My dad was a few years younger than Jack Benny, 13 to be exact, and was a big fan. Surely one of the reasons is that my dad, like Benny, was a violin player. But another was because Jack Benny was such a master at clever humor. I remember listening to the radio with him, in the 1950s, the Jack Benny radio show with Rochester.
Jack Benny's TV show was on even before we had a TV in my small, rural Louisiana community. So even though I was able eventually to see some of them, I missed the earlier episodes.
Right now Netflix streaming videos has a set of 4 Jack Benny 25-minute episodes, and this one, "Bob Crosby's Contract", is one of them. Bob of course is Bing's younger and less famous brother, and sounds quite a bit like Bing, and he does a song with a young girl who is Margaret Truman from Washington, D.C. Of course it isn't the real Margaret Truman who was a bit older.
There is also a scene where Benny has trouble sleeping so Rochester converts his bed into a rocking bed and, while Benny sleeps, two cat burglars come in the window to see what they can get. They are played by two of his other regulars, Dennis Day and Mel Blanc (of Bugs Bunny voice fame). They only get frustrated with the traps Benny has set up and get nothing, then have to put a quarter into the window lock to get out!
Unlike today's TV shows, the Jack Benny show wasn't on every week, at the closing he says he will be with us in a month. Watching his humor brings back good memories, when comedians were really funny and didn't rely on dirty or rude routines to try to be funny. Jack Benny was one of a kind.
Jack Benny's TV show was on even before we had a TV in my small, rural Louisiana community. So even though I was able eventually to see some of them, I missed the earlier episodes.
Right now Netflix streaming videos has a set of 4 Jack Benny 25-minute episodes, and this one, "Bob Crosby's Contract", is one of them. Bob of course is Bing's younger and less famous brother, and sounds quite a bit like Bing, and he does a song with a young girl who is Margaret Truman from Washington, D.C. Of course it isn't the real Margaret Truman who was a bit older.
There is also a scene where Benny has trouble sleeping so Rochester converts his bed into a rocking bed and, while Benny sleeps, two cat burglars come in the window to see what they can get. They are played by two of his other regulars, Dennis Day and Mel Blanc (of Bugs Bunny voice fame). They only get frustrated with the traps Benny has set up and get nothing, then have to put a quarter into the window lock to get out!
Unlike today's TV shows, the Jack Benny show wasn't on every week, at the closing he says he will be with us in a month. Watching his humor brings back good memories, when comedians were really funny and didn't rely on dirty or rude routines to try to be funny. Jack Benny was one of a kind.
