group picture with the audience.
The Army photographer was slow adjusting his camera. Somebody had to say something. Hope finally started it with a crack about his profile which caught Benny and Allen flat-footed. There was a moment's pause and then Durante yelled out:
"Hey, you ushers. Stand erect and give this joint a little class."
The audience howled.
Benny still couldn't think of anything to say. Neither could Allen, so he started mugging. Jerry Colonna got a laugh by announcing, “I’m not going to say anything. I’m going to stay out of this. Benny, still at a loss for a smart crack, stuck his hat on his head crosswise and announced, “Well, at least I’ll LOOK funny.” The audience chuckled.
The army photographer was still adjusting his camera and the audience waiting expectantly to see who would score next.
Hope came through with a weak gag about Crosby. There was another few seconds of embarrassing silence. Benny and Allen squirmed. And then Benny let go. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the parking lot ticket for his automobile.
"I don't mind doing this show for free," he announced, "but who the h— is going to pay for this parking ticket?"
The audience roared, then applauded. Allen, Hope and Durante were speechless. They knew they were licked. The ad lib battle of the century was over. Benny grinned happily, the photographer took the picture and everybody went home.
As we started to say, "Christmas Command Performance USA" was the greatest radio show in history. Too bad, neighbor, but you'll never hear it. It was a 2-hour show recorded by the Armed Forces Radio Service for the boys and girls overseas. The record will be played in lonely command posts, mess halls and briefing rooms from the Palau Islands to the western front on Christmas Day.
Bob Hope did the master of ceremony chore. Starred on the show in addition to all the comics we've mentioned were W. C. Fields, Judy Garland, Danny Kaye, Kay Kyser and his orchestra, Dorothy Lamour, Frances Langford, Virginia O'Brien, Dinah Shore, Ginny Simms, Spencer Tracy, Spike Jones, Xavier Cugat, the Ken Darby chorus, Lee J. Cobb and Skippy Honeier [sic], with Ken Carpenter as announcer, Maj. Meredith Wilson conducting the GI orchestra and Sergeant Bob Welch holding the production reins.
Dinah sang "I'll Be Seeing You" and proved why she's a great GI and civilian favorite these days. Ginny sang “Amour.” Spike Jones’ orchestra murdered “Holiday for Strings” with those washboards and auto horns. Durante sang "I'm the Guy Who Holds the Mortgage on the Ranch That Has the Sheep That Supply the Wool for Lana Turner's Sweaters."
Allen and Benny bought each other 57 cent polkadot Christmas ties and in a department store routine, then sang “Jingle Bells,” accompanying themselves on the violin and banjo.
It was a billion dollars worth of talent. No sponsor could have afforded to have paid the bill. Everyone donated their time and talent for Uncle Sam's boys and girls. And it's a show they'll never forget.
Except for losing his ad lib battle with Benny, Hope was in rare form. Carpenter introduced him as "the guy who laid more eggs in the South Pacific than a B-25." His best gag was about a group of GIs in the South Pacific who didn't have a Christmas tree. So they decimated a hula girl. "They've got the only Christmas tree in the world," Hope cracked, "that can wiggle it’s a tinsel."

Yes, the broadcast exists and you can listen to it below.



The first Command Performance (according to the OTRR.org site) was broadcast on March 1, 1942. Jack’s first appearance was on the 12th show, which aired May 7, 1942. The announcer was Paul Douglas, one of Jack’s announcers in the Canada Dry days in 1932. Considering Pearl Harbor was the previous December, the military organised this series pretty quickly.

Below is the schedule for AEF shortwave stations from the first edition of the Army newspaper Yank, published June 17, 1942. This is before the AFRS radio stations were set up at bases overseas. It gives you the idea of the kind of radio shows the troops were hearing.

The Infamous Horn

The Horn Blows at Midnight may, or may not, have been a lousy movie, but Jack Benny’s writers got an awful lot of mileage out of it. The first reference on the Benny radio show to it was on Jan. 23, 1944. How many others there were, I don’t know, but no less a person than movie mogul Jack L. Warner showed up twice to joke about it (in an appearance on Feb. 20, 1949, promoting a radio version on The Ford Theatre, he got unintentional laughs by butchering the dialogue).

One episode featured Mel Blanc playing a car lot attendant who had his Hollywood career killed by directing the film. Another was a funny episode which ended with the entire patronage of a drive-in theatre zoom away when Horn was announced as a special double-feature (aired Oct. 24, 1954).

Movie studios were notorious for planting BS to promote their films. Whether any other what was reported by the Associated Press in the 1944 story below is true, I can’t tell you, but we’ll pass it along.

Jack Benny Finds He’s No Angel
BY TED GILL
HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 12.—(AP)—Comedian Jack Benny is trying his best to be a good little angel—but frankly admits it's a devil of a job!
Benny is appearing in "The Horn Blows at Midnight," in which he's supposed to be No. 4 trumpeter in a heavenly symphony—but the Waukegan wisecracker, whom his arch-rival, Fred Allen, jokingly calls the neanderthal nit-wit of the airways—blithely confesses he doesn't know as much about trumpets as he does about violins—which, he adds, is practically negligible —so they dub in the sound effects.
Next, they had to denude Jack of his pretty white wings, because they were flopping grotesquely in everyone's eyes, and besides, pranksters were habitually plucking out feathers to use as pipe cleaners--so they compromised, and appliqued a small set of wings on Jack's white robe—and let it go at that.
In another scene, Benny's toupee accidentally got knocked off during a rough-and-tumble fracas with some children. Promptly one youngster grabs it up and dashes off, yelling: "Oh, boy, Fred Allen will pay me plenty for this!"
Benny admits he perhaps should have started being an angel a little earlier in life, but adds: "This probably is as close to heaven as I'd ever get, anyway."

The Newspaper Enterprise Association provided this look the same month.

Benny Doesn’t Like Heaven In His Newest Movie
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 1 (NEA)—Heaven isn't all that it's cracked up to be, Jack Benny said.
He was having trouble, he complained, keeping his white robes clean. A man with a bottle of cleaning fluid had to follow him around.
Those gold sandals were breaking down his arches. Lugging a trumpet around all the time was very bothersome, too. The heavenly hours were too long. And he just didn't feel like an angel, Jack said, since the studio wardrobe department clipped his wings.
"All this and heaven, too. It's too much," Jack groaned.
The picture is "The Horn Blows at Midnight." The three principal angels—Benny, Alexis Smith and Guy Kibbee—played their first scene together and their wings got in each other's way. In the middle of the third "take" the tip of Alexis' wing stuck Benny right in the eye and Director Raoul Walsh stopped the scene.
Finally somebody came up with the idea of the angels wearing wings like the boys in the air corps do. So they clipped the wings of the angels and reseed on a pair of bright, red cloth wings on their white robes.
Since then life in heaven has run much more smoothly.
"The Horn Blows at Midnight" is a comedy about an angel sent down to destroy the earth—because there’s so much hate. Angel Benny is elected for the job. He's given a trumpet to blow at midnight, a book of instructions and a modern business suit. Then he's shoved into an elevator and a split second later he's walking down Fifth Avenue.
Fallen Angels
From then on, everybody hopes, there will be lots of laughs. Benny, you see, has been an angel for a couple of thousand years and things have sorts changed on earth. Besides he's a forgetful gent. He loses the instruction book, gets mixed up with a beautiful girl, Dolores Moran, and a couple of fallen angels who know the secret of the trumpet and eventually steal it from him.
Jimmy Kern, who wrote the script with Sam Hellman, was much more enthusiastic about it all than Benny, who is a natural worrier. “It's tailored for Jack," Kern said. "That one scene where he goes to a restaurant and orders a lot of stuff he's never eaten will be terrific."
We had to admit it was a very funny scene. Knowing nothing about earthly food, Benny first orders a banana split. Then he has some kippered herring. He sees someone eating a big dill pickle, so he orders one for himself. He winds up the meal with roast duck and oyster stew.
The unbelieving, astonished waiter, is played by one John Brown, who until a few weeks ago was a member of Fred Allen's radio show. Jack met Brown in New York, liked him and brought him to Hollywood as his protégé. But getting back to heaven, we noticed a large panel of photographs identified as “Fallen Angels." As Alexis explains to Jack, "Fallen angels can never come back here, and there's only one other place for them to go."
Cinema Caution
The photographs, Director Walsh pointed out, were all of people on the set—hairdressers, cameramen, carpenters, etc. There was even photograph of Walsh. Having once been sued for using in a movie the telephone number of a guy in Milwaukee, Warner Bros. studio takes no more chances. There'd probably be grounds for a suit, at that, if a model in New York or a politician in Oregon recognized his photograph playing a "Fallen Angel" on the screen.
We were surprised, though, that Benny, as a gag, hadn't slipped in a photograph of Fred Allen as one of the fallen angels.
"What!" groaned Jack, "and let that guy steal a laugh? I've got enough worries."
As a matter of fact. Jack Benny seemed to be a very unhappy angel.

While Benny and his friends joked about the “mediocrity” of The Horn Blows at Midnight, there was one picture Jack really did not like. He told the Knoxville Sentinel-News on Jan. 2, 1944, in an unbylined story, after a description of Horn:

The idea is an amusing one and Benny's got his fingers crossed.
Last time he heard of an amusing story, he insisted on Twentieth Century-Fox buying it. It was called "The Meanest Man in the World" and it did seem funny, until the experts got through with the script.
"I pleaded with them to throw it away," Benny said. "They had spent about what my salary amounted to and I told 'em I would gladly do another picture free, if they'd only forget this one. The embarrassing thing was that it was my idea in the first place to make it, and I could not talk them out of it."
• • •
Called Worst Movie
WHEN completed the picture was so bad, according to Benny, it could not be released. One of the greatest of the movie makers (who shall be nameless here) went to work on it and finally let loose upon an unsuspecting public a movie. Some critics for whom we have respect, grimly called it the worst movie Hollywood ever made. That is a broad statement. There have been worse.
"Let's just call it bad," said Benny, "and try to forget it.”
It was the only really terrible movie he ever made. The three before it, including "Charley's Aunt," "George Washington Slept Here," and "To Be or Not To Be." were smash hits and Benny has hopes the customers will remember those.

Indeed, To Be or Not To Be received critical acclaim, and Charley’s Aunt was another film seized upon by Benny’s radio writers, including some where Jack dressed in his old woman’s costume (once to escape Ronald Colman, Apr. 25, 1948).

Our Horn trivia: Louella Parsons broke the story on May 19, 1942 that Ida Lupino had been signed to star in the film, then was the first to report on May 11, 1943 that Benny would play an angel in the movie. In the meantime, Lupino bowed out.

Our non-Horn trivia: Jack and his co-star from George Washington Slept Here, Ann Sheridan, were supposed to appear together on the Screen Guild Players' version of Nothing But the Truth on Feb. 21, 1944, but the broadcast was called off and a different one with other stars substituted. No reason was given in the press.

The biggest story involving Jack in Feb. 1944 wasn’t his movies. Newspapers revealed his show would no longer be sponsored by General Foods as of June 11, but by American Tobacco for the coming radio season (the Associated Press didn’t mention specific products while the United Press did). Jack had been getting $22,500 a week to plug the only cereal (I can think of) with a double-plural name, Grape Nuts Flakes. The deal for Lucky Strikes on radio lasted until the end of Jack’s show in 1955.

Colonna Entertains Troops, Real and Fake

Jerry Colonna will always be associated with Bob Hope, but another comedian gave him his big break.

Colonna was a mainstay on Hope’s radio show starting in fall 1938, along with Vera Vague (actress Barbara Jo Allen), Brenda and Cobina (Elvia Allman and Blanche Stewart) and Pepsodent plugger Wendell Niles. Colonna would end up in silly, impossible situations that everyone accepted and turn them into a routine that ran during the broadcast. Hope dismantled his show in fall 1948 when ratings fell. Colonna was sent packing, though Hope brought him back periodically.

But it was on May 27, 1936, that Colonna almost became known to radio audiences. “Almost” because he wasn’t billed other than “Boris,” speaking unintelligibly in a Russian accent and then bellowing “The Road to Mandalay.” The show was Town Hall Tonight, and the comedian was Fred Allen. Colonna made a return engagement Feb. 24, 1937 and at least one more afterward.

How was it he ended up on the other coast and working with old Ski Nose? He reminisced in a column in the North American Newspaper Alliance, published Jan. 27, 1964. There’s nary a mention of Allen.

Jerry Colonna Credits Crosby for Success
By HAROLD HEFFERNAN
Hollywood (NANA) — Jerry Colonna has been picking up regular checks for a longer time than most Hollywood personalities. So a tip from him isn't to be taken lightly.
Says the stony-faced comic with the popped eyes and walrus mustache: "It isn't necessarily what you know but who you know, if you want to get along in this business."
Jerry was reflecting on his career, pointing back more than 25 years to a meeting with Bing Crosby and a friendship that has continued ever since.
He was taping a string of toothpaste commercials to be delivered on the Crosby A. B. C.-T. V. special on February 15. He doesn't go in for ad plugging as a regular bit but is happy to be a part of anything his old helpmate does. We went on to trace their association:
IN TROTTER ORCHESTRA
"We met in Spokane where I was playing trombone with John Scott Trotter's orchestra and Bing was doing his radio show. It all started there, and shortly afterwards when my wife and I were house guests at Bing's home near San Diego — that's when he was running the Del Mar Race Track with Pat O'Brien — he introduced me to Bob Hope. That was the turning point. Bob wrote a spot for me on one of his radio programs, and our palship has gone on from there."
Colonna has never made the big time in the publicly accepted sense, but his bank account shows a much fatter balance than those of most Hollywood figures rated as stars. He's never hired a publicity agent, is invariably in the background—even is proud of a criticism written about him early in his career by a New York reviewer — "He sounds like a Harvard professor who hasn't quite made it."
The point is, Colonna has made it. It consists of a couple of dozen movies with Hope and Crosby; and a successful night club act of his own which keeps him on the road 36 weeks every year.
"After all those overseas tours with Bob, I'm used to packing; can't stand the dust on my suitcases when it starts to accumulate," he grins.
"I like this deal with Crosby's T. V. operation. Some people say it's beneath an actor's dignity to do commercials, but I don't agree. I figure if a company is smart enough to hire an actor or a comic like me to help sell the product, he should be flattered.
"Besides," he said carefully smoothing that thick trademark (he hasn't shaved it since the 1925 sprouting year), "I don't have the temperament to be a dramatic actor. Far as I'm concerned. 'Hamlet' is a miniature Piglet."

My first experience with Colonna wasn’t with the human Colonna at all. It was with Warner Bros. cartoons. Whenever a character said “Greetings, gate!” Or “I don’t ask questions, I just have FUN!” or “Monotonous (or another word), isn’t it?” that was Jerry Colonna. Friz Freleng made a short in 1941 called The Wacky Worm, with the title character suspiciously resembling Colonna. The worm made a return appearance in Freleng’s 1943 short Greetings, Bait.

I’ll spare you a list of Colonna stand-in appearances, but will mention he’s caricatured in Tex Avery’s Hollywood Steps Out (1941) and there’s a funny performance of a vulture singing a la Colonna in Bob Clampett’s Prehistoric Porky (1940), played by Mel Blanc.

The first time I saw Colonna was as a guest star on McHale’s Navy. I didn’t know Colonna was an actual person. I thought it was a character invented for the episode, not having listened to any old Bob Hope radio shows at the age of eight.

This story appeared in newspapers on April 10, 1965. I suspect it was from the ABC promotion department.

Jerry Colonna Visits Only GI Island He Missed
Jerry Colonna has finally dropped down on the only island he missed in 23 years of entertaining U.S. troops abroad. It's the one in possession of "McHale's Navy."
Guest starring in "Hello, McHale?—Colonna!", the episode of the TV series to be televised at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Colonna said he felt right at home.
"Hope (Bob) and I used to travel from island to island in PT boats," he recalls. "Our skipper was usually George Halas, owner-coach of the Chicago Bears. Reminds me a lot of Ernie Borgnine."
Jerry, who looks about three weeks older than he did in 1944, professes to be alarmed by the way some servicemen greet him at overseas base. "Hey, Jerry," they say, "I remember when I was a kid, my dad told me about a show you and Bob Hope put on at Kwajalein."
Colonna adds, "It's a new generation, but one thing stays at the same. They still laugh at the same jokes. They're the best audiences in the world."
Reminiscing about those audiences, which at times numbered as high as 50,000, Colonna chuckled as he recalled one of the Bob Hope troupe's most memorable performances.
"It was in Alaska, a hundred miles from anywhere. Our plane was in trouble, and we set down, at an emergency landing field. A GI rushed over, saw Hope and me, some pretty girls and musicians, and almost passed out. Then he asked, very timidly, if we could do a few songs and jokes for the troops. We said sure. So in a minute he came back with the troops—both of them.
"While the pilot worked on the plane, we went through every joke, song and dance we know for two and a half hours. Finally, Hope told the three boys, 'Well, fellas, that's the show. We've run out of material.' " 'Oh, that's okay,' one of them piped up. 'Just do it again. '"
Colonna continued: "That's the answer to the question we're often asked—'How long are you tottering old geezers going to run around the world putting on shows for the servicemen?" "For as long as the boys say, 'Just do it again.' "
In this McHale’s Navy chapter, arrangements for Colonna’s visit hit a snag. It develops that Colonna’s plane only touches down at bases with at least a 50-bed hospital. McHale’s island hospital has only 28. So McHale’s men take steps to change the situation.

Colonna entertained troops with Bob Hope during World War Two. He wrote a book in 1945 about his overseas escapades with Hope called “Who Threw That Coconut!” (We can only imagine what he couldn't print).

"Professor" Colonna made 15 annual appearances with old sickle-snoot at military bases, ending with a second tour of Vietnam in 1965. He missed 1966 because of a stroke that partly paralysed him. Hope was loyal. Before making his 1966 Christmas appearances in Vietnam, he presented Colonna with a plaque from Los Angeles City Council honouring his 15 hundred shows for soldiers, and the four million miles he travelled to entertain.

Hope found a place for him in a 1970 TV special, despite not looking well. Colonna continued to have heart problems, though he died of kidney failure in 1986 at age 82.

Many of us grew up watching Hope TV specials where he read old-hat routines off cue cards. His Pepsodent radio show was far different. Hope was quick, ad-libbing and fairly entertaining. But to me, the best part was the ridiculous nonsense spouted by the energetic Jerry Colonna.

Fred Allen is Not a Turnip

Nostalgia exists for the Golden Age of Radio, in many cases (such as mine) from people who weren’t alive when it was happening.

But there were people who lived through the time without ever listening to radio.

One such individual was Lee Evans, a correspondent based in New York for the Cincinnati Enquirer. What he did in his spare time is unclear, but we do know he attended at least one live radio show. The paper assigned him to do a story about Fred Allen.

It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to get to Allen’s studio at NBC. Evans’ office was at 50 Rockefeller Plaza.

Evans profile of Allen is interesting in that some parts seem accurate, and others are debateable. It does strike me as an honest appraisal. If you’ve read Treadmill to Oblivion, it’s easy to get the impression Allen didn’t really like radio, believing it was an awful lot of continual work, interrupted and countermanded by orders from sponsors or networks, for little permanent reward. He complained about his audience, without which his show would be full of dead silence (Henry Morgan tried a variety show without one. The experiment lasted once).

Here is what Evans had to say after personally viewing an Allen broadcast. This was published March 21, 1948.

Fred Allen Lives Up To Billing As Comedian As Evans Covers Assignment For Enquirer
BY LEE EVANS.
(STAFF CORRESPONDENT)
New York, March 20—(Special)—Not being a radio fan I had never listened to a Fred Allen broadcast. I had a vague but not very definite idea of what he was—a funny man on the radio. In the course of time the radio editor thought maybe a story on his studio broadcast might make a story. Here it is.
I had gained the impression from his publicity that he was a dour, sour, acid sort of individual. If so he was out of character Sunday night. He broadcasts over NBC at 8:30 o'clock every Sunday. He is quite a fine-looking Irishman. He was born near Boston as John Florence Sullivan. It was years later when he went into radio that he became Fred Allen. He is not what one would call a pretty man, but he has a strong open countenance with an Irish twinkle in his eyes and a sardonic twist to his lips.
But that he is sour, dour, or acid, except from a professional assumption I do not believe. His wife Portland, who helps him in the broadcast, is too happy a looking person to be married to a turnip. Allen has a keen sense of the impostor, the ridiculous poseur, the blatherskite and other not too genuine personalities. And he takes keen relish in saying something cutting about them. But there is not much bitterness in him. He merely scorns his victims.
He is said to work hard on his scripts. He is personally responsible to himself for the final form of the broadcast. He has several writers working for him, but he usually or always edits their stuff, giving a final Allen twinge to the comedy. I do not know how many laughs a minute he sets forth to get, but he gets plenty of them during the half-hour session. His humor is varied. It runs the gamut of the whole range of wisecracks, jokes, and smart sayings. Of course, the quality is far from uniform. Sometimes the end results do not comport to the "quality of mercy" standards.
His publicity gave me the impression that he hates his broadcasts. I do not believe it; He seems to enjoy them intensely. He often laughs at his own witticisms. He will break out into hearty laughter then confide to the studio audience—that he is thinking of something that he has not yet said. It is an unfair advantage to take of his hearers in a way, but it destroys any implication that he does not enjoy his work.
He revolves his humor about personalities and topics of the times. That's where Allen's Alley comes into the show. He has four recurring characters in the Alley—Senator Claghorn who has become a national figure; Titus Moody who is a hard-bitten farmer; Mrs. Nussbaum, who musses up the English language and Ajax Cassidy who represents the Irish with an opinion on anything that comes up.
Allen gives his studio hearers a bonus for attending. He comes out about 10 minutes before going on the air and invites anyone who got into the wrong pew to leave while he may. Of course nobody does. The Allen broadcasts are popular both with the studio gathering and the vast audience on the air. The show is helped out by an orchestra, and on Sunday night by a quintet of songstresses and a guest performer, Doc Rockwell. The doc is a stage personality. I last saw him in Billy Rose's "Seven Lively Arts" three years ago. He was MC. The show didn't last long.
The regular cast, Kenny Delmar, Parker Fennelly, Minerva Pious and Peter Donald have become popular and fixed with the radio audiences. Allen at one time was as he called himself the "World's Worst Juggler" in the vaudeville circuits. He has given up the juggling of dimensional things. He now only juggles words. We spare the use of any adjective.
I seldom listen to a radio show. I am inclined to sleep when I do. I stayed awake during the Allen show Sunday night. I was wide awake instead of being all in. I know that is terrible, but it is as good as some of those he puts on the air.
He is said to get $20,000 a week for his show. Of course he has large company to pay out of this. The show is sponsored by the Ford Dealers of America.

Allen’s show, as Evans says, blows hot and cold to me. There are a number of things over the years that I never found entertaining. You don’t need to read a dissertation of my opinions about this, but I will say I do enjoy listening to Allen a lot of the time. Anything featuring Tallaluh Bankhead making fun of an insipid wake-up radio show that ends in murder can’t be all bad.

No TV for Benny in 1949

Jack Benny was supposed to saunter onto TV screens a year before he actually did.

Erskine Johnson’s column for the Newspaper Enterprise Association on July 4, 1949 had this item:

“Only part of his radio cast will be with Jack Benny when he plunges into television this fall. Too expensive.”

It would appear CBS broached the idea of Jack doing some network television in the 1949-50 season. It never happened.

Jack Shafer in the Newark Star-Ledger reported in his column the day before:

Benny ponders video; calls style too subtle
Jack Benny was in town on another business jaunt this week. He has a new publicity gimmick. It used to be the semi-annual word of his impending retirement (a device which Fred Allen still uses—and insists he means this time). Now Benny is aboard the television wagon, riding it hell-bend-for-newspaper mentions.
On his last trip east this spring, for example, teevee was Jack's alleged oyster. His years in vaudeville were just what video needed. The matter of memorizing scripts? Why, that wasn't too formidable. He'd go on every other week, maybe, to start, and then increase the schedule. Get the cameras all set by September. Television was Jake with Jack.
Now Jack isn't so sure. In a quickie interview this week, he told me his mind is open on the question. He still thinks he's ready for television, but he's not so sure of the vice-versa angle!
"SUBTLETY doesn't register well as television now stands," he explained. "You can get the slapstick stuff across in television, sure, like hitting people with pies or buckling up like Leon Errol, but that's not my style, you know. I haven't gone in for slapstick in radio, and it wasn't my style in vaudeville, either. It seems to me that the comedians who are clicking in television have always been the noise-and-nonsense type. That's the only type television is ready for."
"I doubt that particular style will last (heaven help the poor psychiatrists if it does!), but why buck a passing fancy? What I'd do on teevee might seem so strange that people would laugh AT me instead of with me. So why take the risk when I'm doing all right in radio? Maybe I'll sit this season out. I won't really know until September."
Unlike a lot of other radio stars who are similarly on Indecision Street, Jack doesn't mind the dilemma.
"Why worry about it,” he insists. “The entertainment business is just the tinsel of life, anyway. Look underneath that tinsel and find the REAL tinsel."

There was another reason for Jack's skittishness which he expressed to the North American Newspaper Alliance. This was published starting June 30, 1949.

Benny in N. Y. Talking Video
By DAN ANDERSON
NEW YORK (NANA).—It all depends on the quality of kinescope recordings whether Jack Benny will be seen regularly on television, at least in the east, beginning in the fall, the comedian said recently. If the filmed versions of T. V. shows don't improve markedly above their present technical level, he won't be on.
* * *
Benny is here for conferences with executives of the Columbia Broadcasting system, to which he recently switched, and of the American Tobacco company, his sponsor, about television. He'll start back for the west coast soon, but probably will make no decision about going on television until early September.
Foregoing comedy, he explained, "it depends entirely on how much improvement there is in the quality of kinescope.
"It will have to improve to great deal. But some of the engineers say that it may in a very short time. I’ll make up my mind a few weeks before my radio show resumes. Early September probably is the dead line.
"Kinescope will have to be almost as good as live presentation for me to want to go on television with a regular program, probably half an hour every two weeks. It will have to be kinescoped to be shown here. It would be a physical impossibility for me to fly to New York every couple of weeks for a show and back to the Coast for my radio program.
"If I don't do a regular program, I might come here every two months or so for a big special program.
"I like television. I've been on once, when the CBS station opened in Los Angeles. That was live, of course.
* * *
"It was fine. It took me back to the days on the stage.
"The regular show, it I do it, will be a variety program, bringing in acts from the radio program. It will have to be done in Los Angeles, and if it isn't going to show well on kinescope, then my regular television appearances will have to be postponed for a year, anyway, even though I like it."

September rolled around. TV was on the air. Jack Benny wasn’t on it. The Los Angeles Daily News talked about it in its Sept. 10, 1949 issue.

New Jack Benny program Sunday full of vim, vigor
By WALT TALIAFERRO
(Radio and Television Editor)
Jack Benny proved to us he still has his mind concentrated on maintaining a top radio show rather than worry about television. We saw the rehearsal of the first Benny show of the season to be aired Sunday.
Instead of spoiling the fun for you by reviewing the show in advance we'll just tell you that the rehearsal was so good we are going to listen to the show too.
The vacations must have done the whole Benny gang good. They are in fine spirits and the writers gave out with a lively script to which you'll have to seep listening closely to keep up with the gags . . . if the audience doesn't drown them out.
Before Jack left on his vacation he told us—and we reported to you then—that he was not going to worry about television, but produce a top radio show.
We asked him yesterday if he had changed his mind.
"Definitely not. We’re going to get this show back on the air with the best of everything we have before we even think about television," Jackson said.
"Not that we've anything against television, but this will be our 18th consecutive year on this show . . . this is no time to split our efforts and do two things partly good instead of one really good," he added.
Benny emphasizes the fact that he has no commitments for any TV shows this season.
"If I do any at all . . . and that's not even certain . . . they will only be special occasions, not a regular show," he declared.
Even though this was the rehearsal of the first show of the season, the Benny gang had that same feeling of all being one big family that is reflected in the ease and happiness of their performances.
Even the violin virtuoso himself seemed happy they were all back to work again. And we got that impression we have often had while listening to Jack . . . he doesn't hog or steal the whole show.
We've watched rehearsals of some shown—with top performers too—and then listened to them and found that some of the good gag lines had been switched to the "star" because they were "too good" for the member of the cast for whom they had been written into the script.
If someone else in a Benny show can steal a scene with good lines . . . even an ad-lib, Jack doesn't highjack it. (And that was no pun either.) He leaves it in and lets the full benefit of the laughs go to the guy or gal who puts it over . . . or perhaps suggested it for the script.
Incidentally, one gag you won't hear on Sunday's show is the one Rochester pulled on yours truly . . . and he didn't mean it as a gag either, he just didn't know.
When he was introduced to Taliaferro, he said he'd been trying to get out and watch the games for a long time and still hoped to sometime. It threw us for a minute, but then it dawned that he was thinking he was meeting the great football player by that name.
We just aren't the same Taliaferro . . . as we have said before, we'll be happy if we can write as good as that one plays football. But as for physical effort . . . it's taken us a day to recover from landing a 25-pound white sea bass from the boat Alalunga on our day off Thursday.
Rochester, Mary Livingstone, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Don (fat as ever) Wilson, and the rest of the cast will really be throwing their best at you Sunday afternoon at 4:00 p. m. and again at 9:30 p. m. over CBS-KNX.

To paraphrase the old song title, what a difference a year makes. Jack’s consternation about splitting efforts and flying to and from New York evaporated. Concern about kinescopes did, too. It was a matter of practicality (until Desi Arnaz, in a brilliant bargaining move, convinced CBS to allow him to film his TV show in Los Angeles in 1951). Jack began his TV career on Oct. 28, 1950, periodic at first. But his series remained on the air in 1965, done in at CBS by executive Jim Aubrey and then at NBC by competition down the dial.

Jack Benny, 1943, Part 2

New writers and new actors. That’s what greeting Jack Benny in the second half of 1943 when he returned from a USO tour of Europe and the Middle East.

Intriguing was a contract that Benny signed with Nat Hiken. But the future creator of The Phil Silvers Show on TV never wrote a syllable for Jack. The military grabbed him before the start of the radio season. Jack then hired five writers, the fifth when one of the other four unexpectedly left. Sam Perrin and Arthur Phillips had been hired in 1936 to write The Big Broadcast of 1937 for Benny, and Perrin was added to his radio show in the summer of 1938, left in 1941, then returned (Phillips eventually wrote The Flintstones).

Hiken had been writing for Fred Allen and did until he quit to work on the radio version of Texaco Star Theatre for Milton Berle (Allen was extremely unhappy about that). Two of Allen’s actors, John Brown and Minerva Pious, could be heard on Jack’s show in the 1943-44. The writers tried to push an “I’m not talking to you” catchphrase for Pious using her Mrs. Nussbaum voice. It was lame at best.

Jack also began shooting The Horn Blows at Midnight, though there was a brief interruption.

The stories below are from Variety, unless otherwise indicated. We have included several different wire reports on Jack’s return from overseas.

July 14, 1943
JACK BENNY STALLED
Vampin' Unit Until Uncle Sam Is Ready to Send Him Abroad
Jack Benny is vampin' 'till Uncle Sam is ready, although he's taken practically all the innoculations prior to his overseas trek for USO-Camp Shows. The radio and film star was to have left this past weekend, but is still, being delayed. Larry Adler, Wini Shaw and Anna Lee will be part of his troupe.
Meantime the entire Benny entourage is remaining east until Benny's departure. They comprise Mary Livingstone (Mrs. Benny), who is not accompanying her husband, and the Myrt Blums (Mary's sister).
So far as the loss of his radio scripters, Ed Morrow, and Bill Beloin [sic] are concerned, the star says, "At least my going overseas to entertain the boys will keep me from worrying about who will I get to write for our radio show in the fall. Somehow that'll take care of itself—I hope."

Minerva Pious, Brown Sign with Jack Benny.
Jack Benny has signed Minerva Pious and John Brown, of the Fred Allen troupe, for his radio program when it resumes on NBC in the fall for General Foods. He'll take them to the Coast with him at that time, but in the meanwhile they will accompany him on his forthcoming trip overseas to entertain the U. S. forces, on the various armed fronts. Allen will vacash from the air till mid-winter.
Charley Cantor, another member of the Allen program, will not be a regular on the Benny show next season, but will be on the Coast, so will be available for appearances when needed. So will the remaining regular from the Allen show, Alan Reed, who is on the Coast on a Metro contract.

July 21, 1943
Jack Benny has signed writer Nat Hiken during his stay in New York. Hiken, like players Minerva Pious and John Brown, whom Benny signed previously, was with Fred Allen’s Texaco program.
The trio will work with Benny on the Coast this fall, and the understanding is that they will return with Allen whenever he elects to go back on the air.

July 28, 1943
Jack Benny Troupe Safe in Middle East
USO-Camp Shows, Inc., was notified yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) via the U. S. War Dept. that Jack Benny and his troupe have arrived in the Middle East.
Accompanying Benny on a three-month tour of off-shore bases to entertain the Yank fighters are Larry Alder, Anna Lee and Wini Shaw. They left N. Y. the latter part of last week.
Troupe may be the first to follow the Yank soldiers right into Sicily and despite the hazardous area which they’re circuiting for USO, embracing many remote areas of the Middle East, efforts may be made to shortwave the performances to the U. S. via a radio program.

August 4, 1943
African Barter
Yacht Club boys returned to N. Y. last week from their middle east USO-Camp Shows tour wearing neckties that Jack Benny took along with him. On the day they left Algiers for home, the Benny-Larry Adler-Wini Shaw-Anna Lee troupe arrived.
“Benny was dressed to kill,” says George Kelly. “We simply told him that where he was going he wouldn't need neckties.”

Cy Howard is back at his WBBM duties following a rest in Michigan. He assumes his new position as scripter for Jack Benny when Benny returns to the air this fall.

August 7, 1943
Rochester Pining to Go Abroad
HOLLYWOOD—(ANP) — Eddie (Rochester) Anderson wants to go to England to entertain the troops and most particularly one Royal Canadian Air Force bomber crew—the crew that voted to name their ship Rochester.
Informed about his namesake in a letter he received from England, Rochester said he felt "deeply humble" about the honor. Jack Benny is already abroad with an all-white troupe.
When he completes his current role opposite Lena Horne in "Broadway Rhythm," he hopes that the powers who decide who goes overseas permit him to make the journey to England.
"I sure wish I had a chance to put on a show for that crew," Rochester said. "It would be the most wonderful thing that could happen to me."

August 10, 1943
Jack Benny, Players Now in Cairo for Tour
CAIRO, Aug. 10.—(AP)—Radio comedian Jack Benny and three other American entertainers, Larry Adler, Anna Lee and Winifred Shaw, arrived at the Cairo airport today for a three-week tour of the Middle East which may be followed by a visit to Britain.
The quartet flew a route taking in more than 13 United Nations outposts on the way.
"We are trying to go as many places where the boys are lonely and hungry for a show as we can," said Benny, who admitted that he left on the tour against his doctor's orders while recovering from an attack of pneumonia.

August 14, 1943
Newsreel Man in Sicily Asked to Cover Jack Benny
WITH THE AEF IN SICILY—(AP)—The battle of Troina was ranging. Cannon roared across the valleys. Machine guns and rifles spat death on the ridges and in the valleys. Irving Smith, Universal newsreel cameraman, was trying to get the record of this historic struggle on film when someone handed him a cable-gram which read:
“Cover Jack Benny show if appearing your vicinity.”
“I wonder,” Smith mused, “if they would like me to take some shots of Mary Livingstone on Mount Etna?” (Don Whitehead, Associated Press)

September 7, 1943
Round and Round Rides Jack Benny
TEHRAN, Iran, Sept. 7 (Delayed) (U.P.)—Jack Benny, comedian on a tour of American Army installations, arrived today in the midst of a dust storm and his plane was forced to circle the airport for hours.
His schedule calls for performances at isolated American bases where temperatures range as high as 160 degrees.

September 8, 1943
NEWSREELS
Par[amount] shows Jack Benny and Wini Shaw at a reception for troops in Egypt.

September 13, 1943
NBC, after an unsuccessful try on Aug. 31. finally succeeded Monday night (13) in making contact with Jack Benny and his USO-Camp Shows troupe in Cairo. The reception was far from ideal, but was good enough to convey to American listeners the terrific job the comedian is doing on behalf of Yank troops overseas. The half-hour shortwave broadcast of the Benny troupe's 1 a.m. (Egypt time) performance before several thousand boys in uniform was geared strictly for laughs. It was the tried and true Benny formula, ringing in the inevitable Fred Allen-Phil Harris cheapskate round of gags, but with some comical switches to fit into the Sphinx-Nile background.
Benny, Anna Lee and Larry Adler did a funny windup skit, 'Two Can Be as Cheap as One.' Adler's virtuosity on the harmonica was as boff as ever. With Wini Shaw's vocalizing of 'The Lady in Red,' it all added up to a punchy routine.

September 14, 1943
Benny’s New Scripters
Jack Benny is losing Nat Hiken to the Army, but has picked up four other scripters to make him forgot Bill Morrow and Ed Beloin. They are Cy Howard, 'Tack' Tackaberry, Milt Josefsberg and George Balzer. Benny opens the new season from N. Y. Oct. 10, one week later that [sic] originally scheduled due to his duties overseas entertaining the troops.

September 15, 1943
JOLSON AND BENNY PROBABLY TO ITALY
Al Jolson and Jack Benny, currently overseas entertaining Yank troops, will probably be the first to go into Italy for USO-Camp Shows. It's even considered likely that at least one of them has already set foot on Italian soil in ‘following through’ with the invasion forces.
Capitulation of Italy is expected to result in a vast expansion of Camp Shows overseas activities, with the CSI execs currently awaiting orders from the War Dept. in Washington or the routing of the offshore stars to take in Italian territory. The Bob Hope troupe, recently returned, performed in Sicily for three days, while the Miles Bell unit spent some time in Pantelleria.
Opening of the new territory will likewise tilt the CSI overseas budget costs, which is presently geared to $40,0000 [sic] a week, though may go far beyond that figure in the near future.

September 29, 1943
Jack Benny, Troupe First Civilians to Invade' Italy
NEW YORK, Sept. 30. (INS) Jack Benny and his U.S.O.-camp shows troupe returned to New York Wednesday [29] with the distinction of being the first American civilians to invade Italy.
The Benny invasion, however, was unscheduled.
"We got into Sicily, then went north to a town named Lentini to entertain a certain group of boys," Benny said Wednesday. "We found they'd already gone to Italy. We asked for and got permission to follow them to Italy. But they didn't tell our officers in Italy we were coming.
"Our plane pulled in, and I got out," Benny said. "A major said bluntly, 'who are you?' 'I'm Jack Benny,' I replied. The major's reply is censored."
Wini Shaw, stage, screen and radio singer, got a warmer reception. She was the second person out of the plane and the soldiers sent up a shout: "An American girl."
Benny, Miss Shaw, Larry Adler, pianist Jack Snyder and motion picture actress Anna Lee played for the men in Italy and the troops left for the battle zone immediately after the show.
The troupe covered 30,000 miles by air, going to Central America, Arabia, the Middle East, the Persian gulf, the gold coast of Africa, Bengasi, Tripoli, Jerusalem, the Suez area, Persia, North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Their plane was named "Five Jerks to Cairo."

Jack Benny Back From 32,000-Mile Tour of Fronts
NEW YORK, Sept. 29. (U.P.)—Comedian Jack Benny returned today from a 32,000 mile tour of overseas troops and said it was the “greatest vacation I ever had—I put on 15 pounds.”
Traveling with a troupe of four, including harmonica player Larry Adler and singer Wini Shaw, Benny played more than 150 shows in Central Africa, North Africa, the Persian Gulf area, Sicily and spent one day in Italy.
“The boys’ morale is wonderful,” Benny said, “but if you want to help them along, quit wiring those blue letters. They’re worrying about the home front.”
Benny said he thought he owed his “15 new pounds” to the good food in the camps and added, “I never felt better in my life.”
Benny said the troupe was scheduled to play a town in Sicily one night, and when they arrived there, they found the troop had left for Italy.
“So we got a quick pass and followed them,” Benny reported. “When the plane landed I stepped out and said ‘I’m Jack Benny,’ and a major looked at me and said ‘And what the hell do you think you’re doing here?’”
* * *
NEW YORK, Sept. 29.—(U.P.)—When Jack Benny landed in Italy to entertain troops, he stepped from his plane and announced, "I'm Jack Benny."
A surprised major looked at him and asked: "What in the hell do you think you're doing here?"
Back from a 32,000-mile tour over-seas the comedian said at a press conference today that the one night stand in Italy wasn't on the schedule until he and Harmonica Player Larry Adler and Singer WinI Shaw arrived to find an audience in Sicily had moved ahead.
Benny found that Arabs, who frequently were in the audience at Algiers, were appreciative listeners. "They'll laugh at anything," he said.
He found good food in the camps and gained 15 pounds while playing 150 shows in central and north Africa, the Persian gulf area and Sicily.

JACK BENNY RETURNS FROM FOREIGN TOUR
NEW YORK, Sept. 29.—Entertaining American fighting men just an hour before they went into battle—some of them to die—was the recent experience of Comedian Jack Benny.
That was when the Benny U. S. O. camp show played a one-day stand in Italy. The entertainers have just returned to the United States.
“They were a wonderful audience; no one would have thought they were going into battle,” Benny said today.
“I want to pay tribute to the doctors and nurses,” he said. They are doing a great and amazing job—and they all want to get to the front.”
In their airplane the Five Jerks to Cairo, Benny, Larry Adler, harmonica player; Winni Shaw [sic], singer; Anna Lee, film actress, and Jack Snyder, pianist, flew more than 32,000 miles to perform more than 150 times for fighting men.
“The rations the men get are wonderful,” Benny said, adding he gained 15 pounds on them.
* * *
NEW YORK, Sept. 30 (AP)—Comedian Jack Benny is home after a 10-week air tour of American army camps in Italy, Africa and the Middle East and his only complaint is that newer motion pictures haven't been sent to the fighting men.
"In Iran, according to current films, Shirley Temple hadn't been born yet, and Francis X. Bushman had just won the popularity contest," he remarked yesterday in an interview.
Benny's troupe of entertainers, who toured under the auspices of the USO Camp Shows, was the first to follow the Allied army from Sicily into Italy's "toe."
In addition to Benny, Larry Adler, harmonic player, Wini Shaw, singer, and Anna Lee, film, actress, and Jack Snyder, pianist, made the 32,000-mile trip in the airplane, "Five Jerks to Cairo."

LETTER FROM ADLER
Larry Adler, the harmonica virtuoso who appears at the Eastman Oct.8 with dancer Paul Draper, recently wrote from Persia to Leonard Lyons about his overseas trip entertaining service men with Jack Benny and others: "I'm writing this in a tent by wretched illumination. Outside, the troops are waiting to see our show, sitting on tin cans and lorries. The trip across was not too easy. We flew continuously, day and night, through the Egyptian Sudan, the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Arabia. At one African base, Jack Benny and the rest of us were greeted with signs ‘Down with Fred Allen’ and ‘Waukegan Airport.’ The general in command liked our show and as a result we now have our own plane, with two pilots and a flight surgeon. Jack and I saw the Sphinx. Its expression remained inscrutable. (Howard C. Hosmer, Rochester Times-Union)

October 6, 1943
Jolson, Benny Ask Switch in Staffs' Routing to Reach Boys in Foxholes
Out of the new and exciting chapter in the heroic saga of 'show business at war' written into the USO-Camp Shows record by Al Jolson and Jack Benny, just back from tours of the global fighting fronts, will come important recommendations on future channeling of entertainers into Yank bases overseas.
Checking in at Camp Shows headquarters in N. Y. last week, the two top-ranking stars sat down with CSI prexy Abe Lastvogel and submitted data for improved operation of the overseas program based on their own experiences, which will be, incorporated in a detailed report to the War Dept.
Benny, back from a 12-week swing of the ‘War Front Circuit’ where he, Larry Adler, Wini Shaw, Anna Lee and accompanist Jack Snyder, comprising the 'Five Jerks in a Jeep' troupe—as they term it—brought cheer to hundreds of thousands of the fighting boys, cites the need for switches in routing and the concentration of stars in single areas for a greater period of time instead of spreading them over a large part of the globe. Under the latter arrangement, Benny points out, only a small segment of the boys at each base can be reached. The remainder, looking forward with eagerness to a star's visit only to find themselves left out in the cold, are doubly disappointed.
That's because of the far-flung routing schedule which only permits for short engagements before shoving off another 500 or 1,000 miles to the next spot. Naturally, it's pointed out, with only temporary facilities available, the Yank troop personnel at any one base, can't possibly be taken care of. Thus, having the celebrities so near and yet so far inevitably creates a letdown feeling and discontent.

Jack Benny spent a couple of days in his home town, Waukegan, Ill., last week, combining visit with home folks and participation in War Loan drives.

October 10, 1943
JACK BENNY
With Mary Livingstone, Dennis Day, Rochester, Phil Harris, Don Wilson
Director: Walter Bunker
Writers: Milton Josefsberg, George Balzcr, John Tackerberg [sic], Si Howard [sic]
Comedy, Songs, Band
GRAPENUTS
30 Mins.; Sun., 7 p.m.
WEAF-NBC, New York
(Young & Rubicam)
No returned program to the networks this season has stirred so much post-initial broadcast comment in the trade as Jack Benny’s. The show (10) had the cognoscenti shaking their heads over the comic's ability to sit down with an entirely new corps of writers and within the space of 10 days whip together, a production that sounded about as explosively entertaining as anything turned out in the heydey of Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow, Benny's whilom scripting team. The innate showmanship will out, regardless of the combination of reversed or changing circumstances, and Benny underscored the adage with plenty of stuff.
The crossfire centered completely around the comic's recent tour of U. S. service camps in Africa, Sicily and the Middle East, and the decorum, taste and fine sense of comedy values with which Benny treated this background might well serve as a model for his confreres, in the medium, The reunion of Benny with his troupe was replete with the old, skilled touches of fast jibe and barb. The material was fresh, crisp and scintillating. Benny's regular line-flinging henchfolk were all alertly on the mark. The special complement of bit contributors added much to the laugh, din and Dennis Day was in exceptionally fine voice. In brief, it was grade AA Benny radio fare.
The Benny format itself is not altered in the slightest. The same applies to the characteristics and quirks of the No. 1 man and his menage, which, like the past several seasons, consists of Mary Livingstone, Rochester (Eddie Anderson), Don Wilson and Day. The production was tip-top.Odec

October 12, 1943
Hollywood—Raoul Walsh draws the director assignment on the next Jack Benny starrer at Warners, a comedy titled “The Horn Blows At Midnight.”
Picture is slated to start Nov. 10 with a heavy budget.

Wini Shaw Backs Benny On Overseas Pix Beef
Springfield, Mass.—Jack Benny’s comments on the age and condition of the films being shown to American soldiers overseas are “100% correct,” Wini Shaw told interviewers here this week. First American girl to enter the Italian mainland and to perform for the service men there, the songstress said that some of the pictures were in disgraceful condition.
About Benny himself and the way he trouped she had high praise. “He never pulled his rank on us,” she commented. “The boys loved him. The pity is that more of them couldn’t have seen him. That’s why more performers have got to get over there and keep those boys entertained.”

October 13, 1943
Professional Pique
While boys at overseas bases are getting recordings of top radio programs, there aren’t enough to go around, Jack Benny told 75 radio newspapermen and others from the radio trade at a luncheon tossed by NBC at the 21 Club, N. Y., last week (13). Benny says it’s one phase of entertainment that requires looking into if the boys’ morale is to be kept up.
Judging from recordings he heard, Benny averred, “you’d think there’s only one comedian in America, Ferd Allen. Morning, noon and night they get recordings of Allen, which kept me in a Palermo hospital five days instead of three.”

October 20, 1943
Benny’s End As an Actor and Switch To Exec Chores Will Come With Peace
By GEORGE ROSEN
Comes the peace and Jack Benny plans to give up his career as a film and radio comedian and channel his energies into some other equally creative phase of the film industry. That, says Benny, would, probably embrace assuming either production or directorial reins or stepping into, some administrative-executive post, where, he feels, he could do as effective a job and derive the same measure of satisfaction as being one of the top stars in the world of entertainment.
But before he chucks acting, Benny is anxious to get a crack at a play on Broadway. He's cherished the ambition for a long time; he wants the feel of a live audience that's been lacking since his hey-day in vaudeville, and as such has a furtive eye cast in search of the right script. His bow on Broadway in legiter, says Benny, will probably be his swan song as an actor.
His own film production unit, which Benny has been contemplating seriously for the past year, now appears off for the duration. Because of the manifold uncertainties while there’s a war on, Benny feels that setting up his own production outfit at this time would be unwise.
The trip abroad for USO-Camp Shows entertaining Yank, British and Aussie troops on the battlefronts convinced the comedian that he could serve best by continuing his radio program and pictures for the duration. You can't appreciate, avers Benny, just how important those transcriptions of radio comedy shows are in the overall morale picture on the scattered war fronts. There’s nothing vain, he maintains, in acknowledging that a Benny show shipped to the boys via recording serves as a tremendous hypo. He himself didn’t realize this its true value until, accompanied by Larry Adler, Wini Shaw and Anna Lee, he showed up in person. That’s why Benny, since his return, has been putting such emphasis on the importance of the other comedians going over.
That trip, Benny made it perfectly clear, proved as beneficial to him as it did to the fighting boys, since it’s helped to change his entire perspective. Traditionally a worrisome guy who constantly carried on his shoulders the ominous weight of next Sunday’s broadcast, Benny has now relegated to the background those personal problems since they stack up as picayune in comparison to what’s going on over there. Not that Benny still isn’t interested in having click programs, but somehow it doesn’t loom so momentous now.

October 27, 1943
Hollywood—Jack Benny was indicated into the WACs as “honorary recruiting officer” in appreciation of his recent tour of entertainment overseas.

November 1, 1943
Benny Won’t Be Caught With His Gags Down
Jack Benny’s radio writers checked in with the comedian at Warner Bros. over the weekend to remain until he completes his acting chore in “The Horn Blows at Midnight.” Writers take up half of Benny’s dressing room. Hollywood Reporter

November 2, 1943
Lew Lehr and others of the switch-masters will work on the gags sent in by Jack Benny during WJZ’s “Awake the Switch,” Tuesday evening [2] at 7:05. (Note: Jack was also advertised as appearing on Burns and Allen that evening).

November 3, 1943
ELGIN'S THANKSGIVING TALENT TO COST 30G
Elgin will spend around $30,000 in talent for its two-hour show on CBS Thanksgiving afternoon (4-6). The cast to date consists of Robert Young, m.c.; Jack Benny, Dinah Shore, Jack Douglas, Edgar Bergen, Alvino Rey, Lena Horne, Jose Iturbi, Danny O'Neill, Burns and Allen, Jimmy Newell, the Pied Pipers and Don Wilson.
The program will probably be short waved to men in the armed services through arrangement made with the War Department.

November 10, 1943
GF WON'T LET BENNY DO THANKSGIVING SHOW
General Foods has refused to grant Jack Benny permission to appear on Elgin Watch's two-hour Thanksgiving Day show over CBS. As the result of this snag, the J. Walter Thompson agency has switched Ed Gardner from Elgin’s Christmas Day lineup to the Nov. 25 event.
Another change due to the Benny turndown is that of the Thanksgiving. Day announcer. Don Wilson has been replaced by Ken Carpenter.

'Soldiers in Greasepaint' Airer on Turkey Day Adds Many Big Names
Al Jolson, Jane Froman, Judith Anderson, Ray Bolger, Little Jack Little, Jascha Heifetz, Pat O'Brien, Adolphe Menjou, John Garfield and Jinx Falkenburg have been added to the special' 'Soldiers in Greasepaint' 45-minute program to be broadcast domestically and shortwaved by NBC Thanksgiving Day (25) as tribute to performers who have toured U. S. bases. Jack Benny and Bob Hope had been previously set as m.c.s of the show, sponsored jointly by NBC and USO Camp Shows, Inc.
Plus the originations from Hollywood. New York and Washington, program will pick up such overseas points as London, Honolulu, North Africa and Panama, where American performers will be entertaining U.S. servicemen on that dale.
Others scheduled to broadcast are Andy Devine, Jim Burke, Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye and Frances Langford.

November 9, 1943
Don Lee Lands Benny Repeat
Hollywood—Jack Benny's Sunday shows are now being rebroadcast over the Don Lee network via transcription. Lewis Allen Weiss, boss of the chain, completed the negotiations, after Young & Rubicam had effected a clearance for the music with James Petrillo, prez of American Federation of Musicians. Blue, net carried the waxed repeat last year until Petrillo stepped in and ordered all canned music off the networks.
Under the arrangement with AFM, agency agreed to a payment of $36 per man and double pay for the leader (Phil Harris). Members of American Federation of Radio Artists, aside, from the principals, are paid $26 for the repeat, on which they spin but do not toil.
Blue made a strong pitch to retrieve the program, but the earliest night time they could clear along the Coast was 9:30, which was held to be too late. Don Lee's offer of 8:30 to 9 was acceptable to all parties and a deal was struck. Last year Benny rated a 27 Crossley on the Blue rebroadcast, approaching his 4 p.m. audience on the Coast.
Another plan to put the full Benny half-hour transcriptions, on the Keystone Broadcasting System is in the works. Object is to reach the hinterlands not covered by networks. Keystone is now carrying a series of one-minute spots for G. F. featuring Benny and Rochester for Grape Nuts; plus minute spots for Wheat-Meal and Grape-Nuts Flakes through Young & Rubicam, and minute spots for Bran Flakes through Benton & Bowles.
NBC Opposed Idea
NBC's efforts to keep the off-the-line recordings, from going to the Blue or Don Lee caused much bitterness within the Young & Rubicam agency. NBC went over the head of the agency to General Foods and offered to place, the recordings on individual NBC Coast outlets for repeat purposes, but the agency held but for the use of a second regional link and it's recommendation was upheld by the account.

November 10, 1943
Jack Benny, in describing his recent tour of Africa and Sicily, referred to the speed at which travel now is possible. “I had breakfast in Accra, dinner in Cairo and dysentery in Palestine—all in one day.” (Leonard Lyons column)

November 21, 1943
FORMER CAMPUS student actor and playwright, Cy Howard, a script writer for Jack Benny, will play one of the lead roles in Maxwell Anderson’s “Storm Operations.” Anderson went overseas to obtain material for the play, named after the code word used to designate operations of the Sicilian invasion. Howard will continue to write for Benny on a part-time basis (Stirling Sorenson, Capital Times). Note: Howard never wrote for Benny again.

November 16, 1943
Agencies Watch Don Lee Repeat
Hollywood—Agencies, especially those with shows airing in early evening from here for the east, are keeping close tabs on the Jack Benny transcribed repeat over the Don Lee network at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday nights. Several shows are reported ready to follow the lead of General Foods in rebroadcasting via wax despite earlier coverage of the Coast.
Crossley ratings attained on the Don Lee net by Benny will be closely scanned and will serve as a barometer for the others interested, in such, a move. Reason for the General Foods repeat is that the earlier Crossley failed to approximate halt of the eastern rating. Breakdown of an average Crossley for Benny last season was 40 for the east and midwest, against 18 for the Coast on the 4 p.m. time. Before James C. Petrillo stepped in and called a halt to canned music on the chains, Benny hit a high Crossley of 27 on the Coast Blue with the late night repeat, averaging off with a 22.
It was not without a fight that 'Lewis Allen Weiss, head of the Don Lee network, grabbed, off one of the most sought-after shows in radio-Blue network made a strong pitch, but lost out because it couldn't clear the network before 9:30 p.m. NBC also tried to hold the repeat on its skein through the process of having each. Coast affiliate take the program off the line at 4 p.m. and play it back later at night. Inability to clear Portland and make available an early time than 9:30 killed off NBC's chances. CBS showed no interest in the proceedings.
Odd angle to the waxed rebroadcast, first under the new ruling by American Federation of Musicians, is that members of Phil Harris' band are paid $36 per man for the recording, whereas they would be paid only $12 per man for a live repeat. Actors are paid $26 for the rebroadcast.

November 17, 1943
Hollywood.—Sam Perrin back writing for Jack Benny after nine years. He moved in when Cy Howard moved out to play a comedy part in Maxwell Anderson’s “Storm Operations” on Broadway.

November 21, 1943
Hollywood—Ed Beloin shook himself loose from his picture writing chores to do the Mr. Billingsley character on the Jack Benny show last Sunday [21]. Beloin quit Benny when Bill Morrow was drawn into the Army.

November 23, 1943
NEW FOLIO RELEASED FOR SOLDIER SHOWS
Washington—Latest folio (No. 9) issued by the Entertainment Section of the Army Special Services, for the use of men overseas and in training camps in the U. S., includes five specially written scripts. They are ‘First Cousins,' by Corp. Kurt Kasznar; a triple bill of three short sketches including 'A La Carte," by Max Liebman; 'Havoc on the Assembly Line,' by Fred Allen, and 'The Strange Face of Tom Hickory,’ by Arthur Pierson; and "Horses," by William K. Wells.
Other material in the folio includes scripts from the 'Fibber McGee and Molly," Kay Kyser, “What's My Name," Jack Benny, “Duffy’s” and Fred Allen programs, and Thanksgiving and Christmas shows. The material was collected by the Committee on Scripts for Soldier and Sailor Shows of the Writers War Board, for approval and distribution by the Army Special Services.

November 24, 1943
Allen Unable to Line Up Air Talent for Coast Start, So Film Delayed
Although skedded to go into production next month, the Fred Allen picture, under his one-film deal with Jack Skirball, is off until next summer. As a result, Allen's radio show for Texaco, which starts Dec. 12; will originate from New York instead of from the Coast as originally planned.
Inability of Allen to line up all of his radio show talent on the Coast prompted the decision to move it to N. Y. and put off the picture, until next July. Meanwhile, the question whether Minerva Pious returns to the Allen program or continues with the Jack Benny show is still to be settled.
Allen gels into N. Y. this week from the Coast with Skirball due in next week. Through the winter they'll complete work on the film script, with Allen returning to the Coast when his air show winds up in June for a vacation.

November 29, 1943
Warner Bros. has exercised its option on Dolores Moran, blonde young beauty who makes her acting bow with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins in “Old Acquaintance.” She starts work with Jack Benny and Alexis Smith this week in “The Horn Blows at Midnight.” (Bergen Evening Herald)

November 30, 1943
Allen's Alley Loses Three of Its Tenants
Hollywood—Fred Allen will be shy three of his 'Allen's Alley' characters when he resumes Dec. 12 for Texaco from New York. Minerva Pious and John Brown have been smitten by the California sunshine and are remaining on the Jack Benny program. Charlie Cantor also is continuing with 'Duffy's' Tavern' and won't be east until Dec. 28. (Note: the Alley that evening included Everett Sloan as Mr. Hollister, Betty Walker as the replacement for Mrs. Nussbaum, 1930’s cast member Jack Smart as Samson Souse, and Alan Reed as Fred Flintstone Falstaff Openshaw).

December 1, 1943
A & C Now Among Top 10 Shows
Abbott and Costello, who returned to the air several weeks ago for Camel cigaret, joined the top 10 programs in popularity, with a Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting rating of 26.0. The CAB report, the second of the 1943-44 winter season, was the first since the comedy team had resumed its series for the tobacco account.
The top-ranking show, according to the CAB survey, is “Fibber McGee and Molly," with a rating of 39.9. Following, in order of popularity, are Bob Hope, Lux “Theatre,” Edgar Bergen, Jack Benny, Fanny Brice-Frank Morgan, “Aldrich Family,” Red Skelton, Joan Davis-Jack Haley, Abbott and Costello. The list at this time last year was “Fibber” (with a rating of 40.8), Benny, Bergen, Hope, Lux, Aldrich, Bing Crosby, Brice-Morgan, Kay Kyser, Skelton.

December 8, 1943
Jack Benny has written series of 32 articles, sort of letters to families of American soldiers in the Medittereanean [sic] area. King Features is releasing.

December 5, 1943
Christmas flavoring to commercial and sustaining air shows on all stations throughout the country next week will be climaxed as usual with special religious, servicemen's and feature, programs on major networks Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Sunday (26). . . .
Another CBS holiday offering will be the Xmas afternoon Elgin variety show (4 to 6) with Bing Crosby, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Lena Horne and other Stars; Henry Busse's orch and Robert Young, m.c, also will be heard.

December 14, 1943
Hollywood.—Epidemic of flu, laryngitis and kindred ailments during the last week cost Hollywood plenty in delayed production, not counting the numerous hospital bills. In some cases the casualties were so numerous that shooting stopped completely. . . .
Jack Benny’s laryngitis and Dolores Moran’s influenza cost two days on “The Horn Blows at Midnight.”

December 21, 1943
Hollywood—Film personalities who have entertained troops in the North African sector are collaborating on a ‘Command Performance’ transcription to be sent overseas soon at the request of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower through the Hollywood Victory Committee.
On the waxed program are Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Frances Langford, Tony Romano, Ann Lee, Kay Francis, Martha Raye, Carol Landis and Mitzi Mayfair.

December 22, 1943
Hope Now First In Hooper Ratings
The Fibber McGee program maintained its 32.4 rating in the Dec. 15 Hooper analysis, but dropped into second place as Bob Hope marked up 33.1 to lead the commercial parade. Hope's last rating was 31.2. Jack Benny jumped from sixth to fourth place in the current listing, climbing over “Lux Radio Theatre” and the “Aldrich Family,” who topped him in the previous chart. The Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy show remained in the third spot with a 29.5 rate as against a November figure of 29.2.
Hooper ratings revealed a figure of 31.7 for “sets in use,” representing an increase of almost 5% over the Nov. 20 figure. Average rating is up 3% from last report. The first 10 shows for the period, Dec. 1 to 7, were:
Bob Hope 33.1
Fibber McGee 32.4
Charlie McCarthy 29.5
Jack Benny 26.7
Radio Theatre 26.2
Aldrich Family 24.1
Mr. D. A 23.7
Morgan-Brice 23.2
*Eddie Cantor 22.2
*Winchell 22.2
Bing Crosby 21.7
*—tied for 9th.

Franz Waxman writing an original score for 'The Horn Blows at Midnight," Jack Benny picture at Warners.

Now, a bonus. Below, you can hear the USO show in Cairo rebroadcast in the U.S. The NBC announcer at the start and finish is Ed Herlihy.