“Good night, folks—see you in the fall…”

Last night at work, I finished up April’s Jack Benny project with the last CD in Radio Spirits’ Ultimate Jack Benny Collection. The first of these two broadcasts, from March 6, 1955, has Danny Kaye as Jack’s guest star, and the second is Benny’s final radio show (May 22, 1955).

In its final radio years, The Jack Benny Program still remained popular and entertaining, but the show had loss a good deal of its luster—often possessing a going-through-the-paces staleness that contrasts sharply with the late 30’s/mid 40’s broadcasts, when Jack was at the peak of his powers. Many of these later shows utilized an endless recycling of earlier scripts and gags, and new comic innovations were truly few and far between. But this is all a minor quibble—funny is funny, and in the show’s defense, its flaws are noticeable only because modern-day listeners can listen to an entire season in one sitting and delineate the repetition.

But back to the March 6, 1955 broadcast—in which Mary informs Jack’s cast that Warner Brothers has floated up a trial balloon of making a motion picture based on Benny’s life story:

JACK (haughtily): Well…hello, everybody…hello, Donald…
DON: Hello, Jack!
JACK: Hello, Dennis my lad…
DENNIS: Hello…
JACK: Mahlon…
MAHLON: Hello…
JACK: How do you do, Miss Livingstone…
MARY: Take off that monocle…
JACK: It’s not a monocle…I broke my bifocals and managed to save one focal…here, Donald—take my gloves and cane…thank kew! There…
DENNIS: Gloves and cane…oh boy, are you snooty!
MARY: Dennis, the gloves are snooty…the cane is necessary…
JACK: Go ahead, go ahead…have your little fun…but you’ll all apologize when you know what’s happened to me…
DENNIS: Oh, we know…we know…
DON: Yeah…yes, Jack…Mary told us Warner Brothers are going to make a picture about your life…
JACK: Yes, sir! The same studio that made the life of Emile Zola…the life of Louis Pasteur…the life of Mark Twain…and now, the life of Jack Benny…they’re going to trace my entire career and include everyone that’s played a part in it…
DENNIS: Gee—I hope they change the names to protect the innocent…

Jack asks Mary to go with him to “take a meeting” with studio head Jack Warner, resulting in one of my all-time favorite Benny gags, as they encounter a little resistance at the studio gate:

JACK: Hey, mister—what’s the big idea of shooting at us???
MEL: You took the space reserved for Mr. Jack Warner…
JACK: Oh, yes…he always was touchy about that…but look, fella—I’m Jack Benny, and I’ve got an appointment with…
MEL (interrupting): Jack Benny?
JACK: Yes…
MEL: The one that starred in The Horn Blows at Midnight?
JACK: That’s right…I did that for Warner Brothers fifteen years ago…did you see it?
MEL: See it? I directed it!!!

Waiting for Warner in his outer office (Benny’s real-life daughter Joan plays Warner’s secretary), Jack and Mary encounter Danny Kaye, who’s also waiting to see the studio head. Jack is seething because of Danny’s phenomenal "hat trick" with the film successes Knock On Wood (1954), White Christmas (1954), and the previewed-but-not-yet-released The Court Jester (1956, one of the funniest motion picture comedies of all time):

MARY: You know, Jack—I can’t understand it…every time somebody makes a little progress, you get sore at ‘em…
JACK: I do not…
MARY: You do, too…when Lassie got her own television show, you were so mad you bit her…
JACK (mimicking her): I bit her, I bit her…I snarled at her once, and you make a big thing out of it…

Jack’s “jealousy” towards Danny is pretty much of the manufactured variety; Benny possessed a great deal of admiration for both Kaye and his talent, almost to the point of idolatry, as Milt Josefsberg writes in The Jack Benny Show:

While Jack thought that George Burns was the greatest comedian in the world, he thought that Danny Kaye was the greatest everything in the world. He once said, “If Danny set his mind to playing golf, he’d be another Ben Hogan. If he seriously tried to be an opera singer, he’d run Enrico Caruso a close second.” And Jack was one of the first to extol Danny’s virtues as a chef in the Escoffier tradition, which is strange because Danny’s most widely known culinary coups are not French, but of the Chinese variety.

The three of them are ushered into Warner’s office, where Jack learns that the studio wants to cast Danny in the role of…Jack Benny. (Jack will play his own father.) A read-through of the script provides some priceless moments:

WARNER: Go ahead, Danny…remember, you’re asking your father for money, and you’re Jack Benny at the age of nine…
DANNY: Yes, sir… (clears throat) Papa…
JACK: Wait a minute! When I was nine years old, I could talk…now read it right…
WARNER: Go ahead, Danny…ask the old man again…
JACK: Hmm…
DANNY: Okay… (clears throat, then with Russian dialect): Poppa…poppa…could I have it four dollars for to buying a violin?
JACK: Just a minute there…what’s the idea of doing Russian?
DANNY: Well, isn’t Waukegan in Russia?
JACK: No! It’s in Illinois! Jeepers!
WARNER: Try it again, Danny…remember, you’re a little country boy…
DANNY: Okay… (as a rube) Hey, Paw…Paw…huh…can I have four, uh, dollars to buy a violin? Huh, Paw, huh???
JACK: Now stop it! Stop it! What do you think I was when I was a kid—a moron?
MARY: And besides, he outgrew it…
JACK: Yes, heavens to Betsy!
WARNER: Danny, you better try it as a city boy…
DANNY: A city boy? Okay… (Brooklynese) Hey, Pop…Pop…can I put da bite on youse for four frogskins ta buy a fiddle? C’mon, Pop—whatcha say, whatcha say?
JACK: Now cut that out!

This broadcast is an example of the extensive recycling that went on at the show during its final years—the script had been previously used for a May 28, 1944 broadcast back when Benny was still pushing Grape Nuts. (I’m a big fan of an October 19, 1952 show that also uses the “life of Jack Benny” theme, which has Jack buying the RKO studios and features real-life 20th Century-Fox mogul Darryl Zanuck as an office boy.)

The final Jack Benny radio broadcast eschews the sentimentality associated with many “final” shows—it’s pretty much a standard, business-as-usual program, though it is mentioned that it’s the last show of the season. Jack spends most of the show being continually frustrated by sound effects man Twombly, played here by Mel Blanc. (For the record, there really was an SFX artist on the show named Twombly; Gene Twombly, who was married to Benny Show supporting player Bea Benaderet.) I liked this exchange between Don, Jack and Mary at the show’s beginning:

DON: Jack’s right, Mary—he deserves a little more respect from us…after all, he’s one of the pioneers in the broadcasting industry…
JACK: You’re darn right…why, when I did my first program there were hardly any radios in the country…
DON: …and darn few people…
JACK (mimicking him) Darn few people, darn few people…plenty of people when I started…
MARY: They may have had feathers in their hair, but they were people…
JACK: Mary—if I were Jackie Gleason, you know what I’d say? “One of these days…one of these days…POW!!! Back to the May Company…”
MARY: If you were Jackie Gleason, I wouldn’t have to go back…

Many of the usual Benny stooges appear in this final broadcast, including Mr. Kitzel (Artie Auerbach) and Mabel (Sara Berner) and Gertrude (Benaderet):

MABEL: So what does he want?
GERTRUDE: He wants I should call the parking lot to let them know he’s leavin’ soon, so they can get his car ready…
MABEL: Well, ain’t he an eager beaver…what’s he in such a hurry about, to get his car?
GERTRUDE: He always does that…it takes fifteen minutes to get the boiler hot…

(snip)

MABEL: Well, you know, everybody can kid Jack about being cheap—but I happen to know he has a generous side, too…
GERTRUDE: What makes you say that?
MABEL: Well, the other night we’re havin’ dinner at the Sportsmen’s Lodge…and you know how most people only leave ten percent of the bill as a tip?
GERTRUDE: Uh-huh?
MABEL: Well, Jack insisted that I leave fifteen…

Finally, as Jack makes preparations for his summer vacation, the show’s writers manage to squeeze in one last toupee joke:

JACK: Well, Rochester—did you pack my new gray suit?
ROCHESTER: No, sir…it’s dirty…I’m gonna send it to the cleaners…
JACK: But I want to wear it tomorrow in Las Vegas…
ROCHESTER: But, boss…that gray suit doesn’t give enough contrast with your golden, curly locks…
JACK: But, Rochester, what can I do? I don’t have any other new suits…
ROCHESTER: I know, but you’ve got other locks…

The only evidence that the curtain is being rung down on an era comes briefly at the show’s end, as Jack thanks the people who make the program possible—and even then, there’s a little lemon to cut the sweetness:

JACK: Ladies and gentlemen…although this is called The Jack Benny Program, I’d like to say that its success is due to the competent people I have working with me…my wonderful cast…the great supporting players I have…my producer, my engineer, my sound man…my capable writers…my fine musicians…
DENNIS: How can you read that stuff? Doesn’t it make you sick?
JACK: Good night, folks—see you in the fall…

But alas, he did not—at least, not on radio. Though his television show would continue on for another ten years, and then multiple specials after that until his passing in 1974, Jack Benny had pretty much folded up his radio tent. The show would be heard over CBS Radio from 1956-58 in reruns, however, titled The Best of Benny and sponsored by Home Insurance Company.