The Life and Times of Jack Benny, Part 5 of 6

The years of World War Two weren’t really kind to the Jack Benny radio show. For one thing, there was a change in sponsors; no more jolly sounds of Don Wilson urging upon the audience the delights of Jell-O or Grape Nut Flakes. I’m sure the almost two minutes of repetitive sloganeering for cigarettes that opened each show turned off listeners. As well, Jack convoyed his cast to broadcast from a number of military sites. It was undoubtedly good for service members watching the show, but disconcerting to radio listeners who had to endure inside jokes directed at G.Is. And Jack was forced to acquire a whole new writing team, which realised they had to find ways to freshen the show.

Eventually they did with a slew of popular new secondary characters (the neighbouring Colmans, Sheldon Leonard’s tout, Frank Nelson’s “yes” man, Bea Benaderet’s and Sara Berner’s phone operators, Mel Blanc as almost anything). And they still had a well-defined character in Jack (the phoney radio version) who could play off them.

Benny racked up huge publicity in two ways after the war. One was with a contest. The other was an attempt to get around huge taxes levied at celebrities, resulting in his jump in mid-season from NBC to CBS.

Both were covered in the fifth part of a series on Benny’s life in the New York Post. The issue of February 7, 1958 also includes more plaudits for Jack by the people who worked with him. The final instalment of the series will be posted next Sunday.

The Jack Benny Story
By DAVID GELMAN and MARCY ELIAS
ARTICLE V
In 1946, when the popularity of Jack Benny's radio show was in a rare period of decline, he hit upon the bold, if questionable, stratagem of inaugurating a kind of unpopularity contest in his own name.
"A lot of people, " said Irving Fein, president of Jack's J&M Productions, "tried to talk Jack out of it because they said it was a negative idea, but Jack insisted on going ahead with it and he was right. The only thing they succeeded in making Jack do was to change the contest wording from ' I Hate Jack Benny because . . . ' to 'I Can’t Stand Jack Benny because . . .'"
The results of this hazardous gambit were more than gratifying. Between 300,000 and half a million radio listeners across the nation vied with each other in heaping written abuse on Benny's willing head in 25 words or less. By the end of the year, he was solidly reestablished among the top 10 shows on the air, a position he has almost habitually occupied in both radio and TV from the beginning.
(Currently, Jack is seen on alternate Sundays at 7:30 p.m. on Channel 2, and rebroadcasts of his old radio shows still are carried regularly on CBS at 7 p.m. each Sunday.)
Among performers, Jack might conduct an "I Like Jack Benny because . . ." contest with a response equal in enthusiasm if not in volume. Interviews on the subject produce such an outpouring of affection, esteem and gratitude that it is best perhaps to let the quotes fall where they may:
Barbara Stanwyck, an occasional guest star on the show: "Jack is like a Bible to me. He is the only comedian I would appear for. I have nothing against the others but I know that if I goof Jack will never ridicule me to get a laugh.
"He once said to me that unless his guest star is the star of his show it isn't worth anything."
Ronald Colman, who, with his wife Benita, was a frequent guest on the radio show:
"I can honestly say—being a straightman myself—as fond as I am of many comedians, he is the only comedian that I didn't have any hesitation about working with. He never leaves you, as we say, with egg on your face. You get the fat, the laughs.
Silence and Stores
"He did a great deal for me in encouraging me about pauses and the late take. I knew how to wait in a dramatic scene but he would go to the extreme. Perhaps I would hold the pause two or three seconds and he would urge me to hold It longer, five or six seconds. I was afraid of losing the audience but Jack would say you can tell if you're doing it right by the studio audience. He was and is just marvelous at timing and also at various possible readings of the same line."
Colman's comment, incidentally, points up another singular development of the Benny show—the comedy of silence, perhaps best exemplified by one of the most memorable renditions of the Benny stingy joke. This was brought about by the simple device of having a holdup man accost Benny on the street and say:

"Your money or your life!"
There followed a stage wait which has been variously estimated as from 45 seconds to two full minutes. Certainly it was of record duration and the notion of Jack Benny forced at last to choose between his money and his life and hesitating over the decision set some sort of record for studio laughter.
Often Jack achieved a similar effect by the use of pregnant exclamations like "Hmmm!" or "Well!" in each case with lingering emphasis on the final consonant. For the transition to TV (which he made cautiously in 1950), Jack embellished the silences by simply staring at the audience with a facial composure that was once described by Arthur Marx, writing in the Sunday Times Magazine, as "reminiscent of a calf that has just been dealt a blow between the eyes with a sledgehammer."
Benny himself explains it this way:
"As the butt of the jokes with everybody else getting, the laugh off me most of the time, I hold that laugh by looking at the audience as if in desperation and to get their help."
At the London Palladium he carried the stare to such excruciating length once that a balcony customer finally shouted in heavy Cockney accents:
"Fer Gawd's, syke, Mr. Benny, sigh something.
"The biggest point about Jack,'' says George Burns, "is that he deceives people. On the stage he doesn't look like he has any courage. He looks spineless. It looks like everyone is taking advantage of him and you want to adopt him, feed him, take him in your arms. But what you don't realize is that on stage Jack Benny is a powerhouse. If he does a funny joke and the audience doesn't laugh, he looks at them long enough until without realizing it they're frightened not to laugh.
"I've seen him look without saying a word for 45 seconds, which is a long time to stand out there alone without saying a word, and then you know he has courage. It's the waiting for those first snickers. You've stuck your neck out and if they don't come, God help you, you're dead. I saw him do this in Las Vegas last year. He had them so much in the palm of his hand that right from the beginning they were scared to death that they might not laugh in the right spots. With Jack Benny, it's the audience that's on."
The testimonials go on and on until one is tempted to say, as Jack once said to Judy Garland:
"You have so much talent I'd like to punch you in the nose."
Says Edgar Bergen: "I think he loves any performer who does a good job. In all the years I've known him I've never seen an ounce of professional jealousy in him."
Says singer Frances Bergen (Edgar's wife): "I'm so prejudiced about Jack I could be nauseating . . . He is the most considerate man I've ever known."
Says Benny Rubin: "Because of two tough divorce cases I went broke twice . . . I bought a small egg farm in New Hampshire. I didn't tell Jack anything about this but somehow he found out and wrote me a letter with a check in it. The letter said: 'You gotta eat until those goddam chickens lay the eggs.'
"Later back in L. A., I would get a call from someone on the show saying there was a part for me. Sometimes there actually was a part, but more times when I got there Jack would apologetically tell me the part had to be cut for one reason or another. You know what that meant—I got paid for the part anyway. Jack does this all the time. It's his way of giving without embarrassing you."

Says Dennis Day, who was singing for $20 a week until Jack hired him:
"He has been almost like a father to me. On my first couple of shows I'd been awfully nervous and scared and he came over to me and said, 'Look, don't worry about it. You've got the talent and the voice and I'm right behind you.' You can't imagine what this means to an amateur.
"The rarest thing in show business is the Benny show because it's all fun, everybody gets along like a big family, "where on most shows everyone is out to stick a knife in everyone else's back."
And says Eddie Anderson, who was originally hired for a single appearance on the show as a Pullman porter:
"If I'm not mistaken I was probably the first Negro to become a regular member of a coast-to-coast radio show. And as a result a lot of good was done in making it a natural thing to have mixed casts . . . I would go from here to hell for that man. There is only one other man I had that feeling for—my father."
Absent from this impressive roster of admirers is Harry Conn, Benny's first scriptwriter who started the stingy joke, invented the Mary Livingston character and initiated several other standard features of the Benny show.
Conn broke with Benny in 1936 apparently because he felt he was half the reason for the show's success and accordingly entitled to half of Benny's earnings. Benny fired him, some say, at the insistence of Mrs. Benny.
Conn was replaced by two writers, Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow, who worked for Benny until 1944. Both still speak of him glowingly as the best-paying comedian in the business, as well as the easiest and the most educational to work for.
Benny then acquired four writers—Sam Perrin, George Balzer, Milt Josefsberg and John Thackaberry —more recently added Hal Goldman and Al Gordon, all happy, all prosperous, all accounted for.
Testimonials to Benny come as a rule from individuals but occasionally a corporation gets into the act. In 1942, NBC threw him a 10th anniversary dinner in the course of which Niles Trammell, then network president (and possibly a little carried away by the occasion), publicly awarded Benny a lifetime option on the 7 to 7:30 p.m. Sunday time slot.
Trammell's generosity notwithstanding, Benny succumbed to the blandishments of a CBS capital gains deal and switched to the rival network at the beginning of 1949, precipitating an industry-shaking migration of established radio names like Edgar Bergen, Bing Crosby and Red Skelton from NBC to CBS.
To engineer this coup, CBS paid $2,260,000 for Amusement Enterprises, Inc., an organization of which Benny owned 60 per cent of the stock and which included the Benny show and the services of a little known ex-GI comedian named Jack Paar. By selling his corporation, Benny was able to list the profit under the heading of capital gains, an item which is taxable at only 25 per cent, and which spared him an estimated $1,000,000 that he would have been required to pay as a personal income tax.
The deal touched off a controversy in Internal Revenue circles that was not resolved until Nov. 7, 1955, when a U. S. Tax Court handed down a decision favorable to Benny.
No one has ever suggested that Benny himself, conceived this master plan. It was CBS boss William Paley who made the offer, and ultimately it enabled the network to equalize the balance of power and wealth in the broadcasting field.

(There was some doubt afterwards as to whether Benny had switched to CBS or CBS had switched to Benny. Network brass extended a royal welcome on his arrival and jostled each other in the rush to satisfy his whims. Paley, always an avid follower of the comedian, hosted a huge party for him at the Waldorf about six years ago. Benny innocently embarrassed him there by refusing to mingle with the guests, drawn almost exclusively from the Social Register and the entertainment business, and instead spent most of the evening conducting the dance band.)
Currently, Jack is the chief stockholder in J & M Productions, the successor to Amusement Enterprises But, says J&M President Fein, "Jack knows nothing about the business end of the company. I run it, and I make the decisions about the deals, the prices and the amounts. Jack is not interested. The more you explain the details of a business deal to him, the more he gets bored. The only thing he cares about business is to pay the top salaries in the business. When you talk business to him, he always says after awhile, 'All I know is a funny thing happened to me on the way to the studio.'"
Week-End Edition: At Home With an Institution

Happenings in the Warner Bros Cartoon Studio, 1955

I don’t know about you but when I was a kid, I watched credits in cartoons to see who made them (and with TV cartoons, who voiced them). It was a time before gang credits, so you could connect a specific cartoon with its makers.

It’s always a pleasure to hear or read stories about the various people at cartoon studios. For a while, Jerry Beck was able to post copies of “The Exposure Sheet,” the in-house publication at Leon Schlesinger Productions. Perhaps he’ll find time to resume doing it. Besides gossip, there’s some historical insight revealing when people came to and left the studio. There are also references to people who never received screen credit, which I always find fascinating. For too many years, a lot of people never got credited. How many animation fans have heard of Tom Armstrong or Art Loomer, who worked on Warners cartoons in the ‘30s (Armstrong was the head writer, Loomer the head background artist). Or cameraman Manny Corral, who later was employed at MGM? Their names never appeared on screen.

A little while ago, animation researcher Thomas Shim scanned a page of the Warner Club News, the Warners’ employee publication. It’s from the September 1955 edition. It was at the time the cartoon studio (Warners now owned it outright) was being moved from the ratty old building at Fernwood and Van Ness to the company’s new operation in Burbank. I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing it, partly because it tells some stories about Mike Maltese I’d never read (Maltese being my favourite cartoon writer) and there are references to people who never got screen credit. Unfortunately, a second page is missing so we won’t get to learn what happened to Bette Rebbeck when she left her wallet at home.

I can tell you a little bit (very little) about a few of them. Isadore Edward Faigin retired to Cathedral City, California and may still be living. He was born on September 18, 1922 and his father Sam was a commercial artist. Faigin did a little bit of radio work before going into the U.S. Army in World War Two; in the ‘80s, he was a minority owner of a broadcasting company run by his son. He was an assistant animator on Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) and worked with fellow ex-Warners artists Tom Ray and Virgil Ross on Gremlins 2 (1990).

Carroll C. “Woody” Chatwood was from McCleary, Washington, on the highway from Olympia to Aberdeen. He was born on February 14, 1921 and died of cancer in Los Angeles on October 26, 1974. He was an assistant animator as well. Chatwood’s son Melvill died at the age of 5, while his son Todd was 23 when he died. Chatwood’s widow Betty (Brown) Chatwood died in 2010.

Joseph Bruce “Lefty” Price was born in Colorado on April 16, 1914 and was a musician when he got married in 1937. The 1940 Census lists his occupation as a cartoonist but doesn’t say where. He died in Los Angeles on January 25, 1962.

Dave Hoffman was an animator at Warners in 1939-40 after leaving Fleischers. Where he was after that to the time of this story, I couldn’t tell you. He worked on comic books and later ended up at Creston Studios (TV Spots). His name appears in the credits of Crusader Rabbit (the later version), Calvin and the Colonel, King Leonardo and The Funny Company.

Note that Irv Wyner’s name is spelled “Irv Weiner.”

What’s Up, Doc? . . .
A SPLICE OF CARTOON LIFE
By BARBARA RICHARDS
We, the cartoon studio guys and gals, will be the last to receive our copies of this issue of Warner Club News. We MAY not even bother to read it! We return from vacations on the 13th . . . smug, barely tolerant and highly impressed with ourselves. Why? Our new surroundings, of course! At first, we’ll just look, and admire our new building casually . . . but within minutes we’ll be scrambling all over it, inspecting every nook and cranny. We’ll charge through the Freleng, Jones and McKimson units; through the animators’ rooms; through the Ink and Paint Department; back to the main entrance and the executive officers . . . and then we’ll settle down to loud huzzahs and possibly a wee celebration over this dream come true. Warners Club Member, tell us how wonderful it is . . . we’ll love it!
And for those who can find a moment or two to read on, and because we’re in a gay mood to begin with, let’s enjoy the last to come out of the old studio, the . . .
Quips of the Month
Dick Thompson followed Abe Levitow into the studio from luncheon, staring at Abe’s new crewcut. “Look at that, will you?” exclaimed Dick. “A flat-top pin-head!”
Ellen Moyer to Chuck Jones as he came down the hall yodeling: “You’re the noisy type!” Quipped Chuck: “Oh, no. I’m exuberant. That means I used to be uberant, but now I’m ex-uberant.”
And Gordon Estes, signing letters as I wandered through his office to the vault, suddenly exclaimed: “I’m in such as hurry I’m signing my last name now . . . later, I’ll fill in the initials!”

Dancing down the corridor for the benefit of Friz Freleng and Tedd Pierce came Mike Maltese wearing pale blue suede shows. To the general razzing, Mike replied: “I’m a seersucker. I bought ‘em at Sears.”
As Dot Bitz fled through the hall, I called after her “Did you cut your hair again?” and she replied: “No, no . . . just put a little shortening on it, that’s all.”
Hawley Pratt had elbow trouble recently, quite serious, resulting in swollen fingers and his being unable to lift his arm. This sort of thing is not recommended, especially for artists, so after a lengthy session with his doctor, Hawley returned to the soothing influence of Friz Freleng, Warren Foster and Mike Maltese, who enacted this spontaneous playlet:
Friz: (dusting him off with a feather duster) “Feel better?”
Warren: “Of course he does.” (patting him on the head) “They bled him a little and released the vapors.”
Hawley: (impressively) “Actually, they used cortizone.” [sic]
Barbara: (innocently) “What does cortizone do?”
Mike: (delighted with the opportunity) “It raises the doctor’s bill.”
(curtain)
Happy, Happy to You!
Congratulations to you on YOUR DAY! Irv Weiner on the 4th, Jane Ferry the 5th, Della Anderson the 11th, Louise Cuarto the 13th, Milt Franklyn the 16th, Ted Bonnicksen and Ed Faigin on the 8th, Chuck Jones the 21st and your columnist on the 27th. Congratulations and many, many more!
Shakespearean, Hmm?
Did you know that Joseph Bruce Price (“Lefty” to you) at one time worked in radio as a newscaster in every state from Virginia to Mississippi? He has also done dramatic roles, and once had his own daily 15-minute show called “The Friendly Philosopher.” And if you’d like to hear some excellent dialects, just name them and call on Lefty!
It’s a Boy!
Woody Chatwood is wearing a big smile these days. Betty has just presented him with a baby boy and they have named him Todd Royce. their first-born son John, now 2½, is quite excited about his baby brother and can even saw “Congratulations,” as do we!
She’s Lovely! She’s Engaged
That’s what happens when you go to parties. Ellie Shenker enjoyed dancing with a young man by the name of Philip Liebowitz at a soiree recently, but turned down his offer to drive her home. Being a clever young man, he drove her friends home and learned from them her last name (which he had forgotten) and that all-important telephone number. Six weeks later after one date had followed another, they were in a ceramic shop purchasing wedding gifts for mutual friends. The following conversation ensued:
Salesgirl: “Have you room for these large pieces?”
Philip: “My wife (indicating Ellie) wans a larger place anyway, so now we’ll have to have one.”
(Salesgirl leaves to wrap packages. Philip turns to Ellie)
Philip: “You would, wouldn’t you? I mean you would like to have a large apartment and you would like to be my wife, wouldn’t you?”
Astonished over a marriage proposal in a ceramic shop, plus the intriguing way Philip maneuvered it . . . what could Ellie say but yes? The wedding will take place in her home in October and since Ellie is not interested in an engagement ring, she adores the gold and jade bracelet Philip chose for her engagement gift, her favorite precious metal and gems. All happiness and success to you two!
Have Another!
Just for the record (and quite a record it is!) Ken Harris just bought a 1955 Cadillac, hard-top coupe in off-white with a grey top. This makes his 103rd automobile and his 9th Cadillac, and Ken is dressing in very light and medium grey flannels these days. “Ho, hum,” sighed he when Carmela Blitz observed that his clothes matched his car.
Oops!
Speaking of cars, it seems last month Phil DeGuard was reported the owner of a new light blue Nash Rambler. T’ain’t so. But to keep up with this column, Phil simply had to go right out and buy a new car . . . a Sarasota Sand and Jamaica Bronze 4-door Plymouth, in which he is driving to Jamaica. (No, not across the Atlantic . . . Jamaica, New York). He also plans to visit Washington, D.C., to see where our money goes, but Maurice Noble insists that Phil wants to check on whether Washington is handling our money as they should!
New Faces
Painters Helen Kegler, Julia Raymond, Jo Mapes and Jeanne Bischoff have joined our ranks. June Rose Ross is back in our midst after a few months in New York; and Russ Dyson’s lovely daughter Barbara is now one of the gals, too . . . welcome!
A-Travellin’
Dave Hoffman zoomed off to Chicago and Washington, D.C. with his better half and will spend time in Pennsylvania and New York as well. Since they’re driving a new car, they’ll undoubtedly hit (not literally) even more of the 48 states before arriving back in California.

Koko Appears

Koko the Clown was still coming out of the inkwell in 1932. Unlike the silent film days, when Max Fleischer’s hand would have a, um, hand in it, an animated elephant brings Koko to life in Boop-Oop-a-Doop. I like the closed-eyed smile of the elephant.



Unfortunately, the cartoon has no animation credits.

Foul-Mouthed Phone

Yes, you weren’t hearing things in The Cuckoo Murder Case, a 1930 Ub Iwerks cartoon.

There’s a creative gag where the a cuckoo clock drops the numbers on its face into a phone to reach the number for Detective Flip the Frog.



Flip’s phone desperately rings but Flips sleeps through the noise. The phone turns to the audience and says “Damn!”



Finally, the phone bops Flip on the head with its mouthpiece.



No animators are credited.

Comedy: Sick Versus Bland

“But Mommy, I don’t want to go to Europe!” “Shut up and keep swimming.”

When it comes to jokes, that’s a pretty hokey one, right? Maybe today, but in 1959, it was considered depraved humour.

In the late ‘50s, America got hung up on “sick” humour. Humour that was irreverent? In poor taste? Why, it was sign of the morals of U.S.A. falling apart (one would almost expect Robert Preston to show up and launch into “Trouble” from The Music Man). Boo to the sickos, guys like Shelley Berman. Whaaa? Shelley Berman?! And Don Rickles!?

Peering through newspapers of the day is fun. In 1961, there was a poll published saying “sick humor is slowly dying.” Then in 1967: “sick humor is dying.” Then in 1972, Dear Abby answered a question about why sick humor was so popular. Even funnier were articles in both 1959 and 1962 declaring Red Skelton a “tonic” from sick humour; Red had one of the foulest mouths in show business that he used in his post-broadcast, off-air show to his audience.

This story from United Press International appeared in newspapers on August 6, 1959. It quotes none other than Dan Rowan and Dick Martin who, at that point, had hosted a summer TV replacement for The Chevy Show. There’s a little irony here as ten years later, some people were accusing “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” of questionable taste. Their contradictory conclusion: “Sick humour is horrible. I wish we could do it.”

Comedy Team Gives Views On Acts of 'Sick' Comedians
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)— "Sick" comedians were scrutinized by the comedy team of Rowan and Martin Thursday. They decided the audiences are sicker than the sickniks.
"It's a cult that's grown up in a few big cities," Dick Martin suggested. "Most of the sick comedians depend on the same people returning night after night to hear their gags. The nightclubbers who follow them around are real addicts."

"The sick ones would never be popular on television," Dan Rowan said. "Their material is too far out."
"That's why they're popular in clubs," Dick said. "They can get away with controversial and spicy jokes with a limited audience--and use terms the average televiewer does not comprehend.
"They never get a laugh in real joints because the audience doesn't know what they're talking about."
The comedy team, who appear in movies, TV and clubs, have no "sick" routines themselves, but study the off-beat competition closely.
"Sophisticates—or pseudo sophisticates—are flattered by the sickniks because the comedians throw around psychological terms and other words that aren't usually identified with entertainers," said Dan.
"But even without censorship, mass audiences would never dig the humor. In fact, most of the country would be offended by the new group."
Among the sickniks named by the boys were Lenny Bruce, Don Rickles, Shelley Berman and Tom Lehrer. Mort Sahl, who specializes in political barbs, isn't considered a sicknik by his cohorts.
"Their jokes are based on tragedy," Rowan went on. "Death, illness, religion and such things as lynchings make up the subject matter.
"Shock value is what they're looking for. And as audiences become more and more difficult to shock, their jokes keep getting more and more sick. The laughs they get are usually somewhat nervous."
Rowan and Martin, who soon move into the famed Coconut Grove, insist the sickniks must play small, intimate rooms to be successful.

"Comedians like to watch the sick ones perform," Dick said. "Most comedians would love to get away with some of their routines, but television is so closely censored comedians are limited to old, dull stuff."
"Right," Dan agreed. "You can't hope to be a success on TV unless you're really mediocre. There are so many taboos by pressure groups and sponsors we have to stay with bland, innocuous material.
"I wish I had a dollar for every person who has come up to us after our nightclub act and asked why we aren't as funny on TV."
"It's not that we use off-color jokes in clubs," Dick concluded, "but we can mention a product or controversial subject without having to worry about ad agency guys or network big shots. That's something the sickniks never have to put up with."

Counterfeit Cat Brushwork

The Counterfeit Cat zips into a scene with the help of brushwork from the MGM cartoon ink and paint department. These eight drawings are consecutive frames.



Actually, it would make more sense to call this cartoon Counterfeit Dog because the cat is pretending to be a dog during much of the picture.

Robbing the 5:15

Bugs Bunny screws around with Red Hot Rider just for something to do in the 1944 cartoon Buckaroo Bugs.

Bugs tells the dullard hero that the Masked Marauder has robbed the 5:15 train (trains always arrive at 5:15 in cartoons). A huge commotion is heard. Cut to Bugs and a huge sound effects contraption.



Lou Lilly is the story man. Manny Gould gets the only animation credit.

The Life and Times of Jack Benny, Part 4 of 6

Jack Benny’s show debuted on radio on May 2, 1932, and among the other shows you could hear that night on WEAF (and a number of NBC Red affiliates) were Billy Jones and Ernie Hare, impersonator Ward Wilson, Ireene Wicker the Singing Lady, the Stebbins Boys and Lum and Abner. When Jack finally signed off on May 22, 1955, all of them were gone.

Benny’s longevity was matched by his popularity. Even when sponsors dropped him, it wasn’t because of ratings (Chevrolet dropped him solely because an executive wanted music, not comedy). Benny managed to find ways to keep his show fresh during his long time on radio; what he put on the air in 1932 was quite different than his broadcasts of 1955.

Jack had appeared on radio several times before he began his series for Canada Day, even before his appearance on Ed Sullivan’s interview show that landed him the job with the soft drink company. Except for Sullivan, Benny didn’t feel the others were significant and may have forgotten about them. But several were detailed in the third part of the New York Post’s profile of Benny, published on February 6, 1958. The article also goes into Benny’s comedy timing. We’ll have part five next week.

The Jack Benny Story
By DAVID GELMAN and MARCY ELIAS
ARTICLE IV
In the late 1920s, American light culture was being dispensed from three different sources—vaudeville, the movies and, to a lesser extent, radio.
Like a speculator in futures, Jack Benny kept a hand in all three.
In 1928, at the peak of his vaudeville popularity, he signed a movie contract with MGM at $850 a week, which turned out to be a very comfortable pension. Benny had almost nothing to do for the money.
In the dressing room adjacent to Benny's at the time was fellow vaudevillian Benny Rubin, who was getting nearly as, much money for even less work.
"With nothing better to do," Rubin recalls, "we put a sign over the dressing rooms that said: 'Jack-Benny-Rubin, Music Publishers.' Every time one of the MGM boys wrote a song hit, Jack and I would rewrite the lyrics and they spread around so fast the guys wanted to kill us. Gus Edwards almost came after us with a pistol when we rewrote the lyrics to a song he wrote about mothers, this way:
'Your mother and my Uncle Sam,
They are from Kishnev, I mean Alabam’... '"
That year both Benny and Rubin were considered for a local radio show.

"I got the job," Rubin said, "and to compensate I hired Mary (Livingston) as my singer and foil. Jack helped to write the first show. One of the jokes called for Mary to ask me where I came from and I had to say, Ireland—I mean Coney Ireland.'
"When the show was over the sponsor came out of the control room and walked over to Mary and said, 'Who told you you could sing? You're through!' I protested and he said, 'And as for you, you're through too. You and your Coney Ireland!' Oh, it was a great night for the three of us because the Coney Ireland joke was one Jack dreamed up."
The experience effectively squelched Jack's radio ambitions for the time but he filed it away for further investigation. Meanwhile he idled around the MGM lot long enough to make one Grade A type movie, "Hollywood Revue of 1929," then begged out of his contract to do the Earl Carroll Vanities on Broadway for $1,500 a week.
While the show was touring Chicago, Benny was enticed into doing a local radio show and again the results were discouraging. There was a blizzard on the night of the broadcast, the scheduled singer failed to appear and Jack had to fill in the spaces with jokes.
'Who Cares?'
The ubiquitous Rubin, who was appearing in "Girl Crazy" in Chicago, dropped in at the broadcast studio, passed a note to Benny telling him to announce that he would do an imitation of Benny Rubin, then stepped up and did the imitation himself. The next day the local critics panned the show and advised Jack to stick to his own material instead of doing bad imitations.
It was a minor failure. Radio in those days was largely the province of the dance bands and, outside of the newspaper critics, there were few listeners to judge its merits as an entertainment medium.
But by 1932, the little brown box had assumed a vastly increased importance in thousands of American living rooms where it had come to roost, squat, ugly and owlish, and yet somehow sparkling with personality.
Names like Amos and Andy, and Stoopnagle and Bud had come into the household language from nowhere and veteran stage performers like Eddie Cantor, Ed Wynn and Burns and Allen were finding a mass audience for the first time.
Reflecting recently on that distant dawning of modern times, Benny recalled:
"I suddenly realized that radio was becoming important to the people and radio people were becoming more important than stage people. I went to Earl Carroll and asked him to let me out of my contract. There I'd quit a $1,500-a-week job without the prospect of anything definite in radio. I was married and had almost no money to speak of. Then Ed Sullivan signed me to appear on his radio show and the Canada Dry people heard me and gave me a job."
It happened pretty much that way. On the Sullivan show, in February, 1932, a network audience for the first time heard the mild, medium-pitched, faintly nasal voice of Jack Benny uttering his first national self-effacement:
"Hello folks. This is Jack Benny. There will be a slight pause for everyone to say, "Who cares?'"
It is possible that at that very moment a large number of people did say just that But in any case Canada Dry Ginger Ale cared and a few months later Jack had a regular radio show of his own.
At 9:30 p.m. (EDT) on May 2, 1932, on the old Blue Network of the National Broadcasting Co., announcer Ed Thorgerson introduced a new program featuring George Olsen and his orchestra, singer Ethel Shutta (Olsen's wife), and starring "that suave comedian, dry humorist and famous master of Ceremonies—Jack "Benny."
There was no studio audience to hail this event but to the vast (about 60,000) unseen home audience, Benny explained in his patient, mock-earnest inflections that he was "making my first appearance on the air professionally. By that I mean I am finally getting paid, which will be a great relief to my creditors."
By comparison with his later self-castigation, this was almost flattery. But the seed of the Benny syndrome was already visible, it's interesting to note, however, that during this early stage, he concentrated on the outgoing insult, the insult directed toward others.
For example, after his opening monologue on the first broadcast, he said:
"Oh, George, come here—I want you to say 'hello' to the folks."
GEORGE: "Hello, everybody."
JACK: "That was George Olsen, ladies and gentlemen. He rehearsed that speech all week."
Even the stingy insult, which by now of course homes to Benny like a faithful shaggy dog, was out-going then. On the same show, Jack used this one on Olsen:
"He invited me to dinner the other night, much to his own surprise, and he paid the check with a $5 bill that was in his pocket so long that Lincoln's eyes were blood-shot."
Olsen was the hapless target for most of the sponsored abuse that night. There was really no other target available. Thorgerson was not an integrated member of the cast (as was announcer Don Wilson later), and therefore not fair game.
Ethel Shutta was—and for that master still is—a lady, and ladies were never insulted on the Benny show, except for the mythical ones like Benny's off-stage girl friend on the first program who, he said, "poses for the beauty ads entitled 'before taking.'"
Years later the Lincoln joke turned up again the show, only now Benny himself was the object, Fred Allen was the aggressor, the $5 bill had been devalued to a nickel and Lincoln had become an Indian.
This was only a small sample of the infinite variety of the same old things on the Benny program. Old jokes never die there. They merely dissemble.
Once accorded the tribute of studio audience laughter, a Benny joke is apt to become a tradition. The same may be said of the familiar cast of characters on the show, most of whom were hired on the most tentative terms and then simply stayed and stayed.
'Who Goes There?'
The longevity figures on some of the people connected with Benny read a bit like the seniority chart of a life insurance office: Don Wilson, 24 years; Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, 21 years; Dennis Day, 19 years; Mel Blanc, 15 years; guitar player Frank Remley, 20 years; writers Sam Perrin and George Balzer, 15 years.
When Benny tells his secretary, Bert Scott (16 years), "Send in the new writers," he means Hal Goldman and Al Gordon, who have been with him eight years.

But by far the oldest thing on the show (next to Benny) is the money bit, which received what many consider its apotheosis several years ago in a situation that had Benny going down to the secret vault under his house where he hoards his cash.
It was for the most part a pure sound gag. For nearly a full minute nothing was heard from the stage but the tap-tap of Benny's footsteps down an apparently endless staircase toward the vault. As the descent became deeper and deeper, the idea became more, and more preposterous, Benny's stinginess became more and more fantastic and the studio audience became more and more hysterical with laughter.
For the sake of comparison it might be argued that, had Fred Allen used the same joke, he would have stopped at the first landing; Bob Hope perhaps would have gone as far as the second landing, and any number of others would have gone to a third landing.
Benny went all the way to some incredibly subterranean cellar and when he reached bottom a guard called out:
"Who goes there?"
The timing and execution came off perfectly, the response was overwhelming, and it was in fact very funny. And this is Benny's art, take it or leave it.
"Like everything I've ever done on the show," Jack said recently, "becoming the butt of the jokes may have started on one program and gotten such a good response that we Just kept it up. I can't say that I appreciated its lasting value at first. It just happened by accident.
"Like the Fred Allen feud. If we had contrived the thing, if we had said, 'Let's start a feud,' it wouldn't have lasted a week. That's the way all the jokes that have stayed with me started. They all started with one joke."
TOMORROW: The Benny Era.

Bugs Times Two

Want to read in the 1940s about animated cartoons? About all you got was Disney, Disney and Disney.

Here’s a feature story about Bugs Bunny from 1945. Remember, this is back in the days before there were such things as animation historians who compiled the facts about how things really happened. In 1945, Tex Avery wasn’t at Warners any more, so employees there felt no need to mention him at all in connection with Bugs. Thanks to people like Joe Adamson and Leonard Maltin and Jerry Beck, you couldn’t get away with that today.

But the most remarkable thing about this story is the quotes from it resurfaced 18 years later as if they had come from a brand-new interview. In fact, they appeared in a 1960 newspaper story as well—with different people cited as saying them.

We’ll post the 1963 story for comparison in a moment. First, the unbylined New York Times story from July 22, 1945.

BUGS BUNNY, CARROT CRUNCHING COMIC
Hollywood
It would be amusing, even though incorrect, to report that the popular cartoon character, Bugs Bunny, lives in a bottle of ink. Actually, he resides in the minds, imaginations, yes, even in the hearts, of the 200 men and women who produce him and make him cavort across the screen. Surprising though it may be, Bugs Bunny is both the slave and the master of those who plan his adventures, draw his 7,000-odd likenesses for each of his six to eight cartoons a year, and who stand ready to guard his morals, his manners and his methods of getting in and out of trouble.
He was created, by pencil sketch, some time in 1936 as an “extra” playing in an “Elmer” cartoon in which Elmer when hunting and the then unnamed rabbit was one of the intended victims. He was not an immediate hit. In fact, he had so little screen appeal at the time that he was practically forgotten for nearly two years. Then, early in 1938, the cartoon people at Warner Brothers were called upon to make an added picture in the briefest possible time. Some of the men involved in the task recall it as a “quickie.” The director and writers huddled over the possible development of a new character, and out of that huddle the rabbit who was to be named “Bugs Bunny” evolved.
“Steamlined” Bunny

It, too, was to be a hunting picture, Director I. Freling recalls, and that may have brought to mind the rabbit character which had appeared so briefly two years before. They decided to revamp the rabbit, “streamline him,” they explain, in both character and proportions, and to give him a voice and characteristics similar to the already popular “Daffy Duck.”
At this point, the three artist-directors largely responsible for Bugs Bunny began to interrupt each other with suggestions and recollections concerning the development of Bugs.
“We made him use his wits,” put in Tedd Pierce.
“We gave him a Brooklyn accent,” remarked Michael Maltese.
Victorious Underdog
“He was full of mischief,” added Frileng, “but he always started out minding his own business. “We made a mistake with him once. We started out with Bugs going out to hunt for trouble. It wasn’t successful because it wasn’t true to type. He never starts the scrapes he gets into any more.”
Based fundamentally on the idea that the public enjoys watching an underdog get the better of his oppressors, they constantly try to think of situations in which Bugs could become involved, through no fault of his own, and then turn the tables on the troublemakers. It is, they suggest, one of the simplest of all comedy routines, but they guard their star as carefully as any studio watches the reputation of its living actors.
Bugs Bunny’s first hit, his mentors agree, was made in the hunting comedy released in 1938. The “streamlined” rabbit, the intended victim of a cartoon hunter, came up out of his hole, chewing a carrot, and asked another rabbit, “What’s up, Doc?”
“When we saw that on the screen, we knew we had a hit character,” explains Freling. “He was the most timid of animals, yet he had courage and brashness.” Gradually, through the process of planning and drawing from six to eight Bugs Bunny cartoons each year, the full character and appeal of Bugs Bunny has been developed. He has been kept in the wild state, never given houses to live in or clothes to wear. He has no steady girl friend, although he can have occasional romances.
Mel Blanc, who supplies the voice, accent and all, for Bugs Bunny, according to all the artists, is allergic to carrots, which he must chew, for the sake of realism while speaking the rabbit’s lines. “He doesn’t swallow a piece of the carrot,” laughs Maltese, “because they make him sick.”
The most common adjective applied to Bugs Bunny by his creators is “brash.” He is mischievous but never mean. Things happen to him which bring about a reversal of his naturally timid rabbit nature and make him go on the offensive against his tormentors.
Bugs Goes to War
There would appear to be enough evidence on hand to substantiate the opinion of Edward Selzer, chief of the Warner’s cartoon studio, that “Bugs is the most popular cartoon character on the screen today.” Mr. Selzer went to the filing cabinet and drew out a letter from a seaman off the carrier Lexington, who reported that when the ship went down at least two Bugs Bunny pictures were lost, “Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt” and “The Rabbit Who Came to Supper.”
Mr. Selzer and the others also are proud of the service record supplied by the United States Marine Corps for Bugs. His impertinent likeness serves as the mascot insignia for many branches of the armed services, including the hospital ship U.S.S. Comfort. Bugs and his uneaten carrot was painted on the side of the lead Liberator bomber that made the first attack on Davao, which started this country’s march back to the Phillipines.

Now, here’s a syndicated newspaper feature story (bylined) published April 13, 1963, and suitably updated for television and the Cold War. Neither Maltese nor Pierce were employed at Warners when this saw print. Chuck Jones and Bob McKimson get their names added; McKimson animated on A Wild Hare, while Jones directed Elmer’s Pet Rabbit (1940), where Bugs’ character and voice aren’t quite the way we know him today.

At 27, Bugs Is Still Going Strong
By EDGAR PENTON
Hollywood
What’s up, Doc?
Carrot-crunching Bugs Bunny, the buck-toothed, madcap hare of Warner Bros.’ perennially popular cartoon series of the same name is getting old enough to be the father of most of his fans.
Bugs’ kiddie fans have been estimated at from 30 to 50 millions. Businessmen, ministers, matrons, church workers, hep teen-agers and sub-teens make-up at least another 50 million dedicated fans.
♦ ♦ ♦
And yet their numbers keep mounting as the years roll by.
Recently turned 27, Bugs obviously takes no back seat to any Hollywood celebrity in terms of durability, fan mail volume or professional acclaim.
He has held a select spot at the top of the hierarchy of stars for more than a quarter of a century.
♦ ♦ ♦
As a matter of fact, although he hand an inauspicious beginning, Bugs loomed on the horizon as a star after what is probably the shortest apprenticeship in film history.
He had one prestardom outing in 1936 as an extra. Two years later when he hit the celluloid again, Bugs chomped his way into the hearts of viewers faster than he chews a juicy carrot.
He has been serving the world a rib-tickling diet of devilment ever since.
♦ ♦ ♦
In every laughter-loving country save those behind the Iron Curtain, the animated hare with the Brooklyn accent is one of film- land’s best-loved characters. This was never better evidenced than by the applause four years ago when the ribald rabbit bounced onto the stage at the annual Academy Awards presentations and hopped off again with an Oscar presented by Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh for his masterful and farsighted performance in the “Knighty Knight Bugs” episode of his show.

♦ ♦ ♦
The exhibitors of America have voted him top favorite in the short subjects category of movie programming for an impressive 15 consecutive years.
In addition, Bugs probably holds the world’s record as recipient of personal phone calls.
When he gave out his number in connection with the Easter promotion of a Baltimore-Washington department store during the five weeks of the store’s holiday sales event when any youngster could dial and be greeted with the familiar “Eeeeeh, what’s up, Doc?”, a total of 2,030,679 calls came in.
♦ ♦ ♦
Never one to forget his less celebrated days in the briar patch, Bugs is quick to point out that his long romp on television very nearly didn’t happen.
In the bit part he played in the 1936 cartoon, another comical character called Elmer Fudd was featured. As a hunter, Elmer’s objective was to get the elusive rabbit into a frying pan.
Bugs dodged the frying pan successfully but attracted so little attention that he landed back inside the cartoon department ink well.
♦ ♦ ♦
“He was put away to mellow,” his creators recall.
And mellow he did. For when Cartoon Division Director Isadore Freleng suggested he be trotted out late in 1938 for another go in the popularity sweepstakes, Bugs rocketed to fame.
Aided by director Freleng, Charles M. Jones and Robert McKimson, along with writers Michael Maltese and Ted Pierce who mastermined “The Bugs Bunny Show,” the cabbage patch rodent hopped from the ink well, this time a revamped rabbit.
♦ ♦ ♦
“We streamlined him both in character and proportions, and gave him a voice and characteristics similar to Daffy Duck whose impudence was already famous,” they say.
“We gave him a Brooklyn accent,” Maltese asserts.
“We made him use his wits,” says Pierce.
♦ ♦ ♦
“He was full of mischief,” adds Freleng, “but he always started out minding his own business.
“We made a mistake with him only one time. We had him out hunting for trouble. His fans cried ‘Foul!’
“They don’t like to consider him the trouble-making type. Now, he never starts the scrapes he gets into.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Most people are like that or they like to feel that they are; so it is easy for them to establish an empathy with Bugs and enjoy his triumphs quite thoroughly.”
And over the years the once dopey looking, shaggy cottontail has made a lot of adjustments to keep up with the changing tastes of the sophisticated youngsters and adults of today’s movie and television audiences.
Once a zany guy given to temperament and pique, he is now a more refined citizen, surprisingly gentle.
♦ ♦ ♦
With great worldliness and sophistication, he suffers in silence, up to a point; then explodes into action and usually comes out ahead.
It should be noted, of course, that while Bugs tops the all-family entertainment polls and has earned millions of dollars, he has personally refused to indulge in any ostentatious display of wealth.
He has never owned a house of his own, wears clothing only on special occasions and has no steady girl friend.
♦ ♦ ♦
Among his creators he is known as an animal with human characteristics rather than a humanized animal.
Jestingly they declare “We can’t get shoes for him because his feet are too big. He doesn’t wear clothes unless the situation demands them since his tastes are so expensive that though privately wealthy even he couldn’t afford to keep himself clothed.”
Significantly, the titles of Bugs’ shows are often as amusing as the melodrama. Bugs made his starring debut in “Wild Hare”; later came out with “Upswept Hare.” He has also starred in “John Brown’s Bunny,” “Rabbit Transit,” “Hare Meets Hair,” “Rhapsody Rabbit” and “Rabbit Hood.”

Errol Flynn played a small part as a guest star in “Rabbit Hood,” swinging from tree to tree as Robin Hood, the role he originally created in Warner Bros.’ full length movie “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Reciprocally, Bugs has appeared with flesh and blood Hollywood stars in the live productions “My Dream Is Yours” and “Two Guys from Texas.”
A character of great versatility with the daring to meet all competition, Bugs competed brazenly with filmland’s voluptuous pin-up girls during World War II and somehow managed to become widely regarded as Morale Booster No. 1.
Aside from aiding the Treasury Department in bond sales, he was mascot to many Air Force squadrons, tank outfits and infantry companies, not to mention units of the Navy and Marine Corps.
As a matter of fact, he is an official member of the Marine Corps, with his service record now a permanent part of the official files in Washington, D. C.
♦ ♦ ♦
And it is distracting to some that the glib Bugs has really never had a single word to say about all of this since it is Mel Blanc, the man of many voices, who has been Bugs’ voice down through the years.
Blanc does the voices for more than 50 characters on “The Bugs Bunny Show.”
When Bugs celebrated his 25th birthday, The Thalians, a Hollywood charity organization headed by Debbie Reynolds, presented Blanc with a 14-carat gold carrot. The valuable replica of the hare's favorite food is inscribed “in recognition and grateful appreciation of the happy laughter and wholesome entertainment you have brought to so many children of all ages . . . as the voice of Bugs and his playmates.”
And at 27 Bugs seems no more inclined to grow old than Freckles and His Friends. He just keeps hopping along several bounds ahead of all competition.
That's what’s up, Doc!

But some of these particular sets of facts appeared in yet another newspaper story, the only version of which I’ve found is in the Oneonta Star of November 19, 1960. It talks about 1936, the “quickie,” the Daffy Duck voice and characteristics. Freleng is assigned the “Brooklyn accent” quote, while Jones is handed the “wits” observation (Maltese and Pierce are still mentioned in the story). And there are the same insights about no houses or clothes, girl-friend and Freleng talking about “the most timid of animals.”

We can only presume Warners came up with a press handout in the ‘40s and kept pulling it out of the filing cabinet whenever it needed to bash out a new news release. If so, it had a life almost as long as the rabbit himself.

Enter Gerald's Parents

The production crew at UPA had an interesting way of bringing Gerald McBoing Boing’s parents into the scene in his Oscar-winning cartoon. The character’s lines appear to draw themselves and the colour fades in.



Bill Melendez, Pat Matthews, Rudy Larriva, Willie Pyle and Frank Smith were the credited animators.