History Radio / TheJackBennyProgram

Recurring characters included Jack's CloserToEarth co-star Mary Livingston (played by his real-life wife Sadie Marks); his long-suffering African-American valet Rochester (Eddie Anderson); brash Southern bandleader Phil Harris; naïve boy tenor Dennis Day (and, earlier, Kenny Baker in a similar role); and rotund announcer Don Wilson, who tended to turn the conversation or the sketch to a discussion of the sponsor's product. Jack himself, portrayed as notoriously cheap and self-aggrandizing, usually played the comic foil to the other characters: the real-life Benny is famous for noting, "I don't care who gets the laughs on my show, as long as the show is funny."

* AnnoyingLaugh: Or, at any rate, a very ''distinctive'' laugh from Mary.

** Phil Harris said that his character used to refer to Jack Benny as 'Jackson' because it was the closest he could get to saying 'jackass' on the air without getting into trouble with the censors.

* AllJewsAreCheapskates: Jack Benny's birth name was "Benjamin Kubelsky". (In character, though, this was never alluded to as the reason for his stinginess.)
** It should be noted that Mister Kitzel, a RecurringCharacter (who also appears on the Al Pearce show and with Abbott and Costello) who was openly Jewish, was never portrayed as being particularly tight-fisted or stingy. The same happened earlier with Schlepperman (Sam Hearn, who would later portray a hillbilly who would call Jack a "rube").

* AsHimself: Future ''Series/BarneyMiller'' Detective Jack Soo made an appearence thanks to his appearing in the road company of ''Flower Drum Song''. He's not quite a guest star in the usual sense - he first comes on pretending to be an agent for a fellow cast member when during negotiations with Jack, Jack says "Wait a minute....I know you...you're Jack Soo, aren't you?"
** Creator/JimmyStewart and his wife, as Jack's neighbors in the TV show. Creator/RonaldColman and his wife performed a similar function on the radio show.

** Most notoriously was that the stinginess aspect of his character was ''absent'': In the January 1, 1933 episode, he said he got for Christmas handkerchiefs for [[GagNose (Jimmy) Durante]], earmuffs for [[Creator/ClarkGable Gable]] and shoes for Creator/{{G|retaGarbo}}arbo.[[note]][[DontExplainTheJoke For those who might not get it,]] Jimmy Durante was famed for having a big nose, Clark Gable had large jug ears (for those not familiar with Gable, think of the ears on Creator/WillSmith for reference), and Garbo was often caricatured as having enormous feet. [[/note]]

* SourSupporter: Mary sometimes became this in later radio seasons.

* ComicBookTime: Jack claimed to be perpetually 39 years old. Gags about Jack's age began in the late 30s, but in the late 40s, he began a gag where a reporter doing a story on Jack asked him his age. When Jack claimed to be 36, the reporter was so disbelieving that he showed up to ask him about it for several weeks in a row as a running gag. For the next few years, Jack went from 37 to 38, finally settling on 39 perpetually in around 1950. For the record, Jack was born in 1894, making his real 39th birthday in 1933. The gag was carried on clear until his death, when newspapers reported that "Jack Benny dies at 39". It even carried on further when Jack was given a commemorative stamp...worth 39 cents!

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Dennis Day started out as the same character as Kenny Baker, whom he replaced. Dennis Day was a good enough actor that his part was fleshed out as the years went on.

** The same thing happened often with Don Wilson, and was the genesis of one of the longest laughs the show ever got. Early in the episode, Everyone was commenting on Jack's new suit, with an increasingly mystified Jack wondering how they found out about it. Each one cited news reports or government figures (the joke being that Jack opening his wallet was a massive boost to the economy). When it came to Don Wilson's turn, he was meant to explain he'd heard it from famed newspaper reporter Drew Pearson. Except he Spoonerized the name to "Dreer Pooson", drawing a laugh from the audience. The writers struck while the anvil was hot. Later on in the same episode, there was a murder-mystery parody sketch, with Benny playing a police detective. The writers, without Benny's knowledge, changed a wisecrack line from Frank Nelson in response to Jack's question about him being the doorman for Romanoff's. Instead of the originally scripted line, they had him reply "Well, who do you think I am, Dreer Pooson?" The audience was therown into hysterics, not just from the callback, but [[{{Corpsing}} Jack Benny was cracking up so much over the line that he darn near fell off the stage!]]

** Most notoriously was that the stinginess aspect of his character was ''absent'': In the January 1, 1933 episode, he said he got for Christmas handkerchiefs for [[GagNose (Jimmy) Durante]], earmuffs for [[Creator/ClarkGable Gable]] and shoes for Creator/{{G|retaGarbo}}arbo.[[note]][[DontExplainTheJoke For those who might not get it,]] Jimmy Durante was famed for having a big nose, Clark Gable had large jug ears, and Garbo was often caricatured as having enormous feet. [[/note]]

** Most notoriously was that the stinginess aspect of his character was ''absent'': In the January 1, 1933 episode, he said he got for Christmas handkerchiefs for [[GagNose (Jimmy) Durante]], earmuffs for [[Creator/ClarkGable Gable]] and shoes for Creator/{{G|retaGarbo}}arbo.

* CloudCuckoolander: Dennis Day, and Jack's boarder, Mr. Billingsley.

** In the episode of ''Bachelor Father'' called "Pinch That Penny!", Rochester hires Lawyer Bently Gregg to renegotiate his 40 year contract with Jack. Impressed by Rochester's ecomomicly means of running the Benny household, Bently invites Rochester to live in a few weeks to help his houseboy Peter with his spendthrift ways. Jack isn't seen on camera, although Bently has a one way telephone conversation with him at the end.

** Most notoriously was that the stinginess aspect of his character was ''absent'': In the January 1, 1933 episode, he said he got for Christmas handkerchiefs for [[GagNose (Jimmy) Durante]], earmuffs for [[Creator/ClarkGable Gable]] and shoes for [[Creator/GretaGarbo Garbo]].

* ImThinkingItOver: TropeNamer.

* IncrediblyLamePun: The show was infested with puns. Most of the time, [[PungeonMaster Jack]] would use them as a part of his Self-Depreciation schtick. In the very early (1932-1935) years they played an especially large part of the show and were played much more straight than was later the case.

* RevealShot, or the radio equivalent.

** The various snarky characters (or perhaps a [[WhyDoYouKeepChangingJobs single character who keeps changing jobs]]) played by Frank Nelson who Jack has to deal with.

* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Don is quite fond of Jell-O, to the point one TV episode[[note}]Jell-O returned as sponsor during the early 60s[[/note]] had him ''[[UpToEleven threatening his wife with a divorce]]'' because she forgot to buy some Jell-O.

Comedian Jack Benny's {{Radio}} program made its debut in 1932 as ''The Canada Dry Program'' and ran until 1955 under various titles: ''The Chevrolet Program'', ''The General Tire Revue'', ''The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny'', ''The Grape Nuts and Grape Nuts Flakes Program Starring Jack Benny'', ''The Lucky Strike Program Starring Jack Benny'', and, finally, ''The Jack Benny Program''. The program was also adapted into an eponymous television show, which aired from 1950 to 1965.

In the earlier years, the show was generally a variety show with sketches and music with an open. Later on, generally, ''The Jack Benny Program'' became a SitCom ''about'' the production of ''The Jack Benny Program''. Some of the action flashed back to what the cast had been up to that week, and some took place on the stage of the program, where Jack and the gang would try to put on plays and sketches, often taking the form of parodies of popular movies. Celebrity guests were not uncommon, and could be easily introduced as Jack's friends or neighbors in Hollywood. One long-term RunningGag was Jack's bitter "feud" with rival comic and radio host Fred Allen.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jack_benny_program_cast.jpg]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jack_benny_group_photo.jpg]]

Recurring characters included Jack's CloserToEarth co-star Mary Livingston (played by his real-life wife Sadie Marks); his long-suffering African-American valet Rochester (Eddie Anderson); brash Southern bandleader Phil Harris; naïve boy tenor Dennis Day (and, beforehand, Kenny Baker in a similar role); and rotund announcer Don Wilson, who tended to turn the conversation or the sketch to a discussion of the sponsor's product. Jack himself, portrayed as notoriously cheap and self-aggrandizing, usually played the comic foil to the other characters: the real-life Benny is famous for noting, "I don't care who gets the laughs on my show, as long as the show is funny."

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jackbenny.png]]

** And when a Southern listener wrote in once irate that Benny let Rochester hit him while sparring, Benny repiled with something along the lines of "and it's funny if ''I'' hit ''Rochester'', how, exactly?"

* TheAllegedCar: Jack's Maxwell. The Maxwell Motor Company went out of business in 1925, but Benny was too stingy to buy himself a new car, or even a new''er'' used car, as long as his old one still ran, however poorly.

In the earlier years, the show was generally a variety show with sketches and music with an open. Later on, generally, ''The Jack Benny Program'' became a SitCom ''about'' the production of ''The Jack Benny Program''. Some of the action flashed back to what the cast had been up to that week, and some took place on the stage of the program, where Jack and the gang would try to put on plays and sketches, often taking the form of parodies of popular movies. Celebrity guests were not uncommon, and could be easily introduced as Jack's friends or neighbors in Hollywood. One long-term RunningGag was Jack's bitter "feud" with rival radio host Fred Allen.

->''"Train leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc..."''

[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jackbenny.png]]
[[caption-width-right:330:From left to right: [[ServileSnarker Eddie "Rochester" Anderson]], [[TenorBoy Dennis Day]], [[SmallNameBigEgo Phil Harris]], [[CloserToEarth Mary Livingston]], [[StraightMan Jack Benny]], [[EnforcedPlug Don Wilson]], and Creator/MelBlanc.]]