Appreciating Jack Benny

Before I began eking out a semi-living doing intros for lousy movies, I used to tend bar in a comedy club. While it paid poorly, offered absolutely no chance for advancement or a future, and was an all-around shit job, I enjoyed it for two reasons: the people I worked with (NOT my boss, who was a cheap, tight-fisted and tight assed @#?/% who could swallow a roll of pennies and defecate a mile of copper wire), and the chance to get to know the comics that played the club.

I’ve always been interested in the mechanics of comedy – I’ve been gifted with what I have been told is an excellent sense of humor; but, I don’t really know what it is about what I say that makes it funny. All I know is that I say things and people laugh. When there were lulls in my work, I would stand behind the bar and watch the comics do their things. I remember one evening in December of a year when there was a snowstorm of epic proportions and the TV was warning everyone not to leave their homes unless it was absolutely necessary. When I called work and asked, half-jokingly, if I was expected to show up, I was told yes. There were two reservations confirmed for that evening and if I didn’t show, I would be fired. I grudgingly(to put it kindly) went to work and ended up spending nearly the entire evening sitting in the audience watching the three excellent comics booked heckle each other as they performed. It was one of the funniest evenings I’ve ever spent and almost made it worth risking my life to come to work. The second show was completely devoid of an audience; but, the comics had to perform in order to get paid. We then enjoyed the second show all by ourselves and actually just conversed with the comedians as they did their time. It was then I discovered something I’ve found is prevalent among almost every comic I’ve met or seen in person: an abiding respect for the comedy and style of Jack Benny.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Jack Benny at that time, for I had the man confused with the comic image he projected: a vain, incredibly cheap man who thought he was a lot more talented than he actually was. After that evening, I became curious about why the comics I’d spoken to were so reverential towards Benny; so, I sought out some of his old television shows on video tape.

I wasn’t expecting that much, to tell you the truth. I’ve watched old TV shows that I remembered being hysterical when I was young (such as Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In) and being completely befuddled as to why I found them funny in the first place. It was then I realized that most comedy is a product of its time. I thought The Gods Must Be Crazy was brilliant until I noticed that many of the techniques that made it so hilarious were lifted wholesale from silent comedies. That didn’t make it less funny, but it did take a bit of the shine off of it. The same thing happened with National Lampoon’s Animal House, which in itself is still a very funny movie, but was full of techniques inspired by American International’s Beach Party movies, of all things.

So again, I wasn’t expecting much. I was very pleasantly surprised once I started watching The Jack Benny Program. The hallmark of true comedy is that it’s still funny no matter when you watch it – I’m not saying that topical humor isn’t true comedy, but with the weight of years gone by, it loses most of its impact and nearly all of its humor. The comedy of Jack Benny was based on character. Benny’s character, as I pointed out before, was a vain, selfish, incredibly cheap eternally 39 year old bachelor who was always on the make for young, beautiful actresses who were, 10 times out of 10, out to further their careers and nothing else. In the show, he had an eternal “girlfriend” played by his real-life wife, Mary Livingston (who, coincidentally, he met at the May Company in downtown Cleveland while performing at the Palace Theater – this story later turned up on his show in a hilarious episode where Benny tells an interviewer about meeting Mary for the first time), his huge, underpaid announcer, Don Wilson, his wise-cracking valet, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and the incredibly vacant-minded Irish tenor Dennis Day. Recurring characters included Frank Nelson (“Yeeeeeeessssss?”) as everything from a carnival Guess Your Weight/Age barker (Benny: Say, how did you guess I’m 39?” Nelson: “Welllll… I’ve got your quarter. Let’s both be happy!”) to a floorwalker to a psychiatric patient, and this wasn’t lost on Benny – on one show, he points out that everywhere he goes, he runs into this guy and he’s in a different profession every time he sees him. Nelson fires back, “Well, I’m trying to improve myself. What’s your excuse?” Also appearing on the show in a variety of roles was the one and only Mel Blanc, who appeared as Benny’s perpetually on the verge of tears violin teacher (“Play it slowly while you’re learning/Not so loud, my stomach’s turning”), delivery men, and in the famous “Si, Cy” skit, a Mexican in a bus terminal.

In an interview about Benny, Johnny Carson recalled (and I’m paraphrasing here), “One thing I learned from Jack was to let your guests get the laughs – it didn’t matter who got the laughs, because everyone would say, ‘Did you see the Jack Benny show? It was hilarious!’”

Although his screen and stage persona was one of a stingy, selfish man, in real life Benny was incredibly generous – Johnny Carson recalled that he would always over-tip servers when he went to a restaurant, for example, and Dina Shore recalled a story Mary Benny told her about when she once had a very valuable diamond ring stolen from her hotel room. She called Jack about it in tears, and he just laughed and said, “Well, baby, we’ll just have to get you another one. If you don’t get back on the horse after you fall off, you never will.”

The hallway leading to the writer’s room on the Jack Benny show was always filled with hopeful comedy writers who would pitch jokes to Benny as he walked by, and if he heard one he liked, he would pay the writer for it on the spot in cash. When he came into the writer’s room with it, they’d ask him where he got it and he’d reply, “From the kids in the hall,” which is where the Canadian comedy troupe The Kids In The Hall took their name.

The main problem I have is I’m trying to explain comedy here – better writers than I have tried and failed, so let me offer this advice if what has come before this interests you in any way. Get on the net, go to a rental place, or check the DVD bargain bins at your local drugstore and find some of the old Jack Benny shows. They’re all pretty much in the public domain and can be had for a song. If you find any, get them and rediscover a comedy genius, Jack Benny.

written by Nick D'Amico © 2006