Thu 9 May 2019
MY TV DIARY February 1981: Part Four.
Posted by Steve under Old Time Radio , TV Comedy , TV Diary[10] Comments
February 5, continued.
Since Ronald Reagan was speaking on the nation’s economy tonight, the start of the next program was delayed so that I ended up missing only the first couple of minutes. Thanks, Ronnie.
Unfortunately, I did miss Magnum, P.I. altogether.
A LOVE LETTER TO JACK BENNY. NBC Special, 120 minutes. Jack Benny (archival footage), George Burns, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson (all as themselves). Director: Norman Abbot.
Most of this two-hour special seemed to be taken from Benny’s various farewell specials which he continued to do after he stopped doing a weekly series. (And I’ve just realized why. Wasn’t his weekly series on CBS? Right. Up until 1964, Jack Benny’s entire TV career was on CBS. He switched to NBC for a Friday night series in 1964-65, and from then on only the specials for NBC.)
I happen to think that Jack Benny very well may have been the funniest person to appear o radio. He was a huge success on television as well, but on TV he depended more on guest stars than he ever did on radio. and this show reflected that perfectly. Besides lengthy clips showing the hosts of this show in action with Jack, we also see Jack with Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Dean Martin, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan (the second time tonight), and on and on.
On radio, and early pre-color TV, The Jack Benny Show depended almost entirely on Benny, and particularly on the character of Benny his writers created for him, and on his “family” of regulars: Don Wilson, Rochester, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, and of course, Mary Livingston.
Obviously on a TV special of this magnitude we can’t really expect to see more than 15 minutes of so of three men sitting around listening to the radio. But I do get the uneasy feeling that someone who had never heard of Jack Benny before tonight might have gone away from watching this show believing that, yeah, he was funny but (without experiencing the close familiarity of Benny’s character, built up over a long period of time on radio and early TV) not that funny.
May 10th, 2019 at 9:04 am
Jack Benny was the comedian’s comedian. My favorite.
May 10th, 2019 at 12:01 pm
My own favorite is Jonathan Winters, who always made me laugh before he ever said anything, but Jack Benny is right up there. I wouldn’t have watched this long tribute to him, with commercials, if I hadn’t, and once I started watching the video last night, it was hard to stop.
One other thing I noted is how much I miss Johnny Carson.
May 10th, 2019 at 9:05 am
THANKS for sharing that!
May 10th, 2019 at 12:04 pm
You’re welcome. This was a great trip into the past for me as well.
May 10th, 2019 at 6:45 pm
Fred Allen and Jack Benny were pretty much tied for me, of their generation…and Edgar Bergen and WC Fields and Mae West and Gracie Allen and her husband were no slouches. Lenny Bruce and Winters and Dick Gregory of the next gen, and Phyllis Diller not too shabby…Jean Carroll might be right up there if I’d been able to see more of her work.
May 10th, 2019 at 6:58 pm
I don’t think Fred Allen ever quite found the right niche for his humor, but you’re right. He was as one of the cleverest and wittiest.
Of later generations, Robin Williams was one of the best. He never filed to make me laugh.
May 10th, 2019 at 7:27 pm
It’s hard to explain how carefully the radio series crafted Benny’s character to the point television audiences just “knew” what to expect and Benny could garner laughs with nothing but a look and a gesture. Who else but Benny could have gotten the longest laugh on radio with silence.
May 10th, 2019 at 7:57 pm
May 11th, 2019 at 1:52 am
I am more a Wheeler and Woolsey or Groucho fan.
Groucho had a radio comedy variety series and Jack Benny was a guest star in one episode. The series name was (Pabst) BLUE RIBBON TOWN and the episode had Benny visiting the town to escape the pressures of radio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INuoiCPuWzg
May 11th, 2019 at 10:15 am
You’d think it would have been a very limited format, but Groucho found his niche as the host and quizmaster of YOU BET YOUR LIFE. As as kid, I watched it as often as I could. I thought he was hilarious.