Warren Foster wrote a life story for Bugs Bunny and Bob McKimson filmed it in “What's Up Doc?” There are some sequences I really like, and a great one is when Bugs is on a park bench with other unemployed vaudevillians, hoping to get a break from the shining star of the big time, Elmer Fudd.
The caricatures of Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and Bing Crosby couldn’t be much better, and the animation of them auditioning for Fudd is perfect. I especially love Jolson. Whoever did this scene captured him beautifully (see the comments for the answer). You have to watch how he turns and looks pleadingly desperate as the snobbish Fudd passes by him. And Bing’s mouth movements singing “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” are fun.
The kicker is Fudd’s line: “Bugs Bunny! What are you hanging around with these guys? They’ll never amount to anything!” Of course, the joke is that they did. They had been stars for more than 20 years by the time the cartoon was released. And they were really stars until the day they died; all but Cantor were still working.
Jolson’s voice in the cartoon is provided by Dave Barry, who worked on the Jolson radio show.
Animators came and went in McKimson’s unit. Credited on this one are Bill Melendez, Chuck McKimson, Phil De Lara and Pete Burness, the last time his name appears on a Warners cartoon. Jack Carey and Emery Hawkins had been doing work in the McKimson unit but went from director to director, wherever needed. The background is by Dick Thomas.
“Bully For Bugs” contains the kind of stop-and-let-the-drawing-sink-in posing Chuck Jones is noted for, but it also a couple of scenes where you can find head multiples, as a character moves from one pose to the next.
This is after the bull enters and stops after running in perspective to the camera.
And here’s where Bugs says “pardon me” while standing behind the bull.
It appears different artists in the Jones unit had different ways of moving characters. If you watch “Long-Haired Hare” (1949), for example, you’ll notice smear drawings, where an arm is moved from top to bottom of the frame by, in essence, connecting the two positions together into one long, wide arm. On the other hand, “Rabbit Seasoning” (1952) has odd multiples. I’ll put some up in a future post.
Nostalgia tells us World War Two was a fun time in Hollywood. The stars were entertaining “our boys” overseas, with a happy collective camaraderie as they jaunted from place to place around the globe. The exuberance of patriotism to help win that clear-cut fight with the Nazis (never the ‘Germans’) and the Japs (always the people and not their government).
Korea was a lot different. The world was still worn out from the last war. And it was a war that was more ideological than personal. Sure, the entertainers made their trips to brighten the lives of “our boys” but it seems to have been done out of a sense of obligation than anything else.
Jack Benny toured overseas during World War Two. He kept a little diary and while there’s a sense of weariness at times, the entries leave you with the impression he was enjoying himself some of the time. You don’t get that sense from his trip to Korea, certainly not from this United Press column which appeared in newspapers starting September 14, 1951.
Jack Benny Finally Is Feeling His Age By VIRGINIA MacPHERSON U. P. Hollywood Correspondent HOLLYWOOD, (UP) — Jack Benny confessed today he’s about through telling people he’s 39. That last trip to Korea made him feel every day of his 58 years. “I came home completely worn out,” the comedian said. “And it kinda scared me. That was my fifth trip to the wars—and I think it was my last.” Feeling 58 came as something of a shock to Benny, who doesn’t think he looks it. (He’s right. He doesn’t.) “Mentally, you feel the same at 58 as you do at 39,” he said grinning. “But after weeks of slogging through that Korean mud and sleeping only four hours a night I couldn't kid myself any more. “From here on in I’m gonna have to let the younger kids entertain the troops. There’ve been a few other signs that made me think I’m not 39 any more, but Korea convinced me.” Benny starts his 20th year in radio day after tomorrow. And all the old gang’s back with him. The only one who gave any trouble was his own wife. “Mary wants to quit,” he said. “She doesn't like show business and we have a heck of a time signing her up every year. “She refused to do any television with me. Doesn’t think she’s any good. But, although she does less comedy than anybody on the show, she’s one of the top favorites with the fans.” So Benny backed her into a corner, shoved a pen in her hand, and made her sign on the dotted line. She still isn’t happy about it, though. Jack doesn't blame her. He’d like to retire himself. “I’ve been at this for 40 years,” he said, gazing at the shimmering swimming pool two decades of gags have paid for. “But I know I could never quit show business for good. “I’d like to semi-retire. Do maybe 13 weeks of radio and six weeks of TV and then play theaters in England and Australia. I could squeeze long vacations in between each of these. “I’d like to do a Broadway play, too, but I can’t. I’m stuck.” The only reason Benny’s “stuck” is that he’s too good. He has a big staff that earns fabulous dough helping him be funny every Sunday night. And if he quits now, he said, they’ll have to hunt for new jobs. Some of them after 18 years with him. “But if there's any quitting,” he said, chuckling, “I want to do it myself. I don’t wanta hang around until they fire me.”
“Our boys” may have had more fun that Jack did. When he arrived for his first show on the front line on July 4, he was greeted with a huge, red-lettered sign that read “Welcome, Fred Allen.” He left California at 2 a.m. on June 27 for a five-week tour, along with Errol Flynn, Benay Venuta and Marjorie Reynolds, stopping at the Travis Air Force base in California and several bases in Hawaii before heading to Korea.
MacPherson’s column touches on two other things. Evidently, it wasn’t commonly known at the time that Mary wanted off the show. Anyone who has listened to the Benny show realises quickly her own assessment of her ability was wrong. But perhaps hanging around Hollywood’s elite all those years gave her a feeling of inferiority.
And while Jack wearied of the show-biz grind, he kept himself interested by doing different things. He had moved from vaudeville to radio to television (with some slight overlapping). Then he did Vegas shows. And then switched his focus altogether by taking part in charity symphony performances. And, had he lived longer, he might have revived his dormant movie career, having been cast in “The Sunshine Boys” (today, six sequels would have been planned before shooting even began). Show business never fired him. And he never quit. He was there until the very end.
“The internet,” said a greying philosopher, “is a land where people go to have their idiosyncrasies validated.” Buried beneath the porn and advertising (which can be the same thing) are virtual oases which cater to every conceivable arcane interest. And where one learns that, yes, someone else delights in the same arcane interest, too.
There isn’t just one, but several web sites devoted to a familiar sound on radio and television for decades—the NBC chimes. During my boyhood, they accompanied the network’s letters slithering into formation on the screen. A generation earlier, they ended every radio broadcast. In fact, they were even parodied in animated cartoons going back to the early ‘30s.
There’s likely more esoterica about the chimes on the internet than you’d probably want to know. But allow me to add some more.
Out of curiosity, I decided to hunt through some old newspapers to find the earliest reference to the notes that ended each NBC network programme. So here are some clippings.
Winnipeg Free Press, Jan. 4, 1930 B.C.L. writes in the Milwaukee Journal: “You listeners-in must have noticed the chimes now being used by the NBC for station identification. It’s a great relief from the old hackneyed “A brief pause for station announcement” but it’s rather wearing on the announcers. For these individuals the musical notes mean GET IN FRONT OF THAT ‘MIKE.’ Wherever they go chimes are sure to ring out. One announcer recently attended a formal dinner and the hall clock chimed the hour. The announcer is said to have revived some 15 minutes from the fit of coughing which overtook him as he almost swallowed his soup spoon when the chimes startled him. Imagine the embarrassment of an announcer in church when the chimes ring out, wake him from a half slumber and he suddenly rises from his seat and delivers the station call letters.”
San Antonio Express, Nov. 16, 1930 ...one day when the hammer that is used to sound those terrible NBC chimes which mark the 15-minute periods was mislaid, [Neel B.] Enslen grabbed a pipe out of Ed (Engineer) Knapf’s mouth and boomed away . . . said Announcer Enslen as he returned the improvised hammer . . . “that was a pipe.” . . . O-w-w-w-w-.
Tralfaz says: Enslen had been at NBC since 1929. He had been a baritone with the American Opera Company. He committed suicide, age 38, on May 22, 1938, sticking his head in a gas oven. He had been battling alcoholism and had returned to work after four months off dealing with it. With that pleasant report, let us continue.
Wisconsin State Journal, Dec. 14, 1930 The chimes used by the National Broadcasting company every 15 minutes as cues for network stations to make their local announcements, are heard on an average of 141 times a day. There are 143 synchronizations each weekday and 128 on Sunday.
Wisconsin State Journal, Dec. 20, 1930 Following a recent argument in the Chicago NBC studios, Walter Lanterman, studio engineer, made a rather interesting discovery about the four-note chimes now being used between programs in national broadcasts. By mathematical computation, he has found that 87,296 different combinations are possible with the chimes now in use. It is improbable that NBC will experiment with all the possible combinations, for it would take a man more than a week to try them all out, allowing five seconds for each combination. If NBC ever did desire to use sufficient chimes every day, however, the possible combinations would be sufficient, to last for more than 200 years without repetition.
Peter Dixon, Beacon Syndicate, Nov. 1, 1931 It remained for Ray Perkins to stage the best gag around the NBC chimes. In a recent program Perkins built up a very “English” atmosphere and then said: “In a moment you will hear the sound so dear to every Englishman, the chimes of Big Ben.” And then the NBC chimes rang out.
Tralfaz says: Perkins emceed an amateur show on CBS through the ‘30s, became a reserve in the Army Intelligence Service, moved to Denver where he worked in radio, then TV. He’s noted for the words “In case of a tie, duplicate judges will be awarded.”
Associated Press, July 22, 1932 By C.E. BUTTERFIELD New York, July 22—(AP)— The day of the announcer-operated chimes on the networks may soon be at an end. An electrical device has been designed to do the job. At the same time there will be eliminated the “sour” notes that often materialized when the announcer failed to hit the three-note xylophones used to produce the chimes in the proper sequence or with the right force. The new device is a development of Capt. R. H. Ranger, radio engineer, noted for his work on the electric organ and in facsimile radio transmission. All the announcer need do is press a small button. That not only “rings” the chimes but cuts them into the proper network.
Oakland Tribune, Nov. 4, 1934 The old tradition of the theater, “The show must go on,” holds good in radio, too. On a recent Friday night the “One Man’s Family” episode was one long agony for Minetta Ellen, who has the role of Mrs. Barbour, gentle voiced, kindly mother in the Carlton E. Morse serial of American family life. Although she was suffering from a severe case of ptomaine poisoning, she went through with her part. She collapsed as Announcer William Andrews was striking the NBC chimes at the end of the drama. She was taken to the hospital and on the following night, when the serial went on the air for Eastern ears, Verna Felton doubled for her.
Syracuse Herald, March 9, 1936 To countless listeners all over the world, the NBC chimes are three melodious notes heard before local station identification. To operators at NBC associated stations they are the unerring signal to announce identifying call letters and to the telephone repeater station operators to break down existing network set-ups and reestablish new connections. To the engineering and musical experts who designed them, however, they are not chimes at all, but electrically and musically perfect tines which vibrate at the touch of a button on an announcer’s studio panel. It has been four years since the old hand-struck chimes were used. They varied too greatly in volume. If the announcer struck them too lustily with his padded hammer, the sound would blast annoyingly through loudspeakers and sometimes circuit breakers would snap out. If they were sounded softly, operators at relay points along interconnecting lines might miss the cue to throw switches for local announcements and network realignment. To thrust such irregularities definitely into the past, the NBC engineering department, under the supervision of O. B. Hanson, chief engineer, and Capt. R. H. Ranger, inventor, designed and created the mechanism now relied upon for its smooth and constant volume. When the announcer touches the button on his panel in a studio, a relay clicks floors away and the chimes machinery starts, A motor turns and two second after the button is pushed, the first gong sounds. The two other follow at one second intervals. The metal tines which produce the chime tones are not struck. They are plucked by pins on a motor-driven drum. That particular part of the chimes operation suggests the workings of an old-fashioned music box. What listeners believe they hear when each of these notes is struck is a melodious tone like that of a perfectly tuned bell. What they actually hear for each is the harmony of eight of these metal tongues, plucked in union by pins on the revolving drum. The first of each series of tongues is the fundamental. The other seven are harmonics which give the richness to the tones. The fundamentals sound in order. G below middle C; E above middle C, and middle C. Considerable tuning and balancing of the harmonics was required before the chimes could be brought to their full richness. When these series of tunes are struck, they are barely audible to the ear. The vibrations are fed into the circuit by utilization of the electro-static principle. Close to each tuned tine is an untuned tine. As the tuned tines vibrate, the electrical capacity between it and the untuned tine varies, thus inducing electric vibrations which finally are translated by the listener’s receiver into a musical tone.
San Mateo News Leader, Dec. 2, 1937 Temperament gum-shoed its ugly way into the joint and everything went to blazes! Last Thursday night a great and glorious tradition crashed ‘round the heads of Bing Crosby and Bob Burns when, at the halfway mark in the broadcast, Ken Carpenter refused to ring the NBC chimes. This coming on the heels of guest star Chester Morris’ remark that above and beyond Bing’s singing and Bob’s bazooka-ing, he enjoyed the way Ken rang the bells, was a rude awakening indeed for Music Hall veterans. While stooge and star alike stood agape and a shocked nation refused to believe what it all too plainly heard, Ken, in tones flat with despair, said, “I just don’t feel like it tonight. I’m not in the mood.” And there just weren’t any bells! Obviously, this can’t go on. Bing’s Music Hall must have bells ringing somewhere along the halfway mark. Will this Carpenter lethargy linger? Did Chester Morris’ praise too much for Carpenter, the artist. If so, will a committee have to be appointed to wait upon Mr. Carpenter and coddle him into a bell-ringing mood? Whatever has to be done, must be done. Bing, you’ve got to see to it. It’s your hall, they’re your bells and Ken’s being paid good money to ring ‘em. We’ve grown mighty attached to their merry little pong! pong! pong! We wait impatiently each week for Ken’s masterful rendition. In fact, we’re inclined to agree with Chester Morris that it’s the best part of the show. Yes, this Ken guy has sure got a touch! While the spotlight of attention flickers with a questioning light on the moody Carpenter, Edward Arnold and Barbara Weeks, both from the screen, and Joseph Knitzer, American violinist, will rally ‘round to lend moral support to a nervous and over-anxious cast. Ken’s just got to ring them bells! (KPO, 7 p. m.)
Connesville Daily Courier, August 18-19 1938 By JOE CARSON You’ll soon be able to compete with KEN CARPENTER, chime-ringer extraordinary for the Bing Crosby show, right in your own home. Ken has created such hullabaloo over chimes in the last few months that now NBC has arranged a tie-up with a bell manufacturer to put a set of standard NBC chimes on the market. It’s all part of a deep dark plan to make America chime-conscious . . . Why? I don’t know. More about chimes tomorrow! * * * The NBC chimes, most-famous of musical trade marks, will begin sounding the hour for the thousands of New Yorkers and out-of-town visitors who daily pass through Radio City and the adjacent plaza and walks of Rockefeller Center. Synchronized with one of the large ornamental clocks overlooking the Sunken Plaza, the familiar chimes which have identified the two networks of NBC for more than a decade, will mark each hour between 8 A. M. and 1 A. M. for all in the vicinity of Radio City. Only recently extended to use outside radio, the chimes have already been adopted by three large American railroads. For several weeks travelers on the Baltimore & Ohio and Alton systems have been called to meals in the dining cars by the sound of the melodious chimes. This week they were adopted by the New York Central Railroad for the same purpose, and 150 sets of hand operated chimes are now being placed in. service on that road. To make the chimes sound in the streets about Radio City, a system has been set up including a loud speaker, three small clocks, and the large ornamental clock in the south facade of the International Building.
Madison Capital Times, June 30, 1940 The dedication of a new, six-foot square, three-quarter-ton, NBC-chimed clock and the broadcasting of the first sounding of the chimes which are expected to become as familiar to visitors o£ Chicago’s Loop as Big Ben’s chimes are to Londoners will be presented as part of the Merchandise Mart's Tenth Anniversary celebration during the National Farm and Home Hour program at 10:30 Monday morning over Station WIBA. The celebration will open with “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” current theme tune of the National Farm and Home Hour, followed by “Over the Waves,” which was the theme 10 years ago when the Farm and Home Hour moved into new studios in the penthouse of the Mart, world’s largest building. A dramatic review of the history of- the building will serve as an introduction to the presentation of the clock. The ceremonies will be broadcast from the North Bank Drive entrance way of the building. During the presentation, Frederick D. Corley, president of Marshall Field & Co., and Edward J. Kelly, mayor of Chicago, will speak, and the noon chimes, and the striking of the clock, will, be heard. The unit, of the clock which regulates the NBC chimes was made especially by NBC engineers and will be housed in a special studio on the fourth floor of the Merchandise Mart.
Associated Press, Jan. 22, 1944 By C.E. BUTTERFIELD NEW YORK, Jan. 22 (AP)—Three notes of the NBC chimes—G E and C—have now acquired voice and have joined the fourth War Loan campaign. They say: “Buy War Bonds.” The chimes, which signal time or station breaks on the network, have “learned” to talk or rather sing, with the aid of three notes struck on an organ, a feminine voice and a device known as a sonovox. The engineers describe the effect as “voice modulated tones.” It is this same equipment which makes trains, musical instruments or other gadgets talk, and has come into wide use for radio sound effect purposes.
Associated Press, Dec. 11, 1945 By C.E. BUTTERFIELD New York, Dec. 11 (AP)—Those chimes in Walter Winchell’s latest ABC broadcast—and they were NBC chimes by the way—didn’t bong on purpose. It was just one of those odd studio incidents that occur on occasion. The ringing did blot out item a twenty-seven word brief about a marriage. ABC leases studios from NBC. The panel which announcers for both networks use has a pushbutton which automatically operates the three-note chimes NBC rings at station breaks but ABC does not. It was this button that announcer Ben Grauer accidentally hit shortly after the broadcast started.
After Bill Paley’s talent raids in 1948 netted him Amos ‘n’ Andy and Jack Benny, Broadway columnist Earl Wilson joked in print that the NBC chimes weren’t going to be changing networks.
There’s oodles of information about the chimes at THIS web site, and you can hear the famous radio version of them, circa 1949, by clicking on the button below. And we have more clippings about this chime here.
Culhane arrived at Walter Lantz’s studio as a director and found Hardaway had a penchant for writing stories with “thirty or forty feet of bad puns lettered somewhere on the background.” Culhane tried to find ways of getting rid of the worst ones, realising he was stuck doing a pan over Phil DeGuard’s backgrounds because it saved money (no animation).
Hardaway actually had two types of sign puns. Some were names of businesses that were plays on words.
Ration Bored (1943)
The Loan Stranger (1942). “Hudson C. Dann” will go over a lot of heads today.
Woody Woodpecker (1941).
This one’s so stupid, it’s funny. And are those construction lines I see?
Then there’s the type Culhane cringed at, when the camera stops to let the audience read each groaner. They’re so bad, I’m only going to give a couple of examples.
The Hollywood Matador (1942).
The Dizzy Acrobat (1943).
All these were made before Culhane arrived. In some cases, Culhane’s signs are even worse because Woody (played by Bugs Hardaway) stands there and stiffly tells us what they say. We can already see them. Why is he reading them aloud?
Someone loved “Prof. Bernie Burny.” A different circus sign by Brunish with him on it showed up in the 1952 cartoon “The Great Who-Dood-It,” written by Homer Brightman.
Hardaway arrived at Lantz in 1940 and stayed until the studio shut down at the end of the decade. After that, he managed to sell one story to his former employers at Warner Bros. but work was fairly slim. He might have done well in television with limited animation on the horizon but he died before it ever really got off the ground.
Here’s his obit from the Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1957.
Joseph Hardaway, Bugs Bunny Originator, Dies Animated Cartoon Story Man, Pioneer in His Field, Also Worked in Television Joseph Benson (Bugs) Hardaway, 66, animated cartoon story man who was instrumental in originating Bugs Bunny, died of a heart attack Monday night at his home, 11211 Kling St., North Hollywood. Mr. Hardaway, onetime cartoonist for the Kansas City Post, served as Capt. Harry S. Truman's top sergeant in the 129th Field Artillery during World War I. Early in Animation Field. He was one of the early arrivals in Hollywood's animation field. He was a story man for Leon Schlesinger, Warner Bros. cartoons, from 1933 to 1939. His own nickname was adopted from the subsequently famous rabbit character. In 1940 he went to work for Walter Lantz, aiding in the development of Woody Woodpecker. Recently he had been doing stories for Temple-Toons Productions [sic] for television. Member of Guild. He was a longtime member of the Screen Cartoonists Guild. He leaves his widow Hazel; a son, Robert, of 1907 N. Highland Ave.; a daughter, Mrs. Virginia Kirby, of Lafayette, Cal.; a brother, Frank, of San Francisco; and three sisters, Mrs. Ella Mitchell, of Bronson, Mo.; Mrs. Louise Vogel, of Fresno, and Mrs. Elizabeth Killinger, of Visalia. Funeral arrangements are pending with Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
Tex Avery packs so much into “Swing Shift Cinderella,” it’s hard to even figure out where to begin to describe it. The action’s so fast at times, characters seem to zoom from one place to another in less than a second. But that’s what makes it funny.
He heaps on routines of his that became standard but never lost their impact in the ‘40s. Lots of sex and scare takes by the wolf. Running past a title card during the cartoon. Characters in the wrong picture. Ridiculously long cars. Corny puns that tell you they’re corny puns. Scott Bradley playing “The Trolley Song” from ‘Meet Me in St. Louis.’ Oh, and Preston Blair’s Red, er, Cinderella floor show.
How about some of the drawings of the wolf when Cinderella opens her front door? Here are some of them.
Did Ed Love animate this? The drawings are staggered on ones and twos, something Love loved to do even with limited animation at Hanna-Barbera. Ray Abrams gets the other animation credit.
Oh, and it appears there’s a surprise cameo in two frames. Does the taxi driver look familiar?
Sara Berner gets to show off several voices, including her mock Bette Davis and what she later used for Mabel Flapsaddle, one of Jack Benny’s phone operators. Frank Graham is the wolf, and Keith Scott reports Graham also does the off-camera emcee who sounds like George in the George and Junior cartoons. Imogene Lynn sings for Red, er, Cinderella.
Sorry you can’t see the caricatures of Laurel and Hardy very well, but I’ve never seen them in a newspaper ad and thought I’d pass this one on. It’s from April 5, 1931.
The short features Mae Busch and is a re-make of a 1927 film.
The feature is also a re-make of a silent, from 1922. It stars William Haines, who soon was forced to give up stardom and become a much-in-demand interior designer. Hedda Hopper, in her pre-gossip column days, plays a snooty society woman.
Ah, there’s nothing like a Don and Waffles cartoon. Four of them were made by Van Beuren in 1930. They’re all strange, which is what makes them fun. Take, for example, “The Haunted Ship.” How many characters are chased in the sky by a bolt of lightning which grows jagged arms and legs? Or bizarre, scaly sea creatures swimming past the camera? Or skeletons? Okay, they seem to have appeared somewhat regularly in Van Beuren cartoons, even after Don and Waffles became Tom and Jerry.
But what can beat singing turtles? Thanks to animation, not only can they breathe underwater, but they can drain beer at a submerged ship’s bar, then launch into a fine chorus of ‘Sweet Adeline.’ The outlines of their mouths shake when they hold a note in vibrato.
The turtles return at the end of the cartoon to do a final chorus of the song. Then their wrinkly heads stretch right into the camera and fill the frame, as the background goes black. Zooming heads were a Van Beuren specialty. A lovely cartoon ending.
John Foster and Mannie Davis were the animators on this and Gene Rodemich supplies one of his enjoyable scores.
Everyone seems to sexually analyse Frank Tashlin’s “I Got Plenty of Mutton” but I’d prefer to do something else.
There’s a wonderful set of drawings when the hungry wolf sneaks to a pot and attempts to make a weak meat broth, only to have rats gobble it down. There are some great drawings of the wolf shooing away the rats, some of which lunge in perspective past the camera.
Tashlin doesn’t really use a cycle. Some of the drawings repeat in order but not all of them so he avoids a feeling of repetition. Here are a few of them.
You can see outlines of the wolf’s head are used to add a speed effect.
Izzy Ellis gets the animation credit on this cartoon but I wonder if Art Davis did the angular wolf going to the safe just before this scene. Cal Dalton was in the Tashlin unit at this time and George Cannata (Sr.) got an animation credit in “Swooner Crooner,” the next Tashlin cartoon to be released.
It seems appropriate that, on July 4, there would be a newspaper column about an American conquering the English. No Revolutionary War story here, though it had been joked the man at the centre of all this had been around since then.
July 4, 1950 is when Broadway columnist Earl Wilson wrote about Jack Benny’s victory on the stage of the Palladium in London. Earl—and it must be nice to have this kind of job—was a first-hand viewer.
British Love Jack Benny By EARL WILSON London — Jack Benny stands there on the stage and says, “In Scotland, they think I’m quite a spendthrift. . .” And the English, some of them well-to-do, some of them in evening clothes, smoking their cigarets and cigars as they sit in the stalls at the Palladium Theatre, go mad with delight, for Jack Benny is as popular in England as American money. I think he’s even more appreciated than he is at home. For we take him for granted back home; here they only hear his broadcasts — without commercials, yet! — during the war, and saw him two years ago at the Palladium, so he’s a great, great luxury. “I’m a collector of rare coins,” he says. “Of course they weren’t rare when I collected them”. And they roar again. The Londoners go to either the “first house” at 6:15, or the “second house,” at 8:45, and they have a drink in the saloon in the back at intermission. And sitting in the audience as the Beautiful Wife and I did, hearing the laughter of that friendly audience, you can begin to feel something new about the greatness of the English language and its power to communicate. (There, there, Wilson, don’t get serious. You’re a jerk from Ohio remember?) For they’re hep here. They laugh just at the mention of Fred Allen, and cheer the name of Danny Kaye. They know about Jolson. Jack — as a gag — said that Jolson got paid $5-000 to work at a N Y. benefit. “Jolson needs $5,000 like Jane Russell need falsies,” Jack said “They’re both loaded.” They adore Phil Harris’ singing and bragging, as when he pretends he’s the top man and says superiorly to Benny, “Glad to have you with me.” And when Rochester says he has no objection to his salary “but I’m the only man who can cash my pay check on a tram,” well they’ve had it — as everybody says here. How the critics raved! The Daily Express’ John Barber said: “Oh Good, Mr. Benny. Oh, Very Good!” And here’s a clue to Benny’s likely greatness on television in this line: “The famous deadpan’s face is never still. Radio audiences miss the best of Benny.” I think so, too, but only discovered it here. Jack is one of the greatest muggers — yet it’s an underplayed mugging; he’s really a “facial expressionist,” with about the greatest timing to be found today. At intermission, I went to investigate a great jam in an aisle, thinking it was Ava Gardner’s fans, but they were packed around Cesar Romero and Mary Benny for their autographs, Quel adoration for Romero. Afterward we went into the bar off the royal box that Val Parnell, owner of the Palladium, fitted up for the King and Queen, then we were off to the “21 Room” for a party where the guests, including the Robert Sherwoods and Sam Goldwyns, cheered Benny when he came in. Characteristically, Jack, after his triumph, talked about somebody else—about Danny Kaye and Dinah Shore phoning him from Hollywood and the Wiere Brothers from St. Louis. And he told Bob Sherwood about Barney Dean, a writer for Hope & Crosby on the coast, whom he greatly admires for his wit. “Somebody asked him how he liked his writing job,” Jack related, “and he said, ‘Fine, except every once in a while when they ask me to write something.’” “How I know that feeling!” Sherwood said. Me too. Right now.
Jack returned to the air on September 10 and the first-half of the show involved dialogue dealing with the trip. Interestingly, Jack and his writers admitted in the second half that radio was finished. Benny and his troupe are shunted around the CBS building because all the radio studios are now being used for television. Within two months, Benny’s TV show would debut from New York.
