Jack Benny was the comedian's comedian with his impeccable timing and his dry self-deprecating humor. Benny parlayed a minor career as a vaudeville violinist into a low-key comedy act which was featured in nightclubs and in Broadway revues. A brief, unsuccessful stint in film in 1929 eventually brought him back to Broadway, where he began thinking about the new medium of radio. He made his radio debut early in 1932 on The Ed Sullivan Show and attracted the attention of the NBC Commercial Program Department, which auditioned him that April and signed him to star in The Canada Dry Program on the NBC Blue Network on Mondays and Wednesdays; after six months the show moved to CBS on Mondays and Thursdays. Canada Dry dropped its sponsorship in late January 1933, and by mid-March the show was re-tooled to become The Chevrolet Program on the NBC Red Network, switching to NBC Blue, then NBC Red, the back to NBC Blue before landing on CBS for its final six years; at various times it was called The Jack Benny Program, The Jack Benny Show, The General Tire Review, The Jell-O Program, The Grape Nuts Flakes Program, and The Lucky Strike Program. Whatever its name, it ran from May 2, 1932 to May 22, 1955. At the same time, Benny made his television debut on a CBS affiliate in 1949, and made his full network debut on CBS on October 28, 1950. Benny's television program ran for fifteen years -- fourteen years on CBS and one final year on NBC. Between his radio and television shows, The Jack Benny Program was on the air for thirty-three years; along the way it defined and influenced comedy on a manner that lasts to this day.
Benny's original radio show was basically a musical program with Benny introducing acts and providing stand-up. As the show found its footing, sketch comedy was included and Benny's on-stage persona was more firmly defined -- the stinginess, the ego, the Maxwell, the "feud" with Fred Allen, Jack's attempts at the violin, the back and forth between him and Rochester, the drunken orchestra, Benny's basement vault, the perpetual age of 39, the frustration with Mel Blanc...and so much more. Benny's in-house gang, which included his wife Mary Livingstone, announcer Don Wilson, Phil Harris, and tenor Kenny Bake (later replaced by Dennis Day), all contributed to the sophisticated madness that defined Benny's program.
Here is where it all started -- Jack Benny's first radio episode. From small beginnings...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtxj_7bGhBI
Thanks! My father's and my most amiable running argument was whether Benny or Fred Allen was funnier...he was raised with both (my parents were both born in 1937), and always preferred Benny; I first heard Allen's 1940s series on public library cassettes in 1974 (having heard a little about him and Benny, the latter still active in my childhood, of course), and I slightly preferred the punning and other shows of wit that Allen highlighted, vs. the (excellent) lovable monster caricature that Benny's contemporary work (to Allen's) stressed. The first Allen show I heard was the one in which Allen's show is being retrofitted by the sponsor into KING FOR A DAY, and Benny connives his way onto the series to win the prizes.
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