“Holy smoke, that’s meeeeeeeeeee…”

During my formative years, I pretty much vegetated in front of a television set. This explains why many people don’t quite consider me…oh, normal is probably the best word to use, I guess. (On the other hand, I’m usually the first person called on to be a partner in Trivial Pursuit, so six of one, half a dozen of another…)

I’ve watched a lot of Warner Brothers cartoons in my lifetime. So many that I know some of them backwards and forwards, and again, that’s where that “Honey, I don’t think the Shreve is boy is normal” thing crops up again. I’m sure some of you have seen a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon called Rabbit’s Kin (1952), in which the wascally wabbit outsmarts (as if that would be hard to do) a puma named Pete (“Oh, I’ll take a whoooole lotta lumps!”) The uncredited voice of the puma belongs to the one and only Stan Freberg, but Stan cribbed it from a comedian-singer named Frank Fontaine; Fontaine got his big show business break playing a mentally-challenged guy named John L.C. Sivoney, who makes his debut in the first of two Jack Benny broadcasts I listened to last night, originally heard over CBS on April 9, 1950.

When I discuss The Jack Benny Program with fellow fans, I’m often wont to point out that the beauty of the show is that the characters are so ingrained in the minds of the listening audience, the mere mention of them or their attributes is enough generate genuine mirth. To illustrate with an example, here’s an exchange from two of Jack’s prized stooges, Mel Blanc and Sara Berner, who portray a soda jerk and waitress in a drugstore located right near the CBS studios:

MERVYN: Uh-oh…get ready for business…here comes Jack Benny and some of his cast…
FLOSSIE: Oh gee, celebrities…who are they?
MERVYN: Dennis Day, Don Wilson, Phil Harris and Jack Benny…you see? They’re startin’ across the street…
FLOSSIE: Oh, yeah…which one is Jack Benny?
MERVYN: The one who looks like he won’t make it…hey, ya better set a table for ‘em…
FLOSSIE: Okay, Mervyn…gimme four glasses of water…
MERVYN: You’ll only need three…one of ‘em never touches the stuff…

Jack leaves the drugstore, and decides to walk home—when he encounters a panhandler who asks him if he can spare a dime for a cup of coffee. The smallest thing Jack has is fifty cents, so he gives it to him. After chatting with Mr. Kitzel (Artie Auerbach)—he mentions his generosity to the beggar—he arrives home, where he can’t wait to tell Rochester of his good deed for the day as well:

JACK: Oh, say Rochester—on the way home…
ROCHESTER: Uh, excuse me, boss…I want to put these clean dishes away…
JACK: All right…Rochester, you know, on my way home…some poor fellow asked me for a dime…
ROCHESTER: Uh-huh…
JACK: …but I gave him fifty cents! (SFX: crash of dishes) Rochester, why did you drop those dishes? All I said was I gave a man fifty cents… (SFX: more dishes crashing) Rochester! You didn’t have to push that second stack off the drainboard!
ROCHESTER: I didn’t touch ‘em, they jumped off by themselves!!!

The crashing of the dishes becomes this episode’s “boomerang” gag, as Jack readies himself for bed:

JACK: “Dear diary…today, I did a wonderful thing…a needy person asked me for a dime for a cup of coffee and I gave him fifty cents…” (SFX: crash of dishes, running, door opening) Rochester, what happened in the kitchen?
ROCHESTER (off): I don’t know—I’m in bed!!!

Jack is soon fast asleep, and he dreams that a testimonial dinner is being held in his honor of his generosity, presided over by Winston Churchill and featuring tributes from James Cagney, Cary Grant and Ronald Colman. With the exception of Colman (who’s played by Dennis Day), Fontaine displays a amazing talent for mimicry by impersonating the other celebrities, and also performs a routine as Sivoney by telling those assembled that he actually took the fifty cents and bought a sweepstakes ticket. I decided not to transcribe the dialogue here, though, because it’s not the content that makes Sivoney funny, it’s the voice—which sounds vaguely like a combination of Bowery bum and a prize fighter who’s taken too many hits to the head.

Frank returns to Benny’s program on April 30, 1950—which is the second broadcast I previewed last night. He shows up at Jack’s back door looking for food and when Jack tells him there isn’t any in the house. Sivoney remarks that he could have sworn he heard someone plucking a chicken. This is a comical reference to Jack’s violin playing; Benny is scheduled to go on a promotion tour with his instrument soon, and as the shows opens, he’s anxiously awaiting the arrival of his violin teacher, Professor Andre LeBlanc. The last time Jack played his violin in public was before an audience at the London Paladium and he remarks: “I want to get my fingers back in shape.” This prompts Rochester to crack, “Why…what did they do to ‘em?” Finally, the Professor makes his appearance:

JACK: Well! Professor LeBlanc, I’ve been waiting for you…
LEBLANC: Hello, Monsieur Benny…I’m sorry that I am late…
JACK: That’s all right…have you had lunch?
LEBLANC: I never eat before I give you a lesson…
JACK: Oh…shall we go in the den?
LEBLANC: Oui…
JACK: By the way, Professor…I had new hair put on my violin bow…
LEBLANC: Is it good hair?
JACK: Oh, yes…yes, the man at the music store said it won the Kentucky Derby twice…
LEBLANC: Please…I am a violin teacher, not a straight man…

Throughout the lesson, Jack finds himself constantly interrupted by his cast: Mary, Phil, Dennis, etc. In Dennis’ case, however, it’s worth it—Day performs “The Horse Told Me” by digging into his bag of impressions: Jimmy Durante, Ronald Colman, Jerry Colonna and Bert Gordon (“The Mad Russian.”) But all this time, LeBlanc—who would rather undergo root canal than be subjected to Benny’s scraping on the violin—grows more and more impatient:

LEBLANC: Monsieur Benny…please…let us call the lesson finis…
JACK: No, no, no, Professor…I want to be perfect when I start my personal appearance tour…
LEBLANC: This tour you are making…how many places will you appear in?
JACK: Oh, twenty-one different cities…
LEBLANC: Oh, then that should take up the entire summer…
JACK: No, no, Professor…I’m going to appear only one night in each city…
LEBLANC: That I can understand…

The writers also manage to recycle an earlier joke from an April 29, 1945 broadcast—which served, coincidentally, as Professor LeBlanc’s debut—but they add a nice, new twist:

JACK: Oh…uh, tell me, Professor…do you really think you can make a great violinist out of me?
LEBLANC: Well, I think I can do something…but it will take time…how old are you?
JACK: Why?
LEBLANC: How much time have we got left?
JACK: Oh…well, look, Professor—if you don’t feel that you’re capable of teaching me the violin, why do you keep taking money from me?
LEBLANC: I feel that that in itself is an accomplishment…

The fortunes of Frank Fontaine became quite rosy after his appearances on The Jack Benny Program; although an audition program from July 1948 is in OTR circulation, his big break came in the summer of 1952, when his self-titled variety show served as a replacement for CBS Radio’s The Charlie McCarthy Show. Fontaine resurfaced in the early 1960s as well, playing a Sivoney-like character named Crazy Guggenheim on Jackie Gleason’s American Scene Magazine variety program from 1962-66. “Craze” was a denizen of the dive where Joe the Bartender (Gleason) served up drinks, and after performing a comedy sketch, would often do a musical number designed to show audiences he had a pretty impressive set of pipes. An album, Songs I Sing on the Jackie Gleason Show, lasted an entire year on the record charts and spent five weeks at number one in March of 1963.

“Hello, every-b-uh-bbb-uh-b-bbb…hi!”

I’m a little fuzzy on how the whole discussion got underway, but my good friend Jeff and I once had a disagreement over whether or not Mel Blanc could be classified as a “genius.” Jeff took a pro-genius stance, arguing that his long list of legendary credits, including voicing practically every character that came out of the Warner Brothers cartoon studio—Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, etc.—entitled him to the “genius” appellation.

Now, I bow to no one in my admiration for Mel. Lou Costello once praised Blanc as “the finest radio artist I know.” He was certainly among the busiest actors in radio, not only working alongside Lou and partner Bud Abbott, but appearing on shows with George Burns & Gracie Allen, Fibber McGee & Molly, Judy Canova, and (of course) Jack Benny. My argument was that Jeff was slighting equally talented voice artists, and I ticked off the names of Paul Frees, June Foray, and Daws Butler for starters. (If memory serves me correctly, he dismissed Butler entirely, denigrating him as “a cheap-o Hanna-Barbera hack”—this doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person, just wrong.) I even argued that artists like Frees and Foray were much more versatile, capable of doing not only comedic but dramatic parts as well. But Jeff continued to stick to his guns—and I respect him for that, but that’s par for the course; most of our arguments generally conclude with both of us agreeing to disagree.

I thought about this incident last night as I was listening to The Mel Blanc Show, a 1946-47 situation comedy sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive folks on CBS Radio beginning September 3. It’s a moderately entertaining program, and of course, Blanc gets to demonstrate his patented versatility by playing two characters (and on some episodes, even more)—the first being himself, in his natural voice, as the proprietor of Mel Blanc’s Fix-It Shop. The comedy frequently emerged from the concept that Mel most assuredly did not put the “handy” in “handyman”—items left at his place of business more often than not left in worse condition than when they had arrived. Mel also played his helper, Zookie—who spoke in the same stutter that Blanc used for Warner’s Porky Pig (Mel also used that stutter for a character named August Moon on a short-lived comedy-drama called Point Sublime.). Zookie, sad to say, is a worthy candidate for Most Annoying Old-Time Radio Character—his shtick gets old very quick.

In his autobiography, That’s Not All, Folks!, Blanc relates how he bought a hardware store in Venice, California and used the establishment to promote his series. He tells a story (and you’ll have to bear with me here, I don’t have my copy of the book available) about a customer who came in one day, wanting to purchase a “little bastard.” Mel did a double-take, and the customer explained that it was a type of small file, prompting Mel to crack: “No sir, we don’t have a little bastard—but we do have this great big son of a bitch!” Mel finally turned over the store’s operation to his father-in-law, explaining that “much like my radio character, I didn’t know a jigsaw from a hacksaw.”

The Mel Blanc Show also featured a talented group of supporting actors, beginning with Mary Jane Croft (who would later work alongside Lucille Ball on The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy), who played the part of Mel’s girlfriend Betty Colby, and Joseph Kearns, who essayed the role of her father. Mel was constantly trying to ingratiate himself with the crusty Mr. Colby in order to ask for Betty’s hand in marriage—with little success. In the February 4, 1947 broadcast that I entertained myself with last night, Mel and Betty are discussing that very subject:

BETTY: Mel! A wedding ring!
MEL: Yours, Betty—ain’t it a beaut? Five diamonds!
BETTY: Oh, Mel, it’s gorgeous…
MEL: Of course, you really can’t tell from this picture…
BETTY: When am I going to get it?
MEL: Betty, you can have the whole catalog, right now…of course, I won’t buy the ring until I get your father’s consent…and that’s what worries me…
BETTY: Oh, Mel—stop worrying…Father will surely give his consent…you think he dislikes you because he always says: “Mel Blanc, I’ll break every bone in your body!”
MEL: Well…he doesn’t say it because he’s a chiropractor…
BETTY: Oh gosh, married…Mel, I get goose pimples every time I think about it…what about you?
MEL (giving out with a Woody Woodpecker laugh, then) Betty…remember how we first met…?
BETTY: Yes…you came over to my house to fix the antenna on the roof…
MEL: Yeah…the birds were singing…but I didn’t hear them…the sun was shining…but I didn’t see it…
BETTY: You didn’t?
MEL: No, don’t you remember? I fell off the roof and was unconscious for two hours…

Later in the show, Mel’s friend Mr. Potchnik—a Russian piano teacher played by Mel’s future Flintstones co-star Alan Reed—comes up with a plan on how to get Mr. Colby to soften: Betty will introduce three “suitors” (all played by Mel) to her father who are asking for her hand in marriage. The suitors will be so dumb they’ll make Mel look good in comparison. Let the wacky complications ensue!

Other regular characters on Blanc’s show included Hartley Benson, the resident Beau Brummel (played by Jim Backus as a riotously funny Cary Grant/Ronald Colman-impression), and Mr. Cushing (Hans Conried), the “Mighty Potentate” of the Loyal Order of Benevolent Zebras, the lodge to which Mel belonged. Cushing always greeted Mel with the lodge password: “Ugga-ugga-boo, ugga-boo-boo-ugga,” which soon became the series’ memorable catchphrase. Blanc was later to adopt this bit of silliness into a song that he and Spike Jones transformed into a hit record.

While The Mel Blanc Show did on occasion produce a classic episode or two—the one that always comes to mind is the one where Mel destroys Mr. Colby’s radio and is forced to impersonate the various programs in an attempt to cover his blunder (Jerry Lewis lifted this bit for a wonderful gag in Rock-a-Bye Baby)—the show wasn’t consistently amusing. (Veteran radio comedy scribe Bob Schiller describes it in The Laugh Crafters as “a terrible show,” and since he was employed there briefly, I will take him at his word.) I think part of the problem is that when you listen to Mel, you’re not laughing because he’s Mel, you’re laughing because he’s Bugs Bunny, or Daffy Duck, or Jack Benny’s violin teacher, etc. The second show (3/18/47) did have one laugh-out-loud moment for me: in this episode, Mel has managed to get himself engaged to both Betty and her man-chasing cousin Dottie (Elvia Allman). He disguises himself as Inspector MacGregor (complete with Botsford Twink burr) of Scotland Yard in an attempt to sour Dottie on the idea of matrimony, portraying “Mel” as a wanted criminal:

MEL (to Betty): My, but you’re a bonnie lassie…you look just like Annie Laurie…
DOTTIE: And who do I look like?
MEL: Peter Lorre…I was just joking, girl…you, too, are a bonnie lassie—and you do look like Lassie…

The Mel Blanc Show closed its fix-it shop doors on June 24, 1947, and its entire run is extant for OTR radio fans to enjoy today. Those familiar with Blanc’s work will no doubt want to tune it in for its novelty value, but you do need to be made aware that it is only sporadically funny; Blanc’s strength clearly lies in supporting roles, like those on The Jack Benny Show. I guess if I think about it, maybe his willingness to play second-banana was genius after all.