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| That coat! That hat! And hers ain't bad, neither ... |
Lifted wholesale from the wonderful Shorpy site is this beautiful shot of Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone (his wife's professional name) arriving in Washington in 1936. I've been bingeing his radio shows ("programs" as they were called) for years now, one a night, falling asleep some way into the second. They're at the life-saving Internet Archive, keeping us sane into the Shitocene Era. If you're unfamiliar with Benny, they may take a little getting used to. The ads irritate, and the sentimental male tenor songs are hopelessly dated, but the humor is as sharp - and gentle - as ever. Decades before Seinfeld, the Jack Benny show was a "show about nothing", or rather a show about making the show, breaking the radio equivalent of the Fourth Wall. A cast of regular characters, and carefully-honed scripts written under his direction, pulled in an audience of 30,000,000 [citation needed - Ed.] for his weekly broadcast, in an incredible run from the 'thirties through the 'fifties, when he moved to TV. A season of shows cost the sponsor a million bucks. Respect.
If you love the Marx Brothers, there's room in your life for Jack Benny. The Internet Archive has a wealth of his radio and TV shows, movies and relevant books, should youse bums be desirous - but beware - once you check in, you can never leave.
This post sponsored by JELL-O! Look for the big red letters on the box!
Sadly, Jack is a forgotten comedic genius. So is Fred Allen.
ReplyDeleteNot on th' IoF©, he ain't!
DeleteFred Allen I enjoy occasionally, but yikes! - that voice! On radio! At least we didn't have to look at a pan that was equal to the tonsils.
fred was in a rush to be clever.
Deletei love his voice.
mrs nussbaum is a true favorite.
benny took his time and didn't need to say anything clever.
sometimes he kept absolutely silent (on the radio!) and was hysterical.
fred wrote almost every word by himself.
benny had writers who were the best in the business.
my current otr binge is vic and sade. homey and surreal.
i have loved them for many years.
great actors and characters.
Benny's skills transited beautifully to TV, if anything improving his schtick. Nobody could imitate his ability to withhold a comeback line after folding his arms, then issuing a "Well..." The visual element of TV let him hold that posture longer.
DeleteAbout benzedrine as discussed below, my grandmother was hooked on the stuff, the result of it being added to a menthol inhaler sold in the UK. A five-foot-nothing ball of energy, I don't remember her actually ever having a cold. But she always had a tube of the stuff in her handbag. Traveling in Thailand in the nineties, there seemed to be a lot of young Thais suffering with clogged nasal passages. It was later explained to me that these semi-licit inhalers contained a jolt of the same stuff that turned up in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ5_SyvxDXE
Back in the mid nineties I was doing a psych radio show on non profit FM (I hesitate to call it college radio because much of the on-air talent was quite a bit older). There was a jazz DJ there named Fred Allen. I tried in vain to convince him that clips of Jack Benny insulting him would be a funny thing to put into his show.
ReplyDeleteOh well. I wish that Jack Benny had insulted me.
This is Psychfan, by the way.
DeleteAnd on the subject of drugs - in Benny's day, benzedrine was available over the counter, and in common but unspoken showbiz use. Benny - his stage name must be merely coincidence - makes a couple of covert, "hip" references to drug use in his show, the musicians chuckling knowingly.
DeleteIn my high school ('61-'65), we called Benzedrine inhalers, B-Bombs.
Delete... and you were known as B-Bombs Babs.
DeleteIn my high school graduating class, there were two Babs (nickname for Barbara), I was called "Pierrepont Babs", because I lived on Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights.
DeleteI stayed on Henry Street a couple of times, just around the corner.
DeleteSmall world. I grew up on Pierrepont Street, between Hicks and Willow streets.
DeleteI used to walk across the bridge up into the Village, and further.
DeleteBabs - would you please be so kind as to repost a link for the Sandy Denny demos? FT says the previous message with all those links fell victim to internet trolling and had to be deleted.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Enjoy!
Deletehttps://workupload.com/file/MyJBTQkTQNc
Thank'ee, B-Bomb! Unfortunately If I delete a "top" comment, all the nested comments below go with it. I hope he's taken his business elsewhere.
DeleteThank you very much, Babs!
DeleteI wonder if Benny's small cultural footprint has anything to do with him never making a great movie? Nobody now cares about radio programs, his TV shows are (mostly) poor quality B&W, but if he'd made Marx Bros. quality movies, real successes instead of just acceptably profitable studio product, he'd still be a star
ReplyDeleteSmall cultural footprint? I disagree with that premise. There aren't many comedians of his era who can rival him.
DeleteI disagree with that premise - there are no comedians of this era who can rival him. But he is, as Babs says, and I agree, largely forgotten today. Ask anyone under fifty who he is and I expect you'll get a blank look, but they'll know the Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy, Chaplin ...
DeleteThe under 50s know OF the Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy, Chaplin and a few others, but they won't have reverence for any pre-1950 comedians outside of The Three Stooges.
DeleteAnd at this point the under 30s don't really care about them either and will likely give you that blank look when asked about Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy. They've probably heard of the Marx Brothers but would be hard pressed to name any of their movies.
I disagree with that premise - but why are you here when you have work to do? Where's that Thirty Minutes?
DeleteIt's almost ready. Working on the overlays tomorrow, and that might wrap it up if I decide I'm finally satisfied with it.
DeleteTorgo, I deleted your link because I'll make a cover and feature it as a piece later! Thank you!
DeleteI found an explicit drug reference in the 20/10/40 episode. Here transcribed for your listening pleasure (Don = Don Wilson, announcer, Phil = Phil Harris, bandleader):
ReplyDeleteJack Benny: "If it wasn't for Vitamin B1 [showbiz name for Benzedrine] and the cigarettes Phil's drummer gives me ... [laughter almost drowns out next few words] I doubt I'd be able to carry on ... [laughter continues several seconds] ... that Vitamin B1 sure helps ...
Don Wilson: Do those pills really help you, Jack?
JB: Oh they're marvellous! And how they pep you up! You remember how I ised to walk in my sleep? Now I run like a deer! I owe it all to Vitamin B.
Mary Livingstone: Oh Jack, you and your pills ...
Jack Benny - speed freak and hop head!
https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Jack_Benny_Singles_1940-1941/JB+1940-10-20+Jack+Tries+To+Trade+In+The+Maxwell.mp3
Delete