Now, amazingly, the middle of the year is upon us and Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog realizes that May 31 and June 1 brought the world two blazing comedy greats, Fred Allen, born on this day in 1894, and the funniest blonde not named Marion Davies to ever hit the silver screen, Marilyn Monroe, born on June 1, 1926.
The mindbogglingly witty Fred Allen, performer/satirist/writer supreme, personified comedy genius on radio.
Only always, this dyed-in-the-wool comedy aficionado marvels at how Fred and his pal Jack Benny consistently do with radio what Kovacs subsequently did with television.
These guys and their pals George Burns & Gracie Allen mastered the art of radio comedy as expertly as Jack's hero, Isaac Stern, rocked the Stradivarius. They even appeared in a couple of movies together (Love Thy Neighbor, It's In The Bag), thanks to their popularity on radio.
The only way Jack's radio show can be equalled is with the absurdist feature film, It's In The Bag (1945), starring Fred Allen, Jack Benny and a slew of hilarious character actors in a storyline that anticipates the Mel Brooks film The 12 Chairs made 25 years later.
After his Allen's Alley radio show went off the air in 1949, Fred made numerous appearances on television, most frequently on WHAT'S MY LINE, during the early days of the medium. While he was imaginative and funny on TV, radio comedy was Allen's strong suit.
Nonetheless, Fred Allen and Groucho Marx together on What's My Line is a comedy grand slam.
Had Fred, who passed at 61 on March 17, 1956, lived another decade, it is likely he would have left his distinctive satiric mark on television, possibly in the American version of That Was The Week That Was.
Continuing a thread about vintage TV ads we last did on September 8, today's post delves into 1950's and 1960's Commercial Land, specifically cigarettes.
To get in the mood, it's time for a cuppa joe from Conquistador Coffee!
Since the September 8 post started with animated ads, here are some very good ones plugging Lucky "LSMFT" Strikes.
While I don't know offhand who produced the stylish "It's Light Up Time" ads, they are the epitome of the prevalent 1950's graphic design style in animation, especially commercials, known as Cartoon Modern.
Not sure if a showbiz celebrity is one of the dancing Old Gold cigarette packs in this ad, but that's how we'll start the Celebrity Cigarette Commercials compendium. Didn't Mary Tyler Moore act as a dancing cigarette pack in one of these ads?
With a few cups of java from a roaster other than Conquistador Coffee now consumed, we now watch a Winston Cigarettes ad from the Beverly Hillbillies TV show starring Buddy Ebsen and Irene Ryan.
In another Beverly Hillbillies Winstons ad, Bea Benaderet joins the cast.
Here, a manufuctured couple (Rob & Laura Petrie played by Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, who previously starred in the Happy Hotpoint ads) and a real one, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, adeptly sell smokes!
The Jack Benny Program on radio and TV was sponsored by Lucky Strikes.
In the early 1950's live Jack Benny shows, guest stars at times delivered the commercials, giving announcer Don Wilson a rare breather. In this case, the great Humphrey Bogart does the honors.
While the following celebrity ads compilation mostly consists of car commercials, there is a great Viceroy Cigarettes ad starring a pre-Batgirl Yvonne Craig; yes, Viceroy's got the taste that's right. It's the third one in the mix and starts at 1:00.
Here, the excellent vocalist and actress Julie London sings one of the Marlboro jingles ("you've got a lot to like with a Marlboro, filter, flavor, flip-top box). Later in the compilation, actor/writer Dennis O' Keefe stars in a bunch of commercials for Camel Cigarettes, as opposed to slapping guys around or terrorizing Ann Sheridan in a hard-boiled film noir thriller.
In closing, we extend a prominent top hat tip to Tim Romano for the following terrific compilation of commercials, mastered from 35mm.
Pondering the links between animated cartoons and the Golden Age of Radio today.
Radio was a cornerstone of numerous cartoons, especially those of the B-studios. Terrytoons' The Nutty Network stars a simian-staffed equivalent of NBC, ABC and CBS, along with the studio's Bert Lahr lion, in a spoof of Orson Welles' War Of The Worlds broadcast.
It would be an understatement to note that the cartoons of the Charles Mintz Studio frequently featured caricatures of stars from movies and radio. This was the Columbia cartoon studio's stock in trade. Included in the 1938 Color Rhapsody THE BIG BIRDCAST: Rudy Vallee, Jack Benny, Walter Winchell, Eddie Cantor, Joe Penner and Ben Bernie.
Joe Penner in particular is caricatured in numerous 1930's cartoons and would be the prototype for bumbling Merrie Melodies star Egghead.
The Fleischer Studio featured radio and movie stars in the Screen Song series.
These included such early 1930's radio regulars as Arthur Tracy a.k.a. The Street Singer.
Spiders, ghosts, ghouls and skeletons run their own radio station in the Fleischer Studio's Halloween-themed BOO BOO THEME SONG.
None of this is surprising, as the Fleischer Studio got into the broadcasting ring early, notably with the 1929 Talkartoon RADIO RIOT.
The first cartoon about radio this blogger recalls seeing on TV (with the "Wheeler & Woolsey in the soup pot" bit excised for obvious reasons) was the 1933 Merrie Melodie, I've Got To Sing A Torch Song.
Among the celebrities caricatured in the first post-Harman and Ising Merrie Melodie cartoon were radio sensation and soon-to-be Hollywood movie star Bing Crosby.
Even us boomers who know our Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Bob Hope, Burns & Allen and Bob & Ray - and have actually tried to find episodes of Joe Penner's Baker's Broadcast shows - can be periodically stumped by the radio star caricatures in animated cartoons. This writer knew who Ed Wynn was before starting kindergarten because of repeated viewings of I've Got To Sing A Torch Song!
Did not know the extent to which I've Got To Sing A Torch Song was infamous in the history of Warner Brothers animation until decades later. It was at first deemed too terrible to release and eventually remade and re-tooled extensively by Friz Freleng after Leon Schlesinger fired director Tom Palmer.
This wasn't even the first WB cartoon to feature radio as a main character. Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising produced Crosby, Columbo & Vallee, in which braves are horrified by the extreme popularity of radios and crooners with squaws on the reservation. As is the case with many entries from the first season of Merrie Melodies cartoons, it is mostly an excuse for the ever-peppy protagonists to bounce around to the jaunty Frank Marsales score.
Don't know how star of vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies, movies and radio Will Rogers, arguably the best known 1930's Hollywood luminary who was a Native American, regarded cartoons along these lines. An excellent caricature of Rogers was featured, following radio star Eddie Cantor and preceding Ed Wynn, in Harman and Ising's 1933 Merrie Melodie, I Like Mountain Music, the first in the "book and magazine covers come to life" genre seen in WB cartoons directed by the likes of Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin and Friz Freleng.
Harman and Ising would go to this well frequently, combining it with a radio theme in the 1934 MGM Happy Harmonies cartoon Toyland Broadcast. The incredibly bad taste moment at 6:20 ended its inclusion in TV broadcasts, along with such fellow and jaw-dropping MGM Happy Harmonies as The Old Plantation (1935).
And, as is also the case Tashlin's wonderful 1938 Merrie Melodie Have You Got Any Castles? it's difficult not to love a cartoon featuring a caricature of Alexander Woolcott.
An intrepid expert on radio and classic movies posting under the name radiobov has painstakingly gone through the entire cartoon, start to finish, annotating every movie and radio star appearance, in many cases with their star turns in other movies. This is fantastic work, and the gang here encourages the poster named radiobov to upload more.
Any look at the relationship between animation and radio brings to mind George Pal's puppetoons.
George Pal's career in animation began with a series of theatrical commercial films selling Philips radios.
George Pal's 1934 film The Ship Of The Ether is innovative - and all about selling those radios.
The Ship Of The Ether was just one of a series of elaborate mini-musicals George Pal's studio produced for Philips.
Several of the George Pal Philips films are included in Arnold Leibovit's two Puppetoon Movie Blu-ray sets.
Although Bob & Ray’s very funny and most original radio show, filled with spoofs of other radio shows, was never re-imagined as a cartoon, the droll duo starred in a series of terrific animated beer commercials as Bert & Harry Piels.
Prepared for this post by visiting Radiomuseum and listening to Jack Benny and Fred Allen master radio comedy. They played this genre as expertly as Jack's hero, Isaac Stern, worked that Stradivarius.
The only way Jack's hilarious radio show or these cartoons about radio can conceivably be topped is with the absurdist feature film, IT'S IN THE BAG (1945). Fred Allen, Jack Benny and a slew of very funny character actors star - and are incredibly funny, even by jaded and oh-so-hip 2022 standards.
February 14th is the natal anniversary of all-time comedy great Jack Benny. It is apropo that we pay tribute to the King Of Cheapskates and old time radio today, as a recent post was devoted to Jack's good friend Eddie Cantor.
The star of radio, television and (occasionally) movies was born Benny Kubelsky on this day in 1894. Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog respectfully tipped our top hats (originally worn by Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle in THE ROUNDERS) to Jack six years ago on his birthday - and are thrilled and delighted to pay tribute to him yet again.
We'll kick this tribute to the man hated by violins around the world off with an episode of The Jack Benny Program featuring a guest star dear to all of us at the Psychotronix Film Festival: the one, the only Vincent Price.
The biggest stars in show business appeared on The Jack Benny Program, both on radio and television. He wasted no time in enlisting silver screen icon Marilyn Monroe, the bombshell with a flair for comedy, as the guest star for the TV show.
Here's Jack with special guest star Humphrey Bogart.
On this live show with Bob Hope, bound and determined to crack Jack up on the air, ad-libs abound.
Hope would frequently return as a guest star.
Sometimes Jack guest starred on his pals' shows, with felicitous results.
As funny as the Jack Benny radio shows, especially those from 1946-1950 are, I consider Jack's TV shows of the early-to-mid 1960's among his very best work. The following episode co-starring Jack's chum George Burns is a scream.
Some of the funniest episodes of The Jack Benny Program involve guest stars who grab the opportunity to have a bit of fun with their silver screen images as bad guys. Peter Lorre (and Jack's writers) has a field day in the following show. It's not that surprising, considering how much humor slips into the Peter Lorre Warner Bros. movies in which he co-stars with Sydney Greenstreet.
Asking the question of what my single favorite Jack Benny TV or radio show would be, the answer, hands-down, would be the episode in which Raymond Burr co-stars as Perry Mason. Burr did several appearances with Benny and clearly, after so many years portraying the likes of that creep in REAR WINDOW and the Cherries Jubilee slingin' mob boss in RAW DEAL, clearly loved doing comedy.
Need lots of laughs right now, as the recent passing of music giant Chick Corea and the losses of two personal friends in 2020 have hit this blogmeister hard. Luckily, Jack's the guy to deliver the laughs!
February 14 turns out to be both Valentine's Day and the birthday of Benny Kubelsky, a.k.a. Jack Benny, a fellow who has made this blogger laugh all his life and continues to make him laugh!
Well, the dyed-in-the-wool comedy geeks at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog (right now listening to Marty Allen tell jokes and talk about Groucho Marx on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast) could not let that birthday go!
Here are some super interviews with Jack, the first with Johnny Carson, known to go into Jack's mannerisms on The Tonight Show.
For more info, read the following overview of Benny's show business career that author Trav S.D. has penned on his Stars Of Vaudeville blog, as well as just one of many terrific posts about Jack Benny and radio from Don Yowp's blog, Tralfaz.
Pondering the good fortune to have made it to yet another year prompts this blogger to find something, anything, that aired originally on January 1. So here's The Frank Sinatra Show, featuring guest stars Moe, Larry and Shemp - The Three Stooges - first seen 56 years ago today.
And, continuing this mission to start the new year right - with laughs - here's Jack Benny!
This episode of The Jack Benny Program, complete with Lucky Strike commercials, was originally broadcast on January 1, 1956. Enjoy!
For the last post of wretched 2017, a year we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are pleased to see end, we wish all the readers a Happy New Year!
Slowly, make that very slowly getting over an obstinate common cold that's hangin' on like a bad memory, this blogger will NOT be whooping it up at the Happy Hour Club to ring in 2018.
Won't even be up to dancing unconvincingly to the less-than-supersonic tempos of Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians.
Instead, we shall watch Jack Benny's New Year's Eve show from 1961.
Next up: a slew of different renditions of that one New Year's Eve tune which has been recorded 1000 times.
It is quite the tribute to Frank Sinatra that I have mistook this recording by Harry Connick, Jr. for one by Ol' Blue Eyes on more than one occasion.
There are some very good unconventional New Year's Eve tunes as well, every one much less played and covered than "What are you doing New Year's Eve?" Always loved Otis Redding and Carla Thomas' Stax Records cover of ace blues guitarist-vocalist-songwriter Lowell Fulson's classic Tramp (which Fulson and Jimmy McCracklin co-wrote) and it turns out this dynamic duo also did an excellent song for New Year's.
Another ace bluesman, Lightnin' Hopkins, waxed his "Happy New Year" single for Decca Records in 1953. The sting, bite and power of his guitar is undimmed 64 years later, so this song remains a great way to ring out the old year and ring in the new one.
We wrap this post and send out awful 2017 in style with the astounding Swedish bandleader, entertainer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Gunhild Carling. Here's Gunhild, just one virtuoso from a three generation musical family, accomplishing something I have not seen since the heydey of the legendary hard bop/free jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk: playing three instruments simultaneously. Happy New Year!
One more thing we love at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog: the comedy of Benny Kubelsky, a.k.a. Jack Benny. It's always a pleasure to celebrate Jack's 39th birthday!
By the time Benny's popular radio show completed its first season in 1932-1933, his go-to characterization for five decades - vain, self-obsessed and above all, cheap - was well established. Among the many carryovers from the radio shows to television are his wonderfully appalled reactions to the stock company of supporting comics. Paramount among them: Frank Nelson, who one expects to find in pretty much ANY episode of The Jack Benny Program!
And then there's Mel Blanc. . .
Jack's television show, appropriately titled The Jack Benny Program, ran for 244 episodes, from 1950 through the 1964-65 season.
Jack Benny also loved to do guest shots on his friends' shows - George Burns especially!
Jack often made fun of the fact that he didn't make a huge splash as a star of feature films. Still, many of his movies are quite entertaining and fun.
Jack particularly enjoyed making fun of his much-maligned starring vehicle The Horn Blows At Midnight.
Seen today, Jack's bête noire, The Horn Blows At Midnight, comes across as charming and funny. Seems the bar line for comedy was a lot higher then than it is now.
Jack did have one prominent feather in his cap in his movie career: his witty performance in Ernst Lubitsch's classic To Be Or Not To Be, co-starring the incredible Carole Lombard.
Again, it's a thanks for the memories and thanks for the laughs to Jack. Enjoy these mp3s of vintage Jack Benny radio shows from archive.org.
February 14 is both Valentine's Day and the birthday of Benny Kubelsky, a.k.a. Jack Benny. We are thrilled and delighted to celebrate Jack's 39th birthday! First and foremost, read this superb overview of Benny's lengthy career that author Trav S.D. has penned on his Stars Of Vaudeville blog.
Jack started in vaudeville but found his voice - specifically, his vain cheapskate characterization - on radio, beginning in 1932. Unquestionably, Jack was one of the guys most responsible for making the medium the national sensation it was throughout the 1930's and a balm to hurting hearts in the Great Depression. Many of the radio shows are available online via archive.org and David Von Pein's Old-Time Radio Channel on YouTube.
It could be argued that the funniest of Jack Benny's radio programs - although entries from all eras remain a riot - date from 1946-1950, by which time the writers and cast had created quite the well-oiled machine. The Jack Benny shows compare with Burns & Allen, Bob & Ray and, decades later, satirists The Firesign Theatre) as the apex of comedy produced for radio.
Jack's television show, appropriately titled The Jack Benny Program, ran for 244 episodes, from 1950 through the 1964-65 season, and has braved the test of time quite well. While not available in its entirety in a gargantuan box set, a good number of hilarious episodes are to be found on this Shout! Factory DVD release.
The TV series began as an outgrowth of the radio shows, and for quite awhile, he was doing both, along with tours/fundraisers that raised millions for symphony orchestras. Jack was one busy guy and darn energetic for 39!
Among the funniest episodes of both the radio and TV versions of the show were those which entirely consisted of jokes at the expense of rotund yet good-natured Jack Benny Program announcer Don Wilson!
As the 1950-1965 television show evolved, it would differ from Benny's radio work or later TV specials in its use of way-out sight gags and willingness to "break the fourth wall". The television show spotlighted the talented crew of continuing cast members and supporting comedians from radio (especially Mel Blanc, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson and exceptionally goofy comic/Irish tenor Dennis Day), while repeatedly having fun razzing the pop culture images of Jack and his guest stars.
At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we even find Jack's much-maligned feature film, The Horn Blows At Midnight, very funny.
Unquestionably, Peter Lorre, Frankie and The Wolfman got their kicks on Route 66 - even given that Alice Cooper, The Dead Boys and Electric Frankenstein were a few years (or decades) down the road.
And, frankly, I would have found Marty Milner's subsequent cop show, Adam-12, infinitely more entertaining had Karloff, Lorre and Chaney been in the regular cast!
"One Adam-12, gruesome green monster with bolts sticking out his neck wandering aimlessly on Sunset, near the Whisky A Go-Go. Said to have British accent and unkempt werewolf companion. Jim Morrison considering having werewolf sit in with the band."
Meanwhile, although Peter Lorre did not jam with The Doors or The Velvet Underground, he get to have an incredible amount of fun with his screen image on the following 1963 episode of The Jack Benny Program.
Hugely popular in his day, Jack Benny seems under-rated and somewhat forgotten now, primarily because of the microscopic attention span of our current pop culture, and the fact that his comedy doesn't even show up even on cable TV any more. Could Jack Benny, for decades a king of show business, be on his way to becoming about as well-known as Joe Cook and Lloyd Hamilton? Maybe. Maybe not.
To refresh our memories dulled by "gnats on methamphetamines" attention-spans, here's a clip that demonstrates Jack's ability to get big laughs with a motion, stance or expression - or sometimes by doing nothing - with Groucho Marx.
By the time Benny's popular radio show, which hit the airwaves in 1932, hit television, his characterization - vain, self-obsessed, foppish, insecure and above all, cheap - was very well established. Among the carryovers from the radio shows are his wonderfully appalled reactions to the supporting comics, such true 'third bananas' as Frank Nelson.
Jack's television show, appropriately titled The Jack Benny Program, ran for 244 episodes, from 1950 through the 1964-65 season, and has braved the test of time quite well. The best episodes are hilarious, the equal of the great silent and early talkie short comedies from Hal Roach and RKO. The series differs from Benny's radio work or later TV specials in featuring some wonderful way-out sight gags, enhanced by Benny's reactions and recalling later generations of comics (Ernie Kovacs, Peter Sellers) and such cartoonists as Tex Avery more than Jack's contemporaries.
Paramount among the way-out gags were the show's willingness to "break the fourth wall" and toy with the pop culture images of Jack and his guest stars. While George Burns and Bob Hope also enjoyed revealing that it's all make believe and watched by an audience out there in movie/TV land, Jack and his writers break that fourth wall constantly.
Some of the funniest shows in the series combine both elements, such as one where Raymond Burr, representing Jack as uber-lawyer Perry Mason, is both inarticulate and inept; Perry explains the gross discrepancy by snapping to Jack, "my writers are better than yours!"
The January 22, 1963 episode featuring Peter Lorre opens with Jack assuring all that Peter only plays a sicko onscreen, but is a nice guy off-screen. Peter subsequently . . . well, let's not describe it, let's show it.
Often up-and-coming comedians were the guest stars on Jack's show. Here's one featuring Johnny Carson, not long after he started hosting The Tonight Show.
Jack often incorporated the fact that he didn't make a huge splash as a star of feature films as a joke in his act. He particularly enjoyed making fun of his much-maligned starring vehicle The Horn Blows At Midnight.
While, granted, Jack's milieu was a half-hour program executed with the precision of a race driver, seen today, The Horn Blows At Midnight - Jack's bête noire - has its moments. In stretches, it's quite charming and funny. Perhaps the bar line for comedy was a lot higher then.
Jack did have one prominent feather in his cap in his movie career: his witty performance with Carole Lombard in Ernst Lubitsch's To Be Or Not To Be.
An overdue reevaluation and revival can begin with Jack Benny's prolific radio and television work and include a 35mm archival print of To Be Or Not To Be. Until then, here's a terrific 1992 tribute to Mr. Benny produced by HBO.
