Jack Benny's Comedy and Violin

Perhaps it was the vaudevillian in him, but Jack Benny always liked being on stage.

Yes, there was an audience in front of him in the radio days, but he went city-to-city with a company in the 1930s, did the same thing during the war, performed at the Palladium in London, appeared in Vegas in the ‘50s and then began to perform concerts all over North America until his death in 1974.

One of his stops in 1965 was at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe. The usual chat with the media took place. By this time, it must have been tough finding original questions to ask. Jack was moody and could get dismissive with reporters who asked him trite things like “Are you really cheap?” An entertainment writer for the Reno Evening Gazette put together this story for the Aug. 7 edition.

Benny Describes the 'Benny' Character
Aphorisms are usually hokum or are contradicted by other aphorisms. But sometimes one finds the mark, as "You're only as old as you feel" does in the case of Jack Benny.
"You know I'm past 70," Benny mused, "but I'm darned if I feel like a man that age. As a matter of fact, I feel better now than I did when I really was 39."
Benny was relaxing in his Harrah's Tahoe South Shore Room dressing room, his hands poking out of a shantung robe to busily work on a between-shows snack of pancakes and milk.
"Things were hectic in the old days," Benny said between bites, his famed blue eyes gaining in sparkle. "Every show seemed so important. Now, I take things in my stride." Then he smiled and added, "After all, at my age, where am I gonna go?"
The famed comedian is starring in Harrah's through Aug. 22 with singer, Wayne Newton, and dancers, Brascia and Tybee.

Resting in his dressing room, Benny fails on all counts as a Benny has helped form many temperamental star.
He's a gracious man, slightly more serious in demeanor off-stage than on, totally lacking in the mock pomposity he has indulged in for years in the entertainment world. Speaking with him is like speaking with someone you've known for decades. And you do speak with him. He isn't out to "prove" anything to anyone. Benny has the ease and humility of a man who knows himself well.
Of course, the unmistakable voice, the innocent blue eyes, the casual gestures are the same backstage or on.
"I stay young I suppose because I just can't stop working,” he said. "This is a youthful business, and I have young people on my tv shows and on-stage here, like Wayne (Newton), a fine young man and great talent," Benny said.
"Retire? I honestly don't think I ever will, though I would like to devote a whole season to giving concerts. I dearly love giving concerts.”
Benny has helped for many symphony orchestras and kept others financially afloat by taking part in fund-raising appearances in all parts of the country.
"The whole thing is satire on the concert musician," Benny, a serious musician and violinist in his own right, said. "I come out in white tie and tails and everything deteriorates from there.
"Of course, I don't charge a fee for the appearances, only my traveling expenses. It's my hobby and the thing I get the biggest kick out of."
The comedian practices playing violin to the tune of two hours a day. "Sometimes here at Harrah's, I get together with some of the boys in Leighton Noble's band and we have impromptu musicales down in the band room." Finishing his pancakes, Benny leaned back in a soft, overstuffed chair and spoke of comedy.
"Most of the jokes flow out of the characters themselves," he said. "Like on a radio show a long time ago, we did a few gags about my being stingy. It seemed to go over, so we did more the next week. And that's the way a character evolves."
Other jokes come from "real life," Benny said.
"There's a story I tell about my great friend, George Burns. In the story, I'm waiting for George in my hotel room, standing on one foot, stark naked, with a book balanced on my head, a glass of water in one hand and a rose in the other," he recounted. "As I tell it in show, George suspected something and sent the maid in ahead of him!
"Actually, the joke really happened, except that George wasn't expecting anything and it was a bellhop who came into the room first. You have to embellish a little, he said.
And what of the radio-tv-stage character, "Jack Benny?" Has the creator ever grown weary of his creation?
Benny thought for a moment, then shook his head, "No," he said, "I don't think so. The 'Jack Benny' character has lot of facets. It includes stinginess, vanity, all the human frailties. No, I think I like ‘Jack Benny.’

What was the show like? Here’s a review from the San Francisco Examiner, Aug. 10.

The Incomparable Jack Benny
By STANLEY EICHELBAUM
No comedian is quite like Jack Benny. There is certainly no one around with his sense of dignified, subtle clowning, or with his ability to play the straight man, by unleashing an outrageous barrage of dry, dead-pan wisecracks, which break up an audience even before it realizes that he intends to be funny.
In his current show Harrah's Club on Lake Tahoe, Benny saunters on stage at a leisurely, rolling gait, looking rather like a nattily-groomed stockbroker. His poise and posture are impeccable. And his timing is no less perfect than Big Ben's.
To an obviously rapt mob of admirers, he comments on his phenomenal youthfulness and then confides that he is finished pretending to be only 39. "I've now reached he declares, with a murderous, baby blue glare. Then, he confides that he, too, has a clan--like Sinatra--but that at his coterie is called Ovaltine a-Go-Go. It consists of Edward Everett Horton, Ed Wynn, Walter Brennan and Spring Byington, who meet regularly for a game of whist. "And whatever money we win pays for our visits to the Mayo Clinic," he explains.
SIXTH SUMMER

Since this is Benny's sixth summer pilgrimage to Harrah's-Tahoe, he has every right to indulge in family matters—to talk about his wife Mary and their recent 38th anniversary. "It can happen," he remarks, with a certain nonchalance, "even in show business. And I wouldn't trade Mary for Elizabeth Taylor, or Richard Burton.”
The quips are relentless, ticked off with supreme aloofness and tempered with that Jack Benny look of righteous indignation, specially when he invokes his celebrated trademark—being the most confirmed cheapskate in public life.
As always, he surrounds himself with proteges—formers who are led to believe that they would be washing dishes, were it not for Benny's helping hand. But they are permitted (even encouraged) to insult their immortal employer, to have the last word in a stabbing exchange of wits.
DANCE TEAM
So when a lithe and attractive dance team, Brascia and Tybee, complete their impressive acrobatic whirls, Benny is ready to make a pass at Miss Tybee, but is outsmarted by Brascia, who happens to be her husband.
Benny then cedes the spotlight to Wayne Newton, a tall, boyish and enterprising pop singer with an exuberant and folksy style that goes directly to the heart of an audience, particularly those who are won over by clean-cut youth and boundless vitality. With the energy of a windmill, he swoops down on such sure-fire old favorites as "Swanee" and "Rockabye My Baby," until the crowd whimpers for more.
'RED ROSES'
And after a bouncing rendition of "Red Roses for a Blue Lady," he throws himself at the first rank of tables, shaking hands at random (with exultations of "God bless you!”). He simply bubbles over with inexhaustible humility. And frankly, his light-up-the-sky charm wore me out.
But if you happen to drive up to Tahoe, you should drop in on Jack Benny and his companions, who also include the Moro-Landis Dancers and Leighton Noble's orchestra. His show is remarkably pleasant and ingratiatingly funny. And he'll be there through August 22nd.

After Tahoe, Jack returned to television. NBC had cancelled his series but signed him to a number of specials every year. And there were always his concerts. The “Jack Benny character” wasn’t far out of view.

The Classics Meet Magoo

The eyes rolled again. Young me boo-ed at the television screen.

I had just finished watching Mr. Magoo misread a sign and mistake something for something else for the umpteenth time.

“Are they ever,” I asked myself, “going to do something different?”

Well, it turns out, they did.

Hank Saperstein gutted the creativity out of the UPA cartoon studio after taking it over, it is said. The TV Magoo cartoons mentioned above are a prime example. But a brainstorm was also sparked—the first, prime-time, made-for-TV animated Christmas special in 1962 called Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (Saperstein took credit for it. In an interview with NEA syndicate columnist Edgar Penton in 1962, he said he was inspired after seeing a performance of Oliver! in London). It still is popular among a segment of cartoon fans.

After checking the ratings, and then seeing the special had more viewers the following Christmas, Saperstein decided to expand on that. What about putting Magoo in other classic (public domain) tales? The potential highbrow-ness would ward off people like Newton Minow and parents groups that complained about "violent” and banal programming aimed at children. So it was announced on February 4, 1964 by NBC that it had purchased 26 half-hours of The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. A month later, Libby’s picked up partial sponsorship. The show premiered in prime time, on Saturday, September 19, 1964, at 8 p.m. Quincy Magoo, miraculously with unimpaired vision, was plopped into Shakespeare, and novels such as Don Quixote, the Three Musketeers, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein.

All this was good news for Jim Backus. He was still making money on Magoo, voicing him for a series of light bulb commercials on TV. This was also the year Sherwood Schwartz added an ‘n’ to Newton Minow’s name, put it on a wrecked pleasure boat, and had Backus and six others stranded on an uncharted desert isle.

Here’s what he had to say about Magoo’s new venture. This syndicated piece turned up in the Dayton Daily News of Sept. 19, 1964. More to the point, here’s what his wife said about it:

BACKUS, WIFE STAR
New 'Mr. Magoo' Series on NBC
HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 19—Dear nearsighted “Mr. Magoo" trots through literary public domain Saturday nights this fall on NBC, following 26 minutes of cuteness with a dolphin called “Flipper.”
Jim Backus is the voice of "Mr. Magoo," and the cartoon character portrays such legendary personalities as Rip Van Winkle, Robin Hood, Gunga Din, Noah, Frankenstein or one of the “Three Musketeers."
Every alias is familiar and "Mr. Magoo" treats most with due respect, playing it straight and serious on occasion. The series will be in color.
"WE'RE DEALING with the classics," says Jim's quick-witted wife, Henny. "It's cheaper that way, we don't have to worry about paying off the writers.
Henny gets most of the wife voice parts. "I'm Noah's wife, Ham's wife, Mrs. Rip Van Winkle," she says. "Everybody doubles on this show."
JIM, Everett Sloane, Dennis King, Jr., Marvin Miller, Henny and Henny's favorite new actress, Joan Gardiner, do all the voices, and the group has become so competent they are often able to run through a sound track in an hour and three-quarters without rehearsing.
On the old "Mr. Magoo" cartoons Backus used to go over story-boards with writers and artists, making ad-libs and changes in dialogue before cutting the sound track.
Backus knew the character so well, he had the right to the last word. Now, even this procedure has been bypassed and necessary changes can be made at the taping.
JIM AND the other three men have the fat parts. "Notice how few women's roles there are," says Henny. "I'm on the prowl for more. Of course, Jim and I could do Nell Gwynn and King Charlie."
When Backus finishes hobnobbing with the classics Saturday nights, he immediately follows himself on another network in a shipwrecked island comedy, called "Gilligan's There is pressure on Jim to tape a spot suggesting fans switch stations to catch Jim's next show, but, the honest comedian refuses. This stand represents a major victory for actors.
WHILE JIM golfs, wife Henny reads, paints or does sculpture. She has a splendid mosaic of her husband on the living room mantle, "Backus the Great" with golden light surrounding the noble head.
The current project for the Backus couple is a Broadway musical comedy and production of a picture if they can find the right property to star Jim. Married for 22 years, the two obviously prefer each other's company to others, shunning local custom.
"JIM'S THE funniest man I know,” says Henny, a very fast woman with a line herself. "He can go to the market, do 20 minutes and just slay me.”
The two generally have dinner in bed and then turn to writing, talking over ideas before Henny is forced to type one finger at a time. "Jim works on the first draft," says Henny, "and that's all. I do the editing. I tell you I couldn't write without him. One starts a sentence and the other finishes it—that's how well our minds work together."

It would appear Magoo’s audience watched the live-action Jim Backus as Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island instead of the cartoon one. The two Backus shows aired at the same time as of Jan. 2, 1965. A columnist for one of the Omaha papers in January 1965 noted a recent Neilsen ratings report stated that the Magoo TV series was 83rd in the ratings. The show was cancelled.

Backus went on to another season as a castaway. Magoo went on to more G.E. TV commercials, appeared in a comic strip in the Chicago Tribune (the designs look more like Hanna-Barbera than UPA) and showed up on the small screen again at Christmas time. And there were still reruns of those post-theatrical-era cartoons that Saperstein churned out with misread signs, something being mistaken for something else and a pig-tailed guy shouting “Mistah Magloo.”

But What About That Buck, Alex?

What cartoon starred a duck that had to deal with a changing background behind him?

Duck Amuck, you say? Well, that’s one answer. But 15 years before it was released, Walter Lantz’s staff pulled the same thing in Happy Scouts.

In this 1938 short, the little duck is terrified that the forest background has become scribbles and notes.



As for deciphering the background, I will defer to Devon Baxter who has looked into the Lantz studio of that era more than I have. I can only guess at who was painting Lantz’s backgrounds then; Fred Brunish was the vice-president of Royal Revues at the time and I don't know where Edgar Kiechle was working.

At the bottom, “Fred” likely refers to Fred Kopietz, who directed this cartoon. I suspect Alex Lovy designed the characters (Oswald the Rabbit was re-designed for this short). At the top, “Ed” is possibly Ed Benedict. “Forkum” could well be Roy Forkum, who was credited on Lantz’s commercial film Boy Meets Dog (1938). You’ll have to guess the identity of “Edna” and why she was being called (Roy Forkum’s wife was named Eileen). And perhaps an animator can explain the diamond-shaped drawing with numbers around it.

Yes, It Is a Scream Bomb

A “scream bomb” lives up to its name in Tex Avery’s Blitz Wolf.



Note the ghost multiples to make the movement faster.

Animation is by Irv Spence.

Billy Barty

He was the conductor of the Hollywood Baby Orchestra in late 1930 at age six. Newspapers around that time shaved what few years they could off his age, claiming he was 2, 3 or 5.

And even this wasn’t the start of Billy Barty’s show-biz career.

A year earlier Gladys Long, Hollywood correspondent of the Toronto Star Weekly, reviewed his appearance in the two-reel talkie Bow-Wow: “[W]hile we’re not terribly fond of these precocious youngsters out here, we’ve got to admit that this child has talent.” (Side note to animation fans: also in the cast was Pinto Colvig).

Barty’s talent took him a long way in entertainment, though he took some time off. The Los Angeles Daily News profiled him on June 15, 1931.

Billy Barty Is Quaint Child
He Wants to Fly
He Gets Tired of Kisses
By ELEANOR BARNES
HE gets kissed too much to suit him.
He's 32 inches tall.
He's 28 pounds heavy.
And for every inch of height, and every pound of weight, little Billy Barty is animation.
If you saw "Daddy Long Legs" at Carthay Circle, or have seen any of Larry Darmour-Mickey McQuire comedies, you will recall Billy Barty.
He's the tiniest rascal in talkies and he steals every picture in which he plays.
Billy had just returned home from a bathing show contest at Ocean Park yesterday, and was quite proud of his Lord Fontleroy suit, black velvet jacket and white satin blouse. This, Billy says, is the official costume when he directs a child's orchestra.
"I've made 17 public performances in a month," said Billy, as he squirmed on my lap and played with a glass bracelet I had on my left arm.
"I like to appear on the stage to help the men who need work."
Then, taking a pencil and paper, Billy's interest was diverted to writing his own name on a scratch pad, for with help, he can spell it out in full.
AGE MYSTERY
How old is Billy?
He is a little older than one would suspect from seeing him in a cradle in "Daddy Long Legs." In fact, he is shorter than the average 2-year-old, and 10 inches shorter than he should be for his age, which is professionally placed at 3 ½ years.
Billy is precocious. He's smarter than the average child of 8, as he plays trap drums, he can tap dance, he's not camera-shy or bashful, nor has he been spoiled by the attention he gets.
HIS AMBITIONS
A sensitive, shy baby, who claims a great deal to hide his feelings, little Billy Barty is called at home "Lone Eagle," for he never plays with other children. He's fond of Dolores, aged 4 ½ years, his sister, who is a head taller than he is and he adores Evelyn, the 11-year-old Barty girl, who plays the piano like a professional.
"I'm going to be an aviator when I grow up," said Billy who thinks Amelia Earhart's autogyro a great invention. He's going to have one of those, too.
He also wants to be a football player and thinks wedding cakes are the bunk to dream on. Saturday morning Billy was ring-bearer for Betty Norton Burch and John R. Murphy, who were married at Christ the King church.
HATES KISSES
"I get very tired of being kissed," said Billy, "but I've got a girl. She is Betty Jane Graham and she is the best actress in the world." She is 10.
He is the most lovable film child the writer ever met.
And who is Billy's favorite actor?
"It is myself," he said naively.
The wee one has won innumerable prizes for mental tests, in popularity contests and this week is to be presented with the smallest accordian made--if he will learn to play it.
"Sure, I'll learn how," said. Billy "And I'll sing 'Barnacle Bill the Sailor' at the same time."

Let’s take a 50-year leap. Barty is as busy as ever, not only in entertainment but engaging in some necessary activism. This is from the Hamilton Spectator, July 27, 1981.

Billy Barty Believes in Little People
By KATHLEEN WERNICK
TORONTO—Billy Barty asks the first question. It's about the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
"We get Canadian football in California. I like it. I'm a sports fan anyway—I'd watch checker games."
Later on, he mentions that, in his younger days, he played football and basketball at Los Angeles City College. But, by that time, nothing surprises about this charming, humorous man who has packed such a large life into his small frame.
Billy Barty is 3 feet 9 inches tall. He has been "in the business”, as he calls it, since he joined his family in vaudeville at the age of three.
His biography says his first movie was Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1933, but Barty corrects that. "Actually, I was making two-reelers in 1928.”
Now, he has finished a movie that he thinks "is going to change my whole motion picture career." He chuckles as he says it, for he has just used exactly the same words about "The Day of the Locust”, in which his dramatic role as the dwarf brought him special acclaim six years ago.
The new movie is Under the Rainbow, which opens in Hamilton this week and stars Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher. It's billed as a madcap comedy and, on a publicity tour in Toronto, Billy Barty seems still to be caught up in its spirit.
"I play Otto Kriegling, sent on a mission by Hitler" he says in a heavy German accent. "I'm a bad guy."
"Listen, it was fun," he continues. "It gave me chance to speak out and to speak up, and act mean and nasty. It's not type-casting, you know.”
Billy Barty knows all about type-casting.
"It used to be that you'd see a little person," he explains, everybody would say 'Oh, is there a circus in town?’. ‘Don’t you work in a circus?’”
"Through the organization, the Little People of America, we have changed that image a lot. Only one per cent of the whole organization is in show business, and the others hold regular jobs.”
Barty founded the Little People of America in 1956 and says his motivation was "to get little people together so that they could communicate and find common needs—like medical, vocational, social and educational needs."
"We have developed so many things through the organization. We have books written about how to lower the closets, turn on a light switch, get a drink of water, find work, drive an automobile, make a telephone call.”
"We really try to be a positive-thinking organization, and we try to tell the little people that it's a two-way street. In other words, don't stand on the corner and wait for a hand-out. That's being very blunt, but it's being very honest."
Barty thinks that Under the Rainbow is going to change the image of little people further. There are 150 of them in the movie, which is set in the Culver Hotel in Culver City, California, in 1938.
That was the year The Wizard of Oz was made, and legends live on about the high jinks that the little people who played the Munchkins got up to while staying at the Culver.
Barty says the legends are about 75 per cent true. Things are different now for the actors who play the actors who played the Munchkins.
With week-long national conventions of the Little People of America being held annually since 1956, the exhilaration of being together, of being in a majority for once, is nothing new. There were 650 at last year's convention.
Through the Billy Barty Foundation, Barty helped cast the movie, introducing hundreds of little people to the producers.
"They had a great time doing it,” he says "It's going to show that little people can be entertaining. This is not a circus thing. This is not a side show. It just depicts little people as human beings in all different walks of life."

Back in 1942, Barty and his family "quit the business altogether.” He and his father and two sisters had toured in vaudeville through the U.S. and Canada, and Billy himself had played Rooney's kid brother in more than 75 Mickey Maguire comedies.
When they quit, Billy finished high school, majored in journalism at Los Angeles City College, and then became public-relations director of athletics for the college.
"But eventually, show business started to get back in my blood again," he says. "By 1950, I was back in full swing.”
That meant being part of Spike Jones' zany group for eight years, many network children's television shows, including Puff 'n' Stuff, Sigmund and the Sea Monster, and Billy Barty's Big Show, and more recent television credits in The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Little House on the Prairie and Chips.
Since Gold Diggers of 1933, he has appeared in more than 130 films, including W.C. Fields and Me, Foul Play, and Firepower.
"I just keep plugging away," he says, as he gets ready for the next city on the publicity tour. He has two television variety shows he's putting like to together, a movie script he'd do, and another he's writing, "if I ever get the time to work on it."
He has a golf tournament coming up, the ninth annual Little People's Invitational Tournament in California. And this week, he'll be meeting up with his wife and two children at a Little People of America convention in Minneapolis.
"Then it's off again," he says, "to continue the tour for Under the Rainbow. I hope the movie plants in the minds of the powers-that-be that little people can be, and are, entertaining.”

The first time I remember seeing him was on Laugh-In in 1968. Later, he appeared on Redd Foxx’s variety show. He was terrific on Spike Jones’ show in the ‘50s. You may have your own favourite Barty moments. I’m sure there are plenty to pick from.

The Vulture Punch

Vultures on the Mohave Desert think they are going to eat Mighty Mouse in Triple Trouble (1948). Foolish vultures. Haven’t they seen a Mighty Mouse cartoon before? It’s not like anything different happens in them.



The Mouse of Might’s fist grows to emphasize the punch. The background assists by changing into swirls. This is animated on twos.



Mighty Mouse takes off in perspective after a few stretched drawings that can only be the work of Jim Tyer.



Writer John Foster came up with yet another operetta. Eddie Donnelly directed.

The Timeless Pepper Gag

It goes back to Felix and Disney's knock-off version of the cat in the silent film days. The old pepper/sneeze gag (my guess is it was in comic strips before that).

Here is how it unfolds in Warners' Prince Violent (1961). Bugs Bunny is fed up with Viking Sam's elephant shooting boulders into his castle with his snout. The poses below are fun. Well, I like them.



Dave Detiege's story has some other old favourites in the comedy. They all still work.

Here’s an inside gag on the opening title card: the Warners shield. Hawley Pratt had been moved up to co-director at this point; Willie Ito was the layout artist with Tom O’Loughlin painting backgrounds.



And here's a pun that some of you might not get.



Back in the days of network radio and pre-network television, watch companies sponsored time-checks. One was Gruen. Ages ago, E.O. Costello put up a site devoted to explaining dated references in Warners cartoons. It's a little dated itself, but still useful. You can find it by clicking here.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: McGillicuddy

We mentioned yesterday that Hugh Harman Productions made cartoons for the military during the war. Some of them for the U.S. Navy were similar to the Private Snafu cartoons the Warner Bros. studio animated for the Army. In this case, the bumbling marine was named Private McGillicuddy. The animation jumps from pose to pose in places, much like Hanna-Barbera’s first Ruff and Reddy cartoons, except there is some overlap. You can watch five of them below.

The director was possibly George Gordon, who was mentioned in the trades as directing health and sanitation films for the Navy. The studio’s production designer at the time was Bruce Bushman. The music is likely by Clarence Wheeler, who was signed by Harman in August 1944. I shouldn’t have to tell you who supplies the voices on these. The Hollywood Reporter of May 3, 1945 claimed Jack Benny okayed his hiring after reading the script, which is odd as he was not under exclusive contract to Benny. Then, again, it was claimed for years he was allergic to carrots, which wasn’t true either. Publicity is publicity,



Late note: Devon Baxter says Harman was interviewed about these. Gordon directed and Cal Howard provided stories.

The English Loved His Drawling Legs

Jack Benny and his writers never wasted a lot of potential material. They managed to wring laughs out of all kinds of things.

One was Jack’s sojourns to the Palladium in London. Afterwards, listeners to his radio show would hear gags about how Jack ridiculously puffed up opinions about his performances. The fact was the English enjoyed Jack as much as American audiences.

He set sail for England after the end of the 1947-48 season, the first time he had appeared there since 1931. The United Press reported he got a ten-minute ovation from a capacity audience on opening night. Beverly Baxter reviewed it for the Evening Standard of July 23, 1948 and took a nationalistic slight at something rather innocuous.

MISSING FROM HOME --the star turns of ENGLAND
On Monday of this week Mr. Jack Benny, of the U.S.A., arrived at the Palladium with his radio colleagues, Mr. Phil Harris, Miss Mary Livingstone and Miss Marilyn Maxwell.
A great crowd assembled to give them welcome, and Mr. Val Parnell was able to congratulate himself again on the great success of his star-spangled season.
Mr. Benny, with his drawling legs, his wistful imperturbability expression, and his pleasant voice, is a considerable artist. Anyone who can reduce the vast spaces of the Palladium to the intimacy of a morning room must be taken seriously. Nor was he content merely to reproduce the personal badinage which a corps of script writers supply for his weekly radio programmes.
It is true we heard about his meanness, and his age, as well as his low opinion of Mr. Fred Allen—all pleasant reminders of his war-time programmes—but he did try to brings us into the picture. I liked particularly his explanation of why he had left Claridges and gone to the Savoy: ”They're so stuffy at Claridges that you've got to be shaved before you can go into the barber shop.”
BRAVO, BENNY
WHEN he asked Miss Livingstone, who, as all Western Civilisation knows, is Mrs. Benny, to sing a kissing duet with Mr. Harris we had a glimpse of his powers as a mime. Utterly effortless, and with the very minimum of movement and expression, he conveyed what might be described as the commercial torment of a producer who has placed his wife in another man's arms. Let there be no mistake about it. The Big Shot in the Benny Show is Jack Benny.
Nevertheless Mr. Harris is a notable American import. He is one of those big, nimble-footed men with enough vitality for a battalion, and possessed of a contagious sense of fun. In fact, a perfect foil to his senior partner.
But now I must mention something creditable yet disturbing in connection with Mr. Harris. He had just completed a number when he leaned over the microphone and said words something like these: "Ladies and gentlemen, last week Jack and I discovered a dancing team of two English boys. We think they're fine and I hope you will think so too. So let's give a big hand to these English boys."
IN OUR TEMPLE
THERE was nothing but generosity in the Harris gesture, but it sounded in my ears like a colonial governor introducing a pair of dancing coolies at his garden party. Here in the Palladium, the shrine and temple of British variety, we are asked to give a hand to two of our own countrymen. Not for them our discrimination or criticism, but just—kindness. After all, Mr. Parnell, who is a most able producer, cannot escape his share of the responsibility. Week after week the headliners arrive from New York or Hollywood, thus proclaiming to the listening world that there are no stars in the English skies. Yet it was in this very theatre that the late George Black put British variety on a pinnacle again after it seemed to have gone into a hopeless decline.
It may be that our music hall artists need a New Look. Certainly the Americans have proved that they do not have to descend to “blue jokes” and embarrassing gestures to draw the crowd. The excuse is made that in the provinces a comic cannot survive unless he gives the people vulgarity, and that possible it is not to have one version for the provinces and another for London.
Let the case of Sid Field be the answer. He was a favourite for years in the provinces before Mr. Black discovered him, and he never trafficked in dirt.
I am sorry that, the pleasantries of Benny and company should have me into this serious vein, but periodically, in politics and the arts, there has to be a campaign to revive a pro-British feeling in Britain. Clearly this such a moment. Perhaps Mr. Phil Harris lit a beacon in Oxford-circus.

The Observer of July 25 had these words:

Jack Benny
ON Monday, to the delight of a packed house, the Palladium became a temple for the worship of visiting film stars. Jack Benny, the presiding deity on the stage, disarmed us immediately by remarking that he knew he looked much younger on the screen! Mr Benny is not a red-nosed comedian; he is a charming, polished, comic actor with a deceptively easy style and cumulative effect. He jokes gravely in a deliberate, lazy voice, and—rare feat among funny-men—he listens beautifully. He gives an air of spontaneity to a cunningly-arranged act; this includes Phil Harris, who is so full of himself he quite fills the theatre, and is great fun. But though his associates stand in the limelight, it is Mr. Benny, with deprecating shrug and resigned expression, who always manages to be at the centre of things. He and his company are here for two weeks only; Nota Benny. P.F.

As for the rest of the cast, Dennis Day appears to have taken most of the summer 1948 off; he was heard in the Disney film Melody Time. Don Wilson stayed in Hollywood as his wife headed for Hawaii; she divorced him next year. Eddie Anderson went on the road, including a trip to Canada. We’ll have more on that next weekend.