OTR Friday with Vic & Sade and Jack Benny Too

OTR Friday is here again and I share with you another hour of comedy from radio's golden age.

On "Vic & Sade" we're winding down the surviving shows of 1939 and clean up the folder with a couple of episodes without specific dates. Both of these shows are frought with the kind of dialogue and characterization infused by creator Paul Rhymer that makes this show such an evergreen...do yourself a favor and give a listen.

This first show is from sometime in December of 1939. Young Rush Gook played by Billy Idelson is feeling himself get on in years. A teenager with an age complex, he's resigned to settle down his younger ways to a lifestyle more fitting his tired old bones.

Just for laughs, here's a brief looksee at Idelson as he aged in real life.

Idelson circa late 1930's...about the time of this episode:

Idelson as a young man in the early 1960's during his run on "The Dick Van Dyke" TV show, where he played the recurring role of Herman Glomscher, Sally Rodgers' boyfriend:


Idelson inthe early 1970's where he was a going comedy writer, director and creative consultant for shows like "Love American Style" and "The Bob Newhart Show":


And an older Idelson, content in retirement after a decades-long career on some very top-notch comedy shows in radio and television:

This is the kind of show I'm sure Idelson looked back on in later years with an even bigger smile than we get. Listen in...

This second show is from a few I have in a batch of undated 1939 shows. This highlights the characters and personalities of all three main speaking characters and the sharp acting and comic time of cast members, Art Van Havey, Bernadette Flynn and Idelson. Sade is prompting Vic to write a letter to her brother-in-law Walter and Rush is no help at all.

In "Speaking of Radio: The Jack Benny Program" part 10 of 12, we hear more proof of the faith and pride Jack put in his cast members. Never the vain star he portrayed, Jack spotlighted those around him to a degree I don't think any star of any show has ever done, before or since.

Betwixt the interviews, we hear a portion of a show all centering around the life of announcer Don Wilson...

...with the whole cast playing all their parts to a tee. The great Mel Blanc not only plays the stork that brought Don, we also get a cameo by Porky Pig competing for Don's announcer job...

...if course Frank Nelson chimes in to grate Jack...

...Bea Benederet takes a turn as Don's Mother...

...Dennis Day shows his voice acting chops playing Don' elder father...

...as contrast to Bob Crosby's portrayal of the younger Don Wilson, Sr. Bob took over the bandleading chores on Jack's show after Phil Harris moved on and retained the role after the shows move to television.

Contemprary to the "Speaking of Radio" special, Don Wilson even gives a little lowdown about "The Sportsmen Quartet", who provided the musical commercials on the program.

All in all a fact and fun filled show that you're sure to enjoy...

Talk to you soon.

OTR Friday - Still MORE Vic & Sade and Jack Benny Too

Sit back, relax and laugh with your ears wide open...it's OTR Friday!

Disgruntled people dealing with the obligations of family members seems to be the theme in this weeks offering of shows from Paul Rhymer. July 5, 1939 finds Sade prodding Vic and Rush off of their keisters to fetch a parting gift left by the Donahues in their cellar for the Gooks. Two tons of coal no less.

Here we hear Rush trying to dodge the labor and wanting to take part instead to one of his favorite passtimes "watching the fat businessment play handball down at the YM(CA)". This actually sounds fun to me.

The genius of Rhymers understatement again as Sade lays out the logic for fetching 2 tons of coal from one cellar to the next in the dog days of August, and the men of the households rebuttle is often no more than "Mmmm.". You've no idea how hard that is to write. Genius.



August 30, 1939 has Rush in a dour funk over his mother (Sade) picking out his school clothes. Imagine, a big grown almost a man hgih schooler like him and his mother shopping for his clothes like he was a babe. Ooh the travesty. Oooooh the indignation.

Vic's observance of how Rush must feel is worth every minute. "A man with a breakin' heart. I suppose his spirit is just as agonized as over this as that of a great businessman beset by difficulties. The intensity of the suffering from a persons troubles is the same whether the person is young or old. The infant who's denied the rattle it desires is no more or no less distressed than the desperate banker who finds shortages in his accounts. And the 14 year old boy who isn't permitted to select his own clothes, endures the same misery as the..." Beautiful.

Vic's plan to rob a bank with Sade and escape over the Missouri state line while Rush provides a false scent is pretty funny too.

Enjoy.

More cast members come forward in this weeks Jack Benny Program spotlight. More behind the scenes insights into one of the longest running and possibly THE best radio program of all time.

This week we hear from Frank Nelson who played any number of ascerbic doormen, floorwalkers, doctors...you know...the "Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeesssss?!?" guy...

Also more from Don Wilson on one of his most famous flubs.

And even the great...let me repeat that...GREAT Mel Blanc. Still sorely missed.

Here's "Speaking of Radio: The Jack Benny Program" part 4

That's just good stuff.

Talk to you soon.

OTR Friday - Even MORE Vic & Sade and Jack Benny Too

Time to make your ears smile again with some rock solid samples of comedy from radio's golden age.

Our first episode of Vic & Sade is a master-ful tale of confusion that has me mesmeried each and ever time I listen to it. Once again, Paul Rhymer uses just two speaking characters, one simply explaining to the other a telephone message and suddenly a cast as rich and full as you can imagine fill your ears. With just the voices of Vic and Rush, we hear the afternoons goings on of Sade, Y.Y. Flirtch, Mis' Harris, Fred and Ruthie Stembottom, Hank Gutstop, Mr. Sludge (one of Mis' Harris' boarders) and a Mr. Yop, Gop or Fop.

The action covers Vic's place of business (The Consolidated Kitchen Wares Co.), the train station, the foundery where Fred stembottom works, Miss' Harris' boarding house and The Lazy Hours Pool Room...yet Vic and Rush never leave their living room.

Genius.

My favorite Vic-ism: "When I greeted you joyously, your rejoinder was sluggish and preoccupied."

Words you can languish in. Here it is from June 5, 1939.



Show two comes from June 13, 1939. A lazy evening with Vic and Sade playing Rummy and waiting to go to bed when Rush rushes in to tell the tale of "The greatest night of Rotton Davis' en-tire career".

There's not much I can add that wouldn't take away from the charm and humor Rhymer hammers out of this one...enjoy!



This weeks portion of "Speaking of Radio - The Jack Benny Program" gets a little more into the personality of Jack himself and begins to introduce the cast. Maybe the greatest assemblage of talent EVER, pictured below left to right are Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Mary Livingstone, Jack Benny, Don Wilson and Mel Blanc.

First up, a prolonged exerpt from the program gives a stilted life history of Jack and how he assembled the cast, all narrated by the great comedian George Jessel

Then we hear some of the cast giving contemporary interviews with great insight into Jack's generosity...something we never hear on the show. First up Don Wilson, Jack's announcer for almost the entire run of the show...

Then Dennis Day. Originally the replacement boy tenor when Kenny Baker left the show, Dennis became an important comedic ingredient, providing many impressions and dialects over the years.

Enough from me, here's part 3.

Happy OTRing!

Talk to you soon.

Jack Benny - 39 Years Old and Still Counting!

This coming Sunday is Jack Benny's birthday! Born February 14, 1894, he would have been 39 years old! :)

For those not hip to Jack Benny, the character he developed and fostered for almost 25 years in radio and almost 25 in television, was a vain, self-centered miser who was perpetually and perennially 39 years old.

Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Waukeegan, Illinois to a Polish father and Lithuanian mother who both emigrated to America. Benny was a poor student who was expelled from high school and later dropped out of business school and failed miserably when trying to work at his fathers haberdashery.

At the age of 17 he began playing violin in local vaudeville houses. After a while he began to talk between songs on the violin...people laughed. After a while he began to just talk and make people laugh.

Benny had a good career in vaudeville which lead him to a guest spot on Ed Sullivan's radio show in 1932. He opened with the line, "Hello folks, this is Jack Benny. I'll now pause a moment while you all ask yourselves, 'who cares?'".

This self-effacing attitude, one where the butt of the joke was usually himself, was to be his long standing stock-in-trade.

He began his own show for "Canada Dry Ginger Ale" in 1932, then was sponsored by "Cheverolet" and then "American Tire Co." over the next 2 years. He kept getting in trouble with his sponsors when reading their commercials, for taking a light-hearted approach to hawking their wares. In 1934 "General Foods" came to him with a product that had been failing and that they were preparing to take off the market. Jack said he would only do it if he was left to himself to talk about their product any way he liked. They agreed, since it was failing anyway, what harm could come? In October 1934 Jack starred on the "Jello" program for NBC and soon Jello's 6 delicious flavors "Strawberry, Raspberry, Cherry, Orange, Lemon and Lime" were the nations #1 selling gelatine desert, knocking top-ranking "Royal gelatine" off the map.

During WWII when sugar was being rationed and Jello was in short supply, General Foods stayed with him and Jack advertised "Grape Nuts" for the duration.

In 1944, Jack switched sponsers to the American Tobacco Co. and "Lucky Strikes" was his sponsor from 1944 right on through Jacks transition to television right up until he stopped his regular series in 1955.

I tell you about this because this kind of loyalty from sponsors is just a clue to the kind of loyalty Jack fostered from everyone he worked with. His radio show was so special because of the wonderful cast of characters that Jack built around him.

There was his real life wife and on-air foil and girl friend Mary Livingstone.

His butler, valet and all around man friday, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson:

Jovial announcer Don Wilson:

Drunken/carrouser/hipster/orchestra leader Phil Harris (seen here with real-life wife Alice Faye):

And Naive boy tenor, a role first filled by Kenny Baker...:

...then by Dennis Day:

Jack's cast was wider than just this, filled with great comedians and voice actors, often playing multiple roles.

Jack's violin teacher and the source of the sounds coming from his delapidated Maxwell automobile, Mel Blanc:

A race-track tout who advises Jack about everything from what to order at a lunch counter to which elevator to take in a department store, Sheldon Leonard:

Jack even made other radio shows part of his ensemble. His feud with Fred Allen was funny and legendary.

The Jack Benny Show radio cast was the tightest group of funny people anywhere on the dial and made every minute of the show worth listening to. Someone once asked Jack if he wanted a script re-written because he didn't get any funny lines, all the jokes were delivered by his cast. His response was, "I don't care who gets the laughs as long as the show's funny. It doesn't matter if it's Mary or Rochester of Phil who get the laughs, the audience still tunes in to the Jack Benny Show."

Jack had a long television career and a long feature film career too, but it was this radio show that ran from 1932 to 1955 that will always have a place in my heart and mind.

39 shows a year for 23 years adds up to a lot of laughs. Thanks to the internet and MP3 technology, I'm happy to say I've heard nearly every one of them. And they're damn funny!

The miserly, self-centered jerk he played never fooled any of us.

Jack died in 1974 at age 80. Headlines in newspapers all over the country read, "Jack Benny dies at 39!"

He always got the last laugh