Western Cliche Time

Directors of Westerns found different ways to set up shots of scenes leading up to the climax gun battle. In their hunt to avoid clichés, they created clichés. Director Chuck Jones, layout artist Phil De Guard and writer Mike Maltese got a chance to make fun of them in Drip-Along Daffy. It was released in 1951, a year before High Noon.

Here are the angles they came up with.



Maltese’s story has “comic relief” Porky Pig undermining the whole thing. He casually winds up a little toy that blasts, and disposes of, bad guy Nasty Canasta.

All Daffy Duck knows he is a Western hero and steadfastly continues to behave like one, walking with his guns toward a shootout that will, now, not happen, as a crowd rushes past him to mob Porky. Carl Stalling plays one of his stand-bys, “Cheyenne,” on the soundtrack.

Backgrounds are by Bob Gribbroek.

Duck Shoes

Want a gag out of nowhere from Walt Disney? We’ll go back to the silent days for one. It all started with a girl. And a Felix knock-off.

In Alice’s Mysterious Mystery (1926), our heroine and Julius the cat are detectives. Even their car gets into it, sniffing footprints like a dog.



Aha! They come across an end to the trail. A duck is sitting there, and gets ignored when it senses Alice looking it.



Surprise! The footprint belong to the duck, who is wearing shoes. It struts off rather indignantly, and out of the cartoon.



Disney gets credit in “A Winkler Production.” All “Winkler” did was release it.

No Watergate For Benny

If you listen to Jack Benny’s radio show, there’ll be reference to current political events on occasion. But they were the same kind of jokes everyone else was doing—the Republicans celebrating Thanksgiving on a different day than the Democrats, Alabama having two governors, Thomas Dewey unexpectedly losing to Harry Truman in the presidential race, the Marshall Plan for Britain, Al Smith unable to say “radio,” that sort of thing.

But it was all in good fun.

Watergate wasn’t.

It divided a nation and Jack Benny stayed away from it. Nor would you hear him joke about current affairs in the ‘60s. He stuck to the favourites of audiences for years and years, namely Benny making fun of himself.

Five months before he passed away, he stopped in Spokane, Washington to perform at Expo. He was greeted by the usual pack of reporters and at least one came away with a positive story. This is from the Spokesman-Review of July 26, 1974. Even he talked about his radio show, a subject he kept telling reporters was part of the past, and done, and to talk to him about what was ahead.

WIDE-RANGING INTERVIEW
39 or 80 – Benny Sharp as Ever
By ELEANOR RUTHERFORD
Spokesman-Review Staff Writer
Jack Benny, the ageless comedian who has entertained three generations of enthusiastic fans, proved at least two things at a press conference Thursday.
He really does have those baby blue eyes that he often brags about, and he dosen't [sic] need a bank of writers to provide laugh lines for him.
Asked if a book was going to be written about him which would be made into a movie, he grinned and said:
"What's there to say about me? I've been married to the same woman for 48 years. You people would rather read about someone with eight divorces.
"Today's audiences are much more sophisicated [sic] than those of a few decades ago, but you still all laugh at the same things."
He said he would probably open his show here with the same jokes he uses in London, Singapore or Tel Aviv, but would use some jokes relating to Expo and Spokane before the end of the show. He will open at 8 p.m. at Expo's Opera House today and will give two performances Saturday, one at 7 p.m. and one at 10 p.m. His final show will be at 8 p.m. Sunday.
"I generally stay away from Watergate and other problems in Washington. In the first place, they are not always funny, and I think I should know a lot more about it before making comments.[”]



Benny, who built a career on kidding about his stinginess, his constant age of 39 years and his old Maxwell, doesn't look even near his real age, 80 years. "I don't feel my age," he said, and added a quick aside. "There are moments, of course."
"I think the secret of staying young is to keep working until you can't.
"Bob Hope works even harder than I do. He claims that I am the biggest ham, but he never stops working. Actually, most engagements are like vacations for me. I just finished one in Colorado Springs, Colo., the other day. I had a show at night, but spent the days in the Broadmoor Hotel swimming pool end its excellent golf course."
Reminiscing about his lengthy radio career, the comedian said the biggest laugh ever garnered on his shows would have to be credited to Mary Livingston [sic], his real wife, who was also his maid and television wife. [!]
It involved a segment in which opera singer Dorothy Kirsten was discussing opera, a field supposedly alien to the comedian.
"After about an eight-minute build-up, I opened my mouth obviously to comment on opera, and said, ‘Well, I think . . .’
“With that patronizing look Mary did so well and in her dry delivery, she said, 'Oh, shut, up'."
Benny maintained that was the classic of all time as far as he was concerned.
Making light of the media asking him about the $300,000 he lost in the recent, highly publicized Home-Stake Co. oil swindle, Benney [sic] said he didn't mind that type of question and then defended Frank Sinatra, who seems to be constanlty [sic] in hot water with the press.
"Frank is one of my three closest friends. For every fault he has, he has hundreds of good qualities. Nobody does as much for people as he does, and he does it anonymously, without fanfare.
"How can you not like a guy like that?" he asked.
Benny also praised the chic and pretty Kaye Hart, the strawberry-blonde songstress, who will appear with him at the Opera House.
"Tell them you think I'm great," he kidded her.
"I really do," was her quick answer. "You could have heard me scream from Chicago across the nation when he hired me."
Yes, Benny will play the violin at his Expo appearances. "I would rather play with a symphony orchestra anytime than just be a comedian. I do lots of concerts and maybe I can do one for you in Spokane someday.
"It had better be quick, though," he quipped.
Adding a nostalgic touch, Benny spoke briefly about the famous cast of his radio shows.
"I see Phil Harris regularly in Las Vegas, Dennis Day is around every once in awhile, and Rochester, well, he spends his time at the races, but our paths do cross now and then. Don Wilson, the rotund announcer with me for so many years, is involved in a Palm Springs television company," he said.

Goodbye, My Baby

In a corner of the internet called “Facebook,” there is circulating a 1964 newspaper column by someone named Paul Jones upset at the Beatles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. He goes on to burn Sullivan for “catering to screaming teen-agers.”

People are ridiculing this guy for being on the wrong side of history. But they don’t seem to realise Jones was far from alone. Elvis Presley (who Mr. Jones doesn’t like, either) was “sinful” in the minds of many. And do a search of “record burning” on the internet to see what members of a certain generation thought of rock and roll.

The Jones column should not be a shock or surprise. Disliking the younger generation’s music has been going on for decades. Animation fans should know this. Bing Crosby and crooners in general came in for ridicule in several cartoons in the 1930s. We laugh in long hindsight. No one in this day and age thinks the Old Groaner is subverting morals. He’s considered pretty old fashioned these days, when he’s considered at all. To us today, the idea of getting worked up into frenzied anger about Rudy Vallee is ridiculous.

But let’s go back even further. Let’s go back to 1899. There’s outrage over a new hit record. Lots of outrage.

What’s this horrible song?

I’ll bet many people here, 123 years later, have heard it and may even know some of the lyrics.

The chorus starts off:

“Hello, my baby,
Hello, my honey,
Hello, my ragtime gal.”

Can you imagine today, much like they once did about the Beatles, people going ballistic about a song that was re-born in 1955 thanks to Chuck Jones, Mike Maltese and a cartoon frog?

The song was certainly ubiquitous in the Gaslight Era. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Atlantic City correspondent, in the August 6, 1899 edition, complained about the erection of new piers, then went on to another topic:

There are other affairs that will soon claim the attention of the authorities, however, unless some charitably inclined person comes along and devises a remedy very soon. That is the awful hold that "Hello, My Baby" has taken here. No matter where you go you will hear this mongrel ballad. There is no escape apparently, and the more one tries to get a moment's relief the worse are the chances. Yesterday a visitor was driven almost frantic in his endeavor to find a place where the strains of the song would not reach his ears. He took a seat early in the morning on one of the piers and prepared to enjoy himself reading the papers. Suddenly the band struck up "Hello, My Baby." For a while he did not mind it. But finally it dawned upon him that every time a person came through the gates the band director displayed a sort of sympathetic feeling for the newcomer, apparently thinking that he had never heard the piece, and the band would repeat it. He stood it for quite a while and then made a dash for a pavilion. Hardly had he become comfortably seated ere the dulcet strains came floating toward him from one of the merry-go-round organs. Then he went to a bath house, and, donning a bathing suit, plunged into the surf in a vain effort to find relief. But, alas! He reckoned wrong, for when, he had swam out a fair distance a pleasure yacht hove in sight. Perched upon the cabin was a gentleman of color playing a banjo and the tune was the old familiar one. Then the visitor became desperate. Hurrying back to the bath house he changed his clothes and went to his hotel. On the porch there was a strolling band of musicians and they, too, were playing the piece. Once more he made a break, this time going to the seclusion of his room, and, closing the windows he felt that he was safe. Again was he foiled, for a young girl at the piano in the parlor thumped the familiar air for all she was worth. There was no escape, and the visitor decided that he would endeavor no more to fight shy of it. Wherever one goes this tune is heard, and it is becoming a positive bore here.

The Washburn Review of Topeka, Kansas of November 24, 1899 called the song a “pest.”

The story page of the New Orleans Semi-Weekly Times-Democrat of January 9, 1900 included a tale by S. Rhett Roman, where he treated the year 1899 as a human. What Roman’s opinion was is hard to say, but no doubt he gave voice to what some people thought:

Some one just then coming noisily down the hall whistled cheerfully, if not over-musically. Hello, my lady! Hello, my baby! Hello, my rag time gal!" which seemed to set 1899's nerves more actively on edge than ever.

“Now, in heaven's name, what do you call that?” he snapped, thrusting his bands deep in his pockets and scowling aggravatedly [sic] at the door as he sat back.
“Here we are on the verge of a new century, which I'll wager a hat will be an improvement on mine, and this is the popular music which delights humanity!
“Some few centuries ago Mozart, Haydn and Gluck shed the glorious light of true melody over the world; Sebastian Bach wrote his marvelous Passions, and later Ludwig Van Beethoven donated to futurity those incomparable sonatas and symphonies which ought to have served a better educational purpose.
“Having learned the magic of such seraphic sounds, is it possible, is it credible, that the world should retrograde to “Hello, my baby,” and such trash? Bah!"

Yes, in 1900, the offending music was not the Beatles but (ugh!) ragtime. Only classical music would do outside the confines of those lowbrow theatres. The Kansas City Star put this on the editorial page sometime in June 1900. One other paper was so horrified, it printed this story in consecutive weeks. Unfortunately, the editorialist added race into the mixture. Newspaper stories of the day mention the song was heard in minstrel shows in certain parts of the U.S.

On the recent occasion of the commencement exercises of the Western Girls' High School in Baltimore, the ceremonies had been about concluded and the honors had been distributed, when one of the sweet graduates in white went to the piano and began to play, "Hello, My Baby!" In an instant the faculty was in a state of indignant excitement. The class song had been set to the tune of a coon song, but proceeded no further than the first stanza. It was embarrassing for the young woman, but the faculty felt that the line must be drawn somewhere, and that "Hello, My Baby" was about the limit.
It is reasonable to suppose that ragtime compositions will continue to do service as an inspiration to the votaries of the agile two-step and as a proper adjunct of vaudeville performances. It has its place and its proper sphere of influence, but it seems high time that the monopoly which has driven out the higher and better class of music which educates the ear and refines the taste, should be broken, and that the former standards should be restored.

Much like the people who chuckle at Mr. Jones’ attitude toward rock and roll, others enjoyed the song, even without a frog. The Los Angeles Record peeked in at the Orpheum Theatre and reported on January 20, 1900:

There is no question that Fougere, the amusing French artist from the Concert des Ambassadeurs in Paris, has been the magnet that has drawn many. While the Los Angeles audiences do not take kindly to an act which they do not understand, they wake up when Fougere sings in her broken English style. “Hello My Baby,” the popular telephone song, always wins applause.

Generational disagreements about music have been carrying for an awful long time. I suspect 20 years from now, “old” people will be dewey-eyed about whatever it is they listen to today as they snark about what their kids and grandkids are listening to.

And they’ll probably complain about the cartoons the youngins watch, too.

There's Always Room For Jerry Jello

Mouse-flavoured Jello?

That’s evidently what we get in Calypso Cat, where Tom attacks Jerry with a mould of gelatin dessert.



No, Tom, don’t play with your food! It’s dangerous.



The weird off-modelness of this scene can mean only one thing—it was produced by Gene Deitch.

Steven Konichek’s music certainly doesn’t sound like anything you’d hear in a cartoon. Or anywhere else, really. He starts the scene with an echo-ey vibraphone which gets suddenly cut off and replaced with a solo piano and flute while Tom fingers the Jello, which is interrupted by a squeak toy noise and some other odd sound when Jerry bites Tom. It then jumps into a jazzy number with vibes, drum/cymbal and a horn (maybe a trombone) for a few seconds. Later, we get a violin accompanied by a ratchet. There are continual tempo changes. A melodic score it’s not. And the acoustics sound like something in a subway tunnel.

Freelancer Larz Bourne came up with a story reminiscent of the Hanna-Barbera unit shorts where Tom is pining over Toots and ignoring Jerry. At least Joe Barbera’s stories had likeable characters and some laughs. This has Tom turned into a vibrating turtle.

For Gene Deitch, this Tom isn’t terrific.

Eyes of a Dog

With the sound of Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” in the background, Wellington the cat stamps dog paw prints all over the room, as he tries to have Roscoe the hound tossed out by the mistress of the house (played by Bea Benaderet).



Observe, Roscoe.



Roscoe tries to scrub away the prints before the mistress gets downstairs. The two things I noticed about this scene: one is Wellington rushes back and forth across the room, but leaves trails of multiple eyes behind him. Don Williams used to do this but I don’t know if Williams had a short stop at Warners in 1943 when this cartoon was made (he went from MGM to Columbia that year).



The other thing is an interesting directorial choice by Friz Freleng: the camera pans back and forth across the room, but can’t keep up with Roscoe.



Since this cartoon, Hiss and Make Up became a Blue Ribbon re-issue in 1950 and had all its credits removed, we can only guess that Manny Perez, Gerry Chiniquy, Dick Bickenbach and Jack Bradbury were among the animators.

And is it my imagination, or did another Warners cartoon feature a cat stamping paw prints to the strains of “Powerhouse”?

It's Up and Down the Dial

Ask anyone who has been in radio any length of time, especially before two or three ice-cold and antiseptic corporations took over the industry, and they will likely tell you they worked with some of the characters on WKRP in Cincinnati.

This would make sense because the series was based, in part, on creator Hugh Wilson’s experiences in the business.

Even radio people in Cincinnati admitted that, yes, there is some truth in the series. Let’s hear from some of them in this wire service story from November 28, 1979.

‘WKRP’ Comedy Isn’t All Fiction For Cincinnati
By RICHARD H. GROWALD
United Press International
CINCINNATI — In the WNOP studios floating on the Ohio River disc jockey Leo Underhill wobbled out of his glass cage.
“Oh, my God, I need another Alka-Seltzer,” he said. “It’ll be my fourth this morning.”
He held his head as if in pain, and maybe he was, and subsided like a rumpled Teddy bear into a chair in Program Director Ray Scott’s office in the three red water-tank cylinders that float on the river and serve as the home of the radio station.
The office wobbled like a ship at sea. Scott suggested perhaps Underhill was seasick.
“It’s not that ‘avast ye matey and all that bad stuff this time. I got a hangover,” Underhill said. “Where’s that Alka-Seltzer?”
“See?” said Scott. “We are not WKRP. The television program station plays rock. WNOP plays jazz.”
THE CBS television show “WKRP in Cincinnati” is as popular here as in the rest of the country and Cincinnati’s actual AM radio stations take the televised comedy as flattery, maybe.
“Take the television show character, Herb Tarlek, WKRP’s advertising salesman. That is accuracy. White shoes and white belts, all radio ad salesmen wear ’em,” Underhill said.
Ashore in the studios of WCKY, whose midtown offices have the indirect lighting and soft carpeting of corporate success, News Director Mark Neeley said, “We have seven account executives. We don’t call them salesmen. And we have no disc jockeys, we have radio personalities or hosts.”
Afloat in WNOP, Underhill took his hands away from his head, looked at them and seem delighted and surprised they were clean of blood. “Of course, there is no such thing as a radio account executive. They are salesmen, as I said. And let me tell you salesmen are very busy people.
“They attend all the cocktail parties.”
SCOTT SUGGESTED that Underhill did some drinking, too. “Yes, yes,” said Underhill. “I drink pretty good.”
Scott: “Drinking is a way of life on this station.”
Underhill: “Well, we had this preacher working as a disc jockey. He did drink."
Scott: “Preacher man tried to keep up with me and you, Leo.”
Underhill: “And he died of it.”
Scott: "But give him credit. He held on as long as he could.” Underhill: “I knew the end was coming for him when he started substituting bourbon for sacramental wine.”
Scott: “When the WKRP show was in the making, their producer or someone came and looked us over. He went away rather hurriedly. It shows. The characters on the show don’t drink too much.”
Underhill: “And they never did have Miss Nude Universe at WKRP. We did. She came in one day while I was on the air. First thing she did in the studio was rip off the top part of her costume.
“I ASKED IF that was all Miss Nude Universe did. It didn't seem enough for her image. Well, she then ripped off the bottom part. I was reporting this to the folks out in radioland and one of our disc jockeys, Gary Stephenson, was at home and heard and jumped in his car to come down and see for himself.
“The cops arrested Gary for speeding. He missed Miss Nude Universe. I didn’t.”
Scott: "Leo, you’re just a radio personality.”
Underhill: “No, I’m a disc jockey.”
In Cincinnati’s Hyde Park Square area station WEBN was broadcasting its top 40 formula. “We are nothing at all like WKRP,” said Program Director Denton Marr, wearing dark glasses in his unsunlit room.
“In WKRP the station is owned by the general manager’s mother.
“Here at WEBN the station is owned by the general manager’s father.”
HE LAUGHED. “WKRP’s disc jockey Johnny Fever is a tame version of me. Here we think of ourselves less as a radio station and more of a stage. Like our Fool’s Day Parades.”
He described how each year WEBN staged the annual parade, using crowd sound effects and disc jockeys describing the parade moving through Hyde Park Square out-front.
"Yes,” said WEBN news reporter Rick Bird. “I can hear it now. Ladies and gentlemen, here comes now the Our Lady of Perpetual Motion Marching Band. Sound effects of roaring crowds.
“And now here comes the Greater Cincinnati Cocaine Dealers Association snowmobile! Sounds of wild crowd noises.”
Director Marr said, “You know those broadcasts actually brought people from all around to Hyde Park Square to see the Fool’s Day Parade. There was nothing to see, of course. Eat your heart out, WKRP.”
MARR SAID WEBN has had one bit of woe however. It concerns the station's promotion of its mythical symbol, mascot and hero, the WEBN Frog. The disc jockeys each election ask voters to write in the Frog.
“We really don't know how many votes Frog got for president in Cincinnati in the 1976 election,” Marr said. “The board of election won’t tell us. All we know was that Frog got enough write-ins so the board had to delay its 1976 tally for 12 hours to hand-count all the ballots.”
At the more ordered WCKY, radio personality Wirt Cain acknowledged he and his station colleagues run more to neckties than the disc jockeys of WNOP and WEBN. “And WKRP is a slight overstatement of a sampling of many radio stations. No one station could succeed with all those characters.”
“And WCKY has no turntables in its studio. We use tape,” Neeley said.
And in the WCKY lobby there was no sign of the doubly breasted Jennifer Malone, the WKRP receptionist played by Loni Anderson. In the WCKY lobby sits the very married Allene Marrs.
“The account executives do not chase me,” she said. “They better not. I’m three times a grandmother.”

Mr. Neeley’s station probably doesn’t use tape these days. Fewer and fewer disc jockeys have ever edited audio tape or a cued up a 45 or patched in a remote. Even fewer have picked their own music for their shows. I must admit, I did all those things during my career when WKRP was still in first run. Then there was the time in 1976 the farm director was late so we called him at home, woke him up, told him he was on the air and he ad-libbed a three minute report, half-asleep. He should have won a Silver Sow for that. I even reported live on a shopping centre fire from a phone booth across the street. No turkeys dropped, though. That couldn’t have happened in real life.

Or could it?

Accidents Don't Happen

Ambulance chasers Tom and Jerry think they have an accident victim they can sell insurance to in Trouble, but when he floats harmlessly to the ground from the top of a skyscraper, it turns out he was never in any danger. He’s a stunt guy.

When Tom and Jerry read his business card, they faint. Their eyes turn to crosses like in those newspaper cartoons of 100 years ago.



In a nicely timed bit, the ambulance rolls them up to take them to hospital but when it drives away, Tom and Jerry are left on the ground. They sit up dizzily as the cartoon irises out.



John Foster and George Stallings get the “by” credit. Tom and Jerry sing an accident song about “broken legs, broken ribs.” Whether it’s a Gene Rodemich original, I don’t know, but I hope whenever this gets a good restoration we can hear the lyrics a little better.

This cartoon was released October 10, 1931.

Brrrr

The Warner Bros. brought the world the feature film Dames (1934), with Guy Kibbee, Zasu Pitts, Hugh (Woo-Hoo) Herbert and the songs “I Only Have Eyes For You,” “The Girl at the Ironing Board,” “Try to See It My Way,” “When You Were a Smile on Your Mother’s Lips,” and the title tune (Dick Powell and Joan Blondell sang it).

The first two were made into cartoons for Warners by Leon Schlesinger Productions and the first was put into the hands of Tex Avery, who gave it the touches we expect from him. There’s a Kate Hepburn imitation (by Elvia Allman). There’s a tongue-tied iceman (played by Joe Twerp) who drives away, only to quickly drive back to say something to the audience, then drive away for good. There’s a radio catchphrase (“Hello, Strangzer!” by Professor Mockingbird is from Schlepperman on the Jack Benny show).

My favourite moment in the cartoon is when the professor plays Cyrano de Bergerac for the iceman, singing for him to impress Katie Canary. But the professor is hiding in the back of the ice wagon and freezing, which doesn’t exactly make him sound like Bing Crosby or Rudy Vallee. The chilled professor stops singing, turns to the audience and says in a regular voice “Boy, it’s bloody cold in here.”

Avery and his writing unit came up with a nice little ending. The iceman doesn’t win Katie’s love. She goes off with the professor, warming him up as, in the background, a crooner-broadcasting radio is replaced with a refrigerator. The iceman resigns himself to being stuck with an old crone (also played by Elvia Allman) he didn’t want. “Well, anyhow, she can cook,” he spits out as the iris closes to end the cartoon.

I originally wrote the iceman is an impression of spoonerist Roy Atwell, and he uses Atwell's "Let it go, let it go" catchphrase from the Fred Allen show. But there was more than one spoonerist on the radio back then, and Twerp worked on a syndicated show at this time with the team of Oscar and Elmer, the latter played by Lou Fulton. Twerp appears to have appropriated Fulton's act. Fulton, by the way, played the stuttering contestant in I Love to Singa (1936). You can hear them both below on a show called The Last Nighter, which aired on KFWB, right next to the Schlesinger cartoon studio. The male chorus on the show sounds familiar, too.



Billy Bletcher can be heard on the cartoon as well.

Martha Goldman inked parts of this cartoon and she swears the title was I Only Have Ice For You, which is an improvement.

Anyone Can Be 39

Why did Jack Benny lie about his age?

He did it for you.

Well, he did it to help others have fun and get laughs by pretending to be 39. It must have worked. Years after Jack’s death in 1974, newspapers reported on people joking about being “Jack Benny’s age.” It happens occasionally today, among the older generation, granted, but the joke is still alive.

Here’s Jack talking with the New York Herald Tribune News Service about it in 1961, two days after his actual birthday (Valentine’s Day).

Jack Benny, 39 More Years
By Joe Hyams
New York Herald Tribune Special Dispatch.
HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 16—Tuesday was a big day for Jack Benny. He celebrated his thirty-ninth birthday for the twenty-seventh time.
"I'm 67 years old," he said. "That's my real age. In three more years I’ll be 70 and how old can you get? But I feel I can’t complain.

Benny said he doesn’t plan to ever turn 40 publicly even when he reaches seventy. “If I actually looked my right then doing the 39 gag wouldn’t be funny,” he said, “but just the fact that everybody says I don’t look 67 gives me the license to cheat. A woman cheats on her age a little bit and it’s okay. Instead of cheating a little I cheat a lot.
“I THINK THE gag started when I was about 40 and said I was 36. I stayed 36 a few years, 37 a few years and 38 and 39 for a few. Then one year I turned 40. You’d be amazed at the newspaper editorials and letters I got complaining about it.
“Everyone said it was a mistake for me to turn 40. That as long as I called myself 39 a lot of other people were calling themselves 39 too, and having fun at it. Thirty-nine is a funny age—like you don’t want to get over the hump. A lot of kids think you’re old at 40 so the next year I went back being 39 and that’s the age I’ll keep.
MAYBE BEING 39 perpetually has helped keep me young. I remember years ago George Washington Hill used to say if you plug anything long pretty soon you begin to believe it. I guess I’ve been taken in by my own gag. To some extent I think young and I still work hard.
Benny’s plans for the future and his enthusiasm for the present are undimmed by the passage of time. He plans to continue doing a weekly CBS-TV show and spending his spare time raising money at benefit violin concerts. Since 1956 he’s given 22 concerts, “saved” half a dozen symphony orchestras by money he’s raised to wipe out their deficits and has been responsible for contributions of more than two and a half million dollars to musicians’ funds.
“THIS LAST SEASON on television (1960-61) was probably the best I ever had,” Benny said. “I’ve never done so many shows where everybody said the last show was the best. As long as it’s this much fun I’ll never quit. We already have titles for our next season shows. We know next season will be better but while we never try to have a great show, we try not to have a lousy one. This thinking works all the time.
As a parting question I asked Benny how he’d suggest other people be like him—a perpetual 39.
“Stop counting,” he said.