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. Creator/MelBlanc also did several characters, such as Polly the parrot; the malfunctioning Maxwell; the long-suffering violin teacher, Pierre [=LeBlanc=]; and the train station PA ("Trains leaving for Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc..."). 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."

[[caption-width-right:350: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.]]

* AllJewsAreCheapskates: Jack Benny's birth name was "Benjamin Kubelsky". (In character, though, this was never alluded to as the reason for his stinginess.) In fact, after his show gained populsarity, it shifted American culture so much that instead of Jews or Scots are misers, all misers were Jack Benny.

* AllJewsAreCheapskates: Jack Benny's birth name was "Benjamin Kubelsky". (In character, though, this was never alluded to as the reason for his stinginess.)

** RefugeInAudacity: To bring the world's greatest violinists like Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern on his program where he not only compares his skills with them, but also goes on to play duets for added effect, such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seZ4KhYr-Hw this one for USO troops in Notes/WorldWarII,]] is nothing short of pure hilarious audacity.

** RefugeInAudacity: To bring the world's greatest violinists like Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern on his program where he not only compares his skills with them, but also goes on to play duets for added effect, such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seZ4KhYr-Hw this one for USO troops in WorldWarII,]] is nothing short of pure hilarious audacity.

* AllJewsAreCheapskates:
** Jack Benny's birth name was "Benjamin Kubelsky". (In character, though, this was never alluded to as the reason for his stinginess.)
** {{Averted|Trope}} in two cases. 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").

* SarcasticDevotee: Mary and Rochester towards Jack.

* ServileSnarker: Rochester.

* SkewedPriorities: In one show, Jack has a magician as a guest, whose act involves a bulletproof laundry bag, but thanks to a mix-up, he is carried away. Jack and Dennis resort to do the act themselves with another (non-bulletproof) bag that was in the same room. Dennis shoots Jack, who ends up unharmed because of his wallet. He then proceeds to scold Dennis for ruining his money.
** Another joke about this is famous for getting one of the longest laughs on radio, and is practically a SignatureScene for him (it was done again on his TV show).

* SmallNameBigEgo: Phil Harris, and possibly Jack himself.

* DramaticPause: Benny was a master of this trope, as well as its sisters the {{Beat}} and MelodramaticPause, although of course he always played them for laughs. Over his career, Benny honed his comic timing to such a fine edge that sometimes the pauses in his routines were as funny as the punchlines. An excellent example is the famous "Jack and the Mugger" skit:
-->'''Mugger''': Your money or your life.
-->''(long pause)''
-->'''Mugger''': Look, bud! I said your money or your life!
-->'''Jack''': ''I'm thinking it over!''

** One Christmas episode has Jack shopping for presents. A clerk helps him with a wallet and a message for Don, but Jack keeps recalling the gift so he can change the message. The increasingly frazzled clerk (Creator/MelBlanc, at his hysterical over-the-top best) [[SuicideAsComedy ultimately leaves to shoot himself]] after Jack decides to return the gift and get a cheaper version.

--->'''Mel''' Look't what you made me do! You made me so nervous, ''I missed!!!''

* 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.

* NiceHat:
** One running joke they tried in the late 30s was describing Mary as wearing an outlandish hat. It didn't get a lot of laughs, and was abandoned after that season was over.
** In an episode of the television show showing how Jack met Mary at the May Company, Jack is wearing a snappy straw dress hat in 1932. He gets a lot of mileage out of tipping his hat with his cane, and pushing it down over his eyes to punctuate his flirting with Mary. He attempts to throw it like a boomerang to impress her, once successfully, and the second time with a derby hat returning. He puts on the derby hat and leaves, confused. At the end of the interview, it's discovered that the derby hat belonged to the interviewer, who happened to be shopping in the store the same day as Jack all those years ago!

* {{Corpsing}}: There are many times when Jack tries and fails to not lose it during especially funny moments. More often than not he can thank Mel Blanc for making him lose it, particularly whenever they did the "Si Sy" routine. In addition to Jack, Don and Mary were also notorious for corpsing, especially when either of them flubbed their lines.
** On and off set, Jack Benny was one of the easiest people in Hollywood to get to laugh.

* FacialDialogue: The infamous "slow burn", where Benny does a long take of silent, suffering frustration after someone says something irritating -- usually looking away and to the side, putting his hand to his cheek, or both -- before returning to get impatient or snap at the object of his annoyance. (Performance-wise, this served dual functions: it helped fill the pause and get an even bigger reaction from the audience without distracting from the other performers' laugh lines, and Jack, [[{{Corpsing}} notorious for cracking up at ad-libs and funny deliveries]], can be seen using it to avoid visibly breaking.)

* ContinuityNod: If a guest star had previously appeared on Jack's show, he would mention

** One Christmas episode has Jack shopping for presents. A [clerk helps him with a wallet and a message for Don, but Jack keeps recalling the gift so he can change the message. The increasingly frazzled clerk (Creator/MelBlanc, at his hysterical over-the-top best) [[SuicideAsComedy ultimately leaves to shoot himself]] after Jack decides to return the gift and get a cheaper version.

* AnimatedAdaptation: The 1959 ''[[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Merrie Melodies]]'' short "The Mouse That Jack Built", a short that unintentionally served, years later, as many younger viewers' initial introduction to Jack Benny.

** In one show, Jack goes out to see a movie, but gets home early. When Rochester asks him why, Jack explains that he went to see ''Film/TheHornBlowsAtMidnight'' and the projectionist committed suicide.

* OldShame: An in-universe inversion--everyone ''except'' Jack considers ''Film/TheHornBlowsAtMidnight'' to be this.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Jack and his writers were always battling with the censors (although never to the extent Fred Allen did). Sometimes, it was for legitimate reasons. For example, one skit originally described a beautiful woman wearing 3 fraternity pins, and no sweater, but at the censors' insistence, the number of pins was bumped up to 300. Other times, for rather inane reasons. Like, when (in another skit) the censors insisted on removing a scene where Jack placates a horde of cannibals with a dirty limerick in a nonsense language.
** Phil Harris said that he referred to Jack Benny as 'Jackson' because "that's the closest I can get to jackass and still be polite." Subverted, in that he actually said that on a broadcast.
** One time Jack called a Gym.
--->'''Girl on Phone''': [=McGuire=]'s Gym. We make mountains out of molehills.\\
'''Jack Benny''': Hello, this is Jack Benny....\\
'''Girl on Phone''': Oh, Mr Benny! You'll want our male division...

* GuestHost: While Jack was recuperating from a bout of pneumonia in early 1943, his good friends Creator/GeorgeBurns and Creator/GracieAllen filled in for one episode (even continuing a story thread from [[Radio/TheBurnsAndAllenShow their own series]]), followed by Creator/OrsonWelles doing the honors for several more weeks.

* CrossOver: With ''Radio/TheBurnsAndAllenShow''. Jack and Creator/GeorgeBurns were lifelong friends and appeared on each others shows often. In one episode of his show [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CoYC1QhjgI George gets Jack on his special television]] which Jack lampshades with "You're not watching me on your silly TV are you? I'm not on until Sunday Night!". After Jack then starts to quote his appearance fee George shuts off the TV! In another episode George threatens his announcer Harry Von Zell by pondering, "I wonder what Don Wilson is doing next year..."

* EnforcedPlug: Played with. The agreement was that the sponsor would get the first and last spot but that Jack would control the middle spot. They had everything like Don reading the commercial in a funny voice or they would lampshade how heavy handedly they'd work it into a sketch. Eventually, the Sportsman Quartet was used to irk Jack with their unconventional lyrics

* GuestHost: While Jack was recuperating from a bout of pneumonia in early 1943, his good friends Creator/GeorgeBurns and Creator/GracieAllen filled in for one episode, followed by Creator/OrsonWelles doing the honors for several more weeks.

* GuestHost: Creator/OrsonWelles served as this for a few weeks in 1943 while Jack was recuperating from a bout of pneumonia.

Comedian Jack Benny's weekly radio series made its debut in 1932 as ''The Canada Dry Program'' and ran until 1955 under various titles reflecting changes in sponsorship: ''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 show was also adapted into an eponymous television series, which aired from 1950 to 1965.

** 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 economical 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.
*** Jack does appear in another ''Bachelor Father'' episode, in which Bentley's daughter - while a big fan of his - nevertheless keeps ditching him for other activities.

* How cheap Jack was, which resulted in a [[TropeNamer Trope Naming]], [[ImThinkingItOver utterly hilarious example]].

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. Mel Blanc also did several characters, such as Polly the parrot; the malfunctioning Maxwell; the long-suffering violin teacher, Pierre [=LeBlanc=]; and the train station PA ("Trains leaving for Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc..."). 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."