Mitzi McCall

Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In went into its second season with producer George Schlatter adding to the cast. Among the newcomers were a pair of nightclub comedians—Mitzi McCall and Charlie Brill, “the fun couple.” The two of them married in 1960 and stayed that way for 64 years.

Mitzi has passed away at the age of 93.

She came from Pittsburgh, where she hosted the Kiddle Castle children’s show on WDTV. She was married to director Jack Tolen, who was hired in June 1953 to be the programme director of the new NBC-TV station (KFSD-TV) in San Diego. Her husband put her on Studio Ten, the station’s weekday afternoon housewife/variety show. Her big break came soon. Leon Gutterman led off his column for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Nov. 19, 1954 with a story about her.

Jerry Lewis Predicts Stardom for Mitzi McCall
HOLLYWOOD—Comedian Jerry Lewis, who is feeling a lot better these days—he was ill for quite a while—has predicted to his Hollywood friends that the new discovery, Mitzi McCall, who’ll be playing opposite him in his new film, “You’re Never Too Young,” is destined for quick stardom. Jerry picked Mitzi from 200 girls interviewed by himself and Paramount representatives. He insisted: "I'd have selected this sensational personality in a minute from 5,000 girls if it had gone that far."
To those of us who knew pretty Mitzy McCall [sic] when her name was Mitzi Steiner, and saw her doing occasional acting and singing engagements over radio and in Los Angeles and in Pittsburgh, this comes as no surprise. Now that Paramount has signed Mitzi and is ready to begin grooming her for stardom, we predict she'll replace Betty Hutton as the studio in a very short time.
Mitzi’s story has a Cinderella plot to it. For months she went from agent to agent in Hollywood pleading for some kind of chance. Nobody saw anything in her. In fact, very few agents even gave her the courtesy of an interview. Jerry Lewis heard about her from director Norman Taurog. Norman took her to Jerry's house and right into Jerry’s bedroom where the young comedian was recuperating from his illness. Mitzi walked in and began impersonating Jerry Lewis for Jerry Lewis. Jerry says he almost fell out of his bed howling with laughter. Mitzi, still under terrific tension, went through her other bits of mimicry. Jerry shouted, "'That's enough! That's the kid we've been for! Let's sign her right away!”

Erskine Johnson’s column of Oct. 3, 1954, quotes Mitzi as telling Lewis when she first met him: “You must meet my husband. He’s not like me—he’s refined.” “Just like my family,” Jerry replied. “My wife is refined, too.”

Both jettisoned their partners (in Jerry’s case, we mean Dean Martin), and carried on with their careers. Mitzi became part of a double act. But, as the Los Angeles Times reported at the end of 1960, it was with Joan Shawlee. She and her husband didn’t go on stage together until December 1961 with an appearance at the hungry i in San Francisco, but not before a “good luck” call from Jerry Lewis.

How was it the two came to be on Laugh-In? They explained it to the syndicated TV Key column on Sept. 19, 1968.

They Said Program Needed Them
By HARVEY PACK
HOLLYWOOD—Mitzi McCall and Charlie Brill are a comedy team who specialize in improvisations and zany repartee.
When they saw "Laugh-In" last season on NBC, they began to salivate because it was obvious to McCall and Brill that the program desperately needed them.
In addition to sharing the stage, Mitzi and Charlie share a home, child and telephone because they are married. Charlie picked up the phone and called "Laugh-In" producer George Schlatter. As soon as he was connected he handed the phone to Mitzi because she takes care of all family appointments.
"Hello, is Mr. Schlatter there?" asked Mitzi. When she gave her name to the secretary, she was told Mr. Schlatter was not available. "Oh," she said, and Charlie could see the wheels turning. "Well, tell him McCall and Brill returned his call and we're tired of having him pester us."
After she hung up Charlie wanted an explanation. "I couldn't think of anything else to say," laughed the Pittsburgh-born pixie. "Let him figure out that message."
Thus began a series of unanswered phone messages from the Brills' "Laugh-In" office. Hardly a day went by when George Schlatter wasn't told to stop bothering the Brills because they were not interested in doing his show. It paid off. One day Charlie and Mitzi were asked come in and meet their adversary face to face. When “Laugh-In” reconvenes Charlie and Mitzi will be seen regularly for what they are, a funny married couple.
"It's a new version of something from the early days of TV called 'The Bickersons' which featured Don Ameche and Frances Langford,” explained Charlie. "They asked us to listen to an old album but we didn't want any preconceived ideas."
The Brills are always "on" even when they're alone. It's an infectious kind of banter best described as Burns and Allen, vintage 1968. "Charlie," blurted Mitzi right smack in the middle of the interview. "We're supposed to see a man about a commercial today."
"When?" asked Charlie.
"Two hours ago," moaned Mitzi looking at her husband's watch. "I'll go call him . . . excuse me. . .”
"She's kind of crazy all the time,” explained Charlie as his wife went scurrying off to a phone. "I'll bet she doesn't remember our home phone number." He asked her the number when she returned and she rattled it off immediately but she had a bit of trouble with their address.
Bankruptcy to Success
"You know we've had it rough," continued Brill, the Brooklyn born half of the team. "We went to New York to do a guest spot on the 'Tonight' show," [on Sept. 14, 1962] and when we found out we wouldn't get the $320 for several weeks, we had to answer one of those ads in which they give you a car to drive to California and pay for the gas. Otherwise we couldn't have made it back to the coast. I could have gone to my relatives in Brooklyn but how do you explain that kind of bankruptcy to people who think you're a big success because were on the 'Tonight' show?"
But things are looking up; the Brills hope the "Laugh-In" is the big break. "We're been married eight years," said Mitzi. "And outside of our daughter who arrived on our eighth anniversary this is the best thing that's ever happened to us."
They met when Charlie auditioned for the Jerry Lewis Comedy Workshop, of which Mitzi was already a member. She sat with Lewis, watched Charlie do his routines and decided right, then and there that this was it. When she confided her plans to Charlie, the two were married.
Charlie likes to be told he looks like Peter Sellers. Mitzi panics when told she reminds one of Jo Anne Worley. “I love Jo Anne,” she explains, “But she’s on ‘Laugh-In’ and I don’t want any confusion.” “Nobody will be confused,” interrupts her husband. “Everybody will know you’re the one who works with Peter Sellers.”

Laugh-In added to the cast in the second season, and subtracted as well. It would appear McCall and Brill were too busy with nightclub work to stay on the show. The following February, after 13 Laugh-Ins, they were in Hawaii as part of the Jack Jones show. “People recognize us now. Isn’t that wonderful?” they said to the Honolulu Star Advertiser.

While a handful of people may remember them with Dan and Dick, animation fans will know McCall from her work on The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and other cartoon series. Game show fans will know her from her energetic appearances with her husband on Tattletales. And entertainment history buffs will know the two of them from the night of February 9, 1964, when they followed the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. It would have been an unenviable situation to begin with, but Sullivan changed their act at the last minute. Mitzi got in an ad-lib that, backstage, she had stepped on a beatle. They’re better known for years of telling interviewers of how big a disaster their appearance had been than the appearance itself.

Yes, the two of them did other things (the 1953 photo to the left should read “Shirley Jones”), but this little reminscence should you give you a good idea about Mitzi McCall’s sense of humour that kept her employed for quite a while.

Hanna and Barbera Save Money

Whether the mighty Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio told Fred Quimby to save money on his cartoons, I couldn’t tell you, but that’s exactly what he did.

The third unit headed by Mike Lah and Preston Blair was disbanded and Metro, for a time, distributed cartoons made by John Sutherland Productions. The Tex Avery unit was shut down in 1953. And the Hanna-Barbera unit pinched pennies by finding ways of reusing animation.

Here’s an example from Cruise Cat, released in 1951. Tom pursues Jerry into a movie theatre on a ship. They stop.

The camera pans right to left over one of Bob Gentle’s backgrounds and stops at the movie screen. It’s showing Texas Tom, made in 1950.



Sorry, the shot moves not only across, but down the background so I can’t put the frames together. Tom and Jerry settle in to watch their cartoon.



The film then uses footage from the old cartoon from 4:43 to 5:11 before cutting to new reaction animation of Tom and Jerry by Ken Muse.



From 5:15 to 5:36, it’s back to the re-used footage before cutting back to new animation for the rest of the cartoon.



Hanna and Barbera found different ways to incorporate footage from previous cartoons in cartoons such as Jerry’s Diary (1949), Life With Tom (1952) and Smarty Cat (1954—a Daws Butler cat shows “home movies”). Of course, other studios did the same thing.

Finally, MGM found a way to save lots of money on cartoons. It stopped making them. Hanna and Barbera moved on to a new project in 1957, but that’s a story for another blog.

We Want Betty

An audience of animals cheers Betty Boop after her on-stage impersonation of Maurice Chevalier in Stopping the Show (1932).



That is one drawing from one of a number of animation cycles in this enjoyable cartoon from the Fleischer studio.



The frame above is one of 26 drawings in a cycle. Below, you can look at the cycle slowed down.



The animation in the cartoon is credited to Doc Crandall and Rudolph Eggeman. The artwork is attractive, far more so than at the other New York theatrical animation studios.

In the Motion Picture Herald, one theatre manager proclaimed of the Betty Boop cartoon “These are always good” while another said “A very clever cartoon.” Abel Green was a little less enthusiastic in Variety. He wrote on August 16, 1932.

‘STOPPING THE SHOW’
Betty Boop Cartoon
6 Mins.
Rialto, N. Y.
Paramount
Another in the Max Fleischer series, built like a vaude show with a succession of acts until Betty Boop comes on and is vociferously greeted by her menagerie audience.
She does imitations, besides her own style, of Chevalier and Fannie Brice, the former not so good.
Has lots of novelty and comedy and is an okay short all around.

Below is the cycle at a speed closer to what you see on the screen.

Before He Was Hippie and Dippy

My knowledge of George Carlin goes back to high school days, when people played comedy albums at parties (as a smell wafted through the air from a then-illegal substance I didn’t use). Later, I saw clips of him from aged TV shows where he had short hair and a thin tie. And, improbably to me, I discovered he worked with Jack Burns in the pre-Avery Schreiber days.

I wondered when he first appeared on television and, on hunting around, was surprised to learn he came from local radio; I’d never read any of his background. The photo you see to the right is from the Shreveport Observer of March 1, 1957, which reported Carlin had “ambition and initiative” but had never been in radio before being hired to do afternoons at daytimer KJOE.

He performed in theatre in Shreveport, sometimes as George D. Carlin. He’s almost unrecognisable in the photo to the left for a play in August 1956. His name begins to appear in radio listings in Boston in March 1959, jocking afternoon drive at NBC affiliate WEZE immediately after Pepper Young’s Family. NBC made wholesale changes to its programming and the last mention of Carlin at WEZE is in August, in late evening immediately following the weekday version of Monitor. He jumped that month to an evening shift at KXOL in Fort (Don’t Call Us Dallas) Worth.

Burns worked at WEZE, too. The two teamed together at KXOL, but didn’t stick around there that long. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Elston Brooks followed their early career and reported on February 28, 1960 “KXOL’s George Carlin and Jack Burns have left the station to break in their new comedy act on the West Coast.” It doesn’t look like they appeared on TV while in Texas.

Either they got noticed quickly or had a good manager (in the early days, it was Murray Becker). 1960 fell in the Golden Era of Comedy LPs and the pair signed a record deal. Variety of June 29, 1960 reported:

Era: Burns & Carlin
Hollywood, June 28.
Burns & Carlin, new comedy team currently headlining at Cosmo Alley nitery, inked a recording pact with Era Records and cut “The Cool World of Burns and Carlin” as their first album. Discussions are on for Mort Sahl to pen the liner notes.

There was significance about the mention of Sahl. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Variety of August 3, 1960 mentioned “New comedy team of Jack Burns & George Carlin, is set to etch nitery turn for Era Records during four-week Playboy Club, Chi, booking in November.” Whether this was the same album is unclear, but the internet tells me it wasn’t released until 1963.

If you’re wondering about their act, Variety reviewed it in their July 27, 1960 issue. You didn’t hear “seven words you can’t say on television.” In fact, it doesn’t sound like you even heard one.

JACK BURNS & GEORGE CARLIN
Comedy
35 Mins.
Cloister, Chicago
Two young, attractive fellows, in first significant booking to date (they’ve been out only a few months, show good potential as a comedy pair, albeit a need for some help in the script and concepts departments. As act now play its’ okay parody, but trend of modern comedics should cue duo toward the sharper satire which they only skirt.
They open topically (Jack Kennedy, southland sit-ins, etc.) seguing to situational stuff, none of it particularly venturesome, even by commercial saloon standards. They rib Huntley-Brinkley, the “beats,” tv pitchmen, Murrow’s P-to-P teleshow (Person to Person), and a tv kidshow with sicko angles that was their funniest at review session.
As of now there’re somewhere between stock commercial and off-beat, and not enough either way for sock register in either league. Some of the lines are potent (for sporadic yocks), but most of the promises are fairly ordinary. Some eye-popper viewpoints and perhaps fresher tandem concept could spark a basically talented team. Meanwhile, duo could profitably cut at least five minutes from present turn. Pit

It sounds if the act was being kept mostly family-friendly, which would make it ideal for television.

This still doesn’t answer the question of when Carlin made his first TV appearance. The Star-Telegram’s Brooks blurbed on September 28 “George Carlin and Jack Burns, the KXOL-exes who formed a nightclub comedy team, have an L.P. comedy album and an appearance on the Perry Como show coming up. Playboy magazine has written them up.”

Como debuted that season on October 5. But neither Carlin nor Burns were on the show. The stand-up comedy was supplied by Shelley Berman. It would appear their TV debut was in New York. The syndicated TV Key Previews column mentioned in the highlights for the day’s programmes on October 10, 1960:

11:15 p.m. (NBC) JACK PAAR SHOW—Arlene Francis gives Jack Paar a night off and plays host to visiting Irish playwright Brendan Behan and actress Constance Cummings. She also introduces Broadway singers Rita Gardner and Kenny Nelson for a duet from their show, and Burns and Carlin, a comedy team, for an act. (Color)

Brooks’ column two days later opined: “We know that Jack Burns and George Carlin, the Fort Worth comedians who appeared on the Paar show Monday night, must have hot material or else they coudln’t [sic] have gone so far so quickly. But they may have suffered from strict TV censorship Monday night.”

Network executives are extremely timid by nature. What could they have found in the act that could be censorable? No, they didn’t do a “water closet” joke like the one Paar told that was cut by NBC earlier in the year and caused him to walk off his own show. The answer may be contained in a Variety review published February 15, 1961.

BURNS & CARLIN
Comedy
25 Mins.
hungry I, San Francisco
Jack Burns and George Carlin are disciples of the Lenny Bruce-Mort Sahl “sick” school, and handle their fresh, if derivate, material quite nicely.
They come on with a Huntley Brinkley bit, which quick1y switches Into a Kennedy-Nixon bit, then go into a Hollywood sci-fi film, some ordinary Faubus gags and some takeoffs.
Interestingly enough, Carlin does a rather extended impression of Sahl—interesting because six years ago on the same stage Sahl was breaking in his act. This comes as a kind of jolt to Frisco nightclub goers with any sort of memory and sitz-power.
Burns goes on to a David Susskind impression, in which Carlin acts as a German Nazi) professor being interviewed: here’s where the racial and religious gags, a la Bruce, play their role. They wind up with what they call an “Ode to Madison Avenue,” which consists two tv kiddie-show pitchmen pitching booze and narcotics in the 5-6 p.m. slot. This is fairly funny, even deft, at midnight in a nightclub. Elsewhere, no.
All of this, of course, is more social commentary than straight-out comedy. The team uses very few one-liners, depends on audience knowing their frames of reference. Burns & Carlin, therefore, are okay for the hip cellar circuit, but would have a tougher time using this material on tv or even radio. Their delivery and timing are good and they figure to acquire more poise with time. Stef.

We’ll end this post with the words of syndicated New York columnist Hy Gardner. He caught Burns and Carlin’s show on October 31-November 1, 1960, and analysed it the next day. It was under rather unusual circumstances. Gardner was out on the town when there were shootings at saloons at Broadway and 52nd Street.

We missed the police action by a hundred yards and a couple of hours. At midnight we were sitting in a near-by basement bomb shelter known as the International Cafe. Here a minor Presidential rally was being staged by the president of A. G. V. A. [the vaudeville performers association]. Joey Adams was reintroducing the Guild’s Monday Night Auditions, giving talent scouts, bookers and newspapermen an all-too-rare opportunity to see and hear new talent. We were especially taken with a new comedy team, Jack Burns and George Carlin. These clean-cut youngsters are refreshing in their attitude, their material and their delivery. They write their own topical routines and, without showing a single symptom of sickness, draw continuous howls of merriment. Their take-offs, for example, of Huntley and Brinkley and Nixon and Kennedy, are classics in comedic caricatures, sharply etched but not cutting enough to show scars. Carlin’s impression of Mort Sahl (on whom we wrote a similar rave review when Mort first appeared in a Greenwich Village boite) would stop any show, anywhere, in any medium. And Carlin does it the hard way—without a sweater!
In our opinion the team of Burns & Carlin is destined to become the hottest partnership in the business—and if and when they do, their union can take a bow for giving them a chance to shine, then rise. . . . The boys say: “It’s wonderful to live in a country where you can overthrow the government by farce.” It’s also wonderful to live in a country where a keen sense of humor can make a celebrity out of a nonentity overnight.

Burns and Carlin broke up in 1962, and Carlin made his solo debut at the Gate of Horn in Chicago on March 20. Will Leonard of the Chicago Tribune caught the show and proclaimed Carlin “is as funny by himself as the two were together.” That may be true but, as time wore on, fans appreciated Carlin’s caustic and blunt “social commentary” more than they did his “straight-out comedy.” He was a king of honest observations that continued until he died in 2008.

Big City Red Riding Hood

A highlight of any of the Red cartoons Tex Avery made at MGM are the reaction takes. Here’s an example from Little Rural Riding Hood.

The country wolf gets a telegram (and photo) from his city cousin.



The scene isn’t just a big-eye take. The wolf ties his body in a knot (in mid air), then clicks his heels as his body flies apart. It’s difficult to see in still frames, but Avery adds to the movement by having the torso and the legs rise on the background.



The wolf pulls himself together, then the eye take. These three frames are consecutive.



Avery doesn’t simply hold the take. The big eyes move slighty toward and away from the picture. The wolf’s whole body is animated on ones. Then the eyes retract and move in on the photo for a closer look.



The wolf bounds up and down, then side to side.



Next, he stomps on his own head. His body moves slightly downward; it’s not static. The action is also animated on ones.



Finally, the wolf’s tongue rolls onto the floor as his head bobs up and down.



From the wolf’s first reaction until Rural Red leans back into the scene, Avery takes a little over six seconds (149 frames). The cartoon zips along when it needs to.

Bobe Cannon, Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Walt Clinton animate the short, with Scott Bradley (perhaps under duress) scoring “Frankie and Johnny” under the scene (the tune under the held shot of the telegram is the even-more-ancient “Reuben and Rachel”).

The cartoon was released on September 17, 1949. Perhaps Avery felt there wasn’t much more he could do with Red as she was retired, though this short was re-released by MGM in 1956 and 1966.

Great Guns!

Bugs Bunny Rides Again has many great moments, including a throwaway gag in the middle of the cartoon.

Bugs is indignant with Yosemite Sam, and begins challenging him. At the same time, he’s turning Sam’s guns back on the outlaw. After a couple of seconds, Sam looks down, realises what’s happened, and turns the guns back on the rabbit.



The gag’s not set up by the dialogue. It just happens as Bugs challenges Sam verbally.

Mike Maltese and Tedd Pierce wrote the cartoon for Friz Freleng, whose wonderful timing is another highlight. Freleng knew how long to hold frames for their maximum impact.

His usual crew animates: Ken Champin, Virgil Ross, Gerry Chiniquy and Manny Perez, with Paul Julian providing some top-notch backgrounds.

Play, Don

Two men joined Jack Benny’s gang on April 6, 1934. One stayed for years. The other didn’t.

The date is when General Tire began bankrolling the show. Replacements were needed for announcer Alois Havrilla and band leader Frank Black from the Chevrolet programme. In fact, Benny was going to dump singer Frank Parker but it turned out the supposed successor, Bob Simmons, signed an exclusive contract for a show that never got on the air (Akron Beacon Journal, Apr. 6, 1934).

The diction-award-winning Havrilla, who, frankly, sounded too formal at times, was replaced by the jovial Don Wilson, whose likable personality kept him with Benny from radio into TV. Black, a fine orchestra leader, but who delivered his lines in a moan, left in favour of Don Bestor.

Bestor lasted through the half-season for General Tire, on the NBC Red/WEAF network, and the first season for Jell-O, on the NBC Blue/WJZ network. Bestor’s lasting accomplishment was writing the five-note Jell-O jingle that was still heard on TV commercials in the 1960s (the Chipmunks sang it on The Alvin Show). Warner Bros. cartoon fans have heard a reference to Bestor. At the end of Page Miss Glory (1936), the title character leans downward and says “Play, Don,” which is what Benny used to say to Bestor every week.

Benny and Bestor had worked together before. They appeared on an Orpheum bill in Western Canada and down the U.S. West Coast in early 1928. Bestor had a contract with Victor records at the time. Despite that, he wasn’t just handled the job. One press report said five bands were up for the gig. Bestor (or a ghost writer) explained what happened in a story in the Omaha Bee-News, May 19, 1935. He was working on the Nestle show with Walter O’Keefe and Ethel Shutta (the main vocalist on Benny’s first show for Canada Dry in 1932) just before jumping to Jack.

How It Feels to Be a Comedian’s Stooge
By Don Bestor
When the Jack Benny series of programs were in the process of realization, the sponsors, Jack Benny and Harry Conn, who writes the scripts, were casting about for an orchestra leader with not only a musically satisfying outfit, but with an ability to stooge for Benny's barbs.
Arranged for An Audition
My agent arranged for an audition for me, but, as a matter of fact, both he and I didn't think a great deal of my chances of clicking. I'd always been sort of serious minded, I'd never read comedy lines and had vague misgivings at being able to do so capably. So when the studio officials and Benny notified me I was in you could have knocked me down with Frank Parker. (See, I was getting funny already). Before the first rehearsal, Jack came to me and said:
"Look, Don, we're going to build you up as a very intellectual chap. Fastidious dresser, very polite, very formal and all that. You’re not a flippant guy and we won't write you the flip, Broad-wayish lines we did for Jimmie Grier, Ted Weems or any of the other orchestra leaders who have worked with me on the air. Rather, you’re to be played up as serious and quite studious. O. K.?
I said I thought it was a fine idea. We talked some more and got down to rehearsal.
Benny Is Target Of All Jokes
That was more than a year ago, but Jack says it only seems like 11 ½ months.
How does it feel to be a comedian's stooge? I wouldn't know, because I don't think I am one. Not that I'm above such plebian endeavors, but Jack Benny's style makes him the butt of all jokes at the hands of his assistants in fun. He says he can get more laughs that way than if he had all the smart lines himself. And who am I to argue?
A nice guy, Benny, though I still haven’t that Christmas present he promised me a dozen scripts ago.

It would seem the Christmas present routine was a running gag. The Star Weekly from Toronto on May 18, 1935 mentioned:

Jack Benny has not yet given Don Bestor a Christmas present. Because he has been worrying about it so much on his radio programs, listeners have been coming to his aid. Hundreds of packages in red and green wrapping have come to Jack with instructions that he should give them to Don. To date the orchestra leader has received, among other things, 17 neckties, a birdcage, 3 batons, 6 worn-out pairs of shoes, 11 books and innumerable pairs of spats of various hues and descriptions.

Bestor’s spats were another running gag. A number of press items came out about the May 5, 1935 broadcast, when Benny celebrated his third anniversary on the air, such as this one from the Victoria Daily Times of May 11:

Don Bestor, director of the musical destinies of the Jack Benny radio programme, has gone to Hollywood, by his own admission.
Much to the surprise of Benny and the studio audience, Bestor appeared for his second programme at Hollywood’s NBC studios clad in a grey sport ensemble, with low shirt and flowing tie.
And, horror of horrors, he had no spats on.
“Bestor, where are your spats?” shouted Benny across the stage.
“The southland has got me at last,” Bestor answered.

Other papers continued the exchange:

“Well, after this,” reprimanded Benny, “don’t forget your spats. What do you think we built that ‘spats’ gag up for anyway?”

The Brooklyn Times Union of May 12 reported the retort this way:

“After this,” counselled Benny, “come in shorts if you want, but don’t forget the spats. Your musicians will not recognize you.”

Some other Bestor-related high-jinks on that same show, first as mentioned in Jo Ranson’s column in the Brooklyn Eagle, then from “Michael O’Dial” of the Regina Leader-Post.

Benny got so fussed up at missing a line that he completely forgot about introducing Parker’s vocal number. The tenor-comedian had to do the honors for himself and in turn became so confused he announced one of Don Bestor’s tunes instead. The Benny cast, however, is so adept at ad-libbing and taking advantage of boners that the slip was not noticed on the air.

Jack Benny had Omaha as the winner of the Kentucky Derby in his script three days before the race, but was touted off the winner and bet on another horse an hour before. It was all because Don Bestor got a wire from a friend at the track who had a “sure thing.” Hence that “crack” Sunday night.



When he was on the Benny show, Bestor had band singers named Joy Lynne and Neil Buckley, but there seems to have been no consideration to employ the vocalists on the programme.

From the mid-1940s on, there was a joke about Dennis Day and Phil Harris having “two shows.” Bestor had two shows as well, at least during the month we’ve been talking about. Band remotes were big between 10 and 1 in the morning back then, with engineers plugging patch cords into Nemo inputs from various hotel ballrooms.

Bestor and his orchestra were heard on the Don Lee network on the West Coast almost nightly; one of his air dates was picked up on the full CBS network. It involved a bit of juggling on Bestor’s part. The first part of the month, his band was in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The Oakland Tribune reported on Sundays, Bestor let someone else lead his band in the Bay City. On the Benny show, the Los Angeles Times revealed he waved the baton in Hollywood over Harry Jackson’s orchestra.

The Los Angeles Evening Post-Record’s Dylan Wright had some gossip on that, published July 17, 1935, three days after the final Benny show of the season.

Don Bestor didn’t like the orchestra they gave him for the Jack Benny shows. The musicians’ union wouldn’t let him use his own band for the program. However, he used the same band which Bing Crosby used and which does much of the movie work locally. Bestor will not be with Benny when his NBC half hour resumes in the fall and it looks like big rivalry among other bands for the berth.

Bestor, reports said, wanted to go back East and perform there, as Benny was staying in California making movies for Paramount. In the fall of 1935, he also played on a 15-minute programme, apparently on transcription.

Benny responded by hiring pianist/composer Johnny Green. He found a replacement for Frank Parker in Michael Bartlett, who survived only five shows before Kenny Baker replaced him. Jack still didn’t quite have the show put together the way we remember. Phil Harris, Rochester and Dennis Day were yet to come.