New topic: Fave two-line gags

[kurt]

Consider this a "lightning round," if you will (Game shows used to have these. Oh, go ask Wink Martindale, why don't ya, huh?)

And remember, contestants, a two-line gag is NOT the same as a one-liner! A two-line gag has the "feed" followed by the punchline, also known as the "yock".

So I'll start. Program dates are appreciated, although I don't have the date for this one.

PHIL: "Why, Mary Livingstone, as I live and breathe!"

MARY: "Well, breathe the other way so I can live!"

Audience:

[LLeff]

Multiple dates, at the very end of Christmas shopping shows. Jack has bought Don a cheap watch, and Jack and Mary have now encountered Don and the subject of watches comes up, including the make Jack purchased.

Don: That watch? Why, I wouldn't give that watch to a dog!

Mary: Well, you better start barking, brother!

[shimp scrampi]

Don't know if this counts, but it is from one of the flashback shows where Jack's "discovery" of Phil is recounted. Phil is playing in a true dive club, doing an endless stream of atrocious "snappy patter" and audience schmoozing. It goes on forever, and then a voice, Mel Blanc, I think, finally shouts out: "SING, ya bum!" (funny enough) and then Phil tops it with an utterly dignified, "There's been a request from the audience that I sing".

Totally floors me every time I hear it.

[jcvaughn]

Exactly what episode is it where Phil does the bit in the dive?

Thanks,
Chris

[Guest]

Sorry, don't know the airdate, but I believe it is early 1950s. Lucky Strike sponsor, and it is a season-ender because Guy Lombardo is mentioned as the summer replacement. The episode also has background "discovery" stories for Don, Mary, and Dennis. Joseph Kearns "interviews" Jack on each story. There is also 1945 episode that has a longer version of the same Phil discovery skit, but it doesn't have the "Sing, ya bum!" line.

[Jack Benny]

Sorry, don't know the airdate, but I believe it is early 1950s. Lucky Strike sponsor, and it is a season-ender because Guy Lombardo is mentioned as the summer replacement. The episode also has background "discovery" stories for Don, Mary, and Dennis. Joseph Kearns "interviews" Jack on each story. There is also 1945 episode that has a longer version of the same Phil discovery skit, but it doesn't have the "Sing, ya bum!" line.

Isn't it the "How Jack Found Phil Harris" episode form 1945?

[shimp scrampi]

Isn't it the "How Jack Found Phil Harris" episode form 1945?

That is the 4/1/45 episode that has the longer "discovering Phil" skit mentioned above. The episode with the "Sing, Ya Bum" bit is, I believe, later, and also has the Mary, Dennis and Don discovery stories. My copy of it is a commercial cassette release that, unfortunately, doesn't have the broadcast date on it.

[shimp scrampi]

OK, a little searching on Crispy's site (www.crispy.com/benny) reveals that the episode in question is the 5/28/50 show.

[Roman]

Phil: Hiya Jackson! How's the old wreck doing?
Jack: Oh, hi Phil. The Maxwell's doing just fine . . .
Mary: He means you.
Jack: I know what he meant.

[Alleged]

Ronald Colman (paraphrased): "Have you ever happened to notice Phil Harris' musicians?"

Benita Colman: "Please, not while I'm eating."

This kills me every time (and I've heard it 100 times at least).

[David47Jens]

The previous entries reinforce (for me) why Philsie is my favorite of Jack's supporting cast.

There was another thread in which we discussed "fantasy" Benny shows set in the present time, with the cast unscathed by the intervening years (bringing them from the 1930s-1950s to "our" time). Sad to think that most if not all of Phil's "boozer" bits would fall by the wayside due to this era's well-meant but often misguided "political correctness." (I say that because the Benny show's style was so family-oriented that it wouldn't fit in with the programs that go out of their way to shock with references to profanity, toilet humor, racial stereotypes, etc.)

I can't help thinking of "Return to Mayberry" from 1986. Hal Smith -- sorry, I mean to say "the great Hal Smith" -- played his old "Otis" character as a reformed alcoholic who now drove an ice cream truck for the local kiddies.

I can accept, and in some cases even applaud, such updatings. What I don't like is when something ostensibly set in the past is too full of modern-day values. M*A*S*H -- a terrific show, I must point out -- was like that at its worst. Often the show contained too many 1970s attitudes (especially concerning feminism) to convince me that it was supposed to be happening in the early 1950s.

I'm waiting for the inevitable re-telling of General Custer's life, where instead of referring to how those "filthy redskins can't handle their fire-water," the general refers to "Native-Americans with a substance-abuse disorder."

[Roman]

Of course, Hollywood's long been guilty of filling historical dramas with modern attitudes. Gone with the Wind painted the Civil War era southern aristocracy with the unenlightened racial views of the 1930s (even to the point of defending the Ku Klux Klan). Kevin Costner's army captain in Dances with Wolves was filled with 1990 liberal values about Native Americans and women. Disney's Pocahontas was a dizzying mixture of historical revisionism and political correctness. And don't let me get started with Oliver Stone.

As much as it may care to recreate history, Hollywood can't help reflecting its own era with its attitudes and prejudices. Any historical tale, no matter how well-intentioned, will always tell us more about the writer's era than the time period being described.

[LLeff]

As much as it may care to recreate history, Hollywood can't help reflecting its own era with its attitudes and prejudices. Any historical tale, no matter how well-intentioned, will always tell us more about the writer's era than the time period being described.

We've gotten well away from the original thread, but I think this is an important distinction.

I (and I'm sure many others on this list) have periodically encountered various groups decrying certain films of the past because of their lack of political correctness. In 2003, I attended the annual convention of the Al Jolson Society in Long Beach, and there was an article in the newspaper saying that because of his blackface work, Al Jolson was an embarassment and better forgotten. (Jolson is my favorite singer.)

More recently, there was a movement to cancel a Charlie Chan movie marathon on TMC or a similar network. And for a while it was successful, claiming that it was very derogatory (sp?) to Asians.

And, of course, there's the periodic person who'll criticize the Benny show for having an African-American as a servant.

Hollywood is out to make money. So given the choice between historical accuracy and presenting something that will "play" to the sensibilities of the current audience, they'll choose the latter. It seems that your average audience member is a) not going to be very well-informed about the historical context, and therefore b) not going to be able to interpret the various attitudes in the context of the movie's time period. A person looking at the Benny show now may say that it's "bad" to have Rochester, not realizing that the portrayal was actually quite revolutionarily positive in its own time. Same thing for Amos n Andy (c.f., The Original Amos n Andy http://www.midcoast.com/~lizmcl/aa.html).

On a non-racial point, I recently saw the movie "Chicago" and was laughing at all the cathedrale radios in it. The movie is supposed to be in the late 20s, and cathedrales didn't start coming in until 1931 at the earliest (and more like 1933-34 for the ones they were showing). But if you showed a 1927 radio, a modern audience probably wouldn't know what it was (long, rectangular metal or wood box). So it's not historically accurate, but you show something that doesn't need explaining.

[Maxwell]

I remember the first time I saw "Birth of a Nation." The klansmen were heroes, and it was a little tough to take considering that I was a late '60s liberal college student, but I did manage to get past that and look at it in its context in the history of film. Subsequently the film has become one of the most reviled in the history of motion pictures...except now it seems there is yet another swing where whoever it is that decides these things has decided to look at it from a historical perspective.

One of the great animated shorts of all time, Bob Clampett's take off on "Snow White" has a title that I won't even repeat. I saw the cartoon once on the internet, and the download was so choppy, all I really managed to do was hear the soundtrack, which is terrific as far as the jazz score that was used. Of course, it is reviled by current standards, and probably should be looked on as an example of stereotyping. It was announced once that the cartoon network would show it and explain the context, but I don't know if it was. If so, I missed it.

The most absurd example of this sort of thing I can think of is those who would ban Huckleberry Finn, one of the most anti-racist novels I can think of because of the use of a certain word that was in common use well into this century. The word is despicable, but the book was written over 100 years ago. What about context?

That's where I agree with LL. People approach the works of the past, movies, novels, even OTR with modern sensibilities. Rather than trying to put things in the context of the time (Eddie Anderson's really groundbreaking role as a major character in a nationally broadcast radio show as a virtual equal to the white cast members he worked with, all some can see is "servent."

Maybe that's where those of us who love entertainment of all kinds from the past need to step up. Maybe we need to start putting this stuff into a historical context. If you do a broadcast of a Benny show, talk about how "Buehlah" or "Amos and Andy" were played by white men on the radio whereas Anderson was an African American who was just as much of the "gang" on the Benny show as any of the white cast members.

I don't know. I decided to watch "Rhapsody in Blue" last week on TCM. Of course one of the featured numbers was Al Jolson singing "Swannee" in blackface. It's a heck of a performance. Should that be clipped? Should the movie not be shown because of that one number? Should it be shown without comment as it was? I don't know, but I think I prefer putting it in some kind of historical perspective for people are not familiar with such things.

[Brad from Georgia]

Jack: "Go to the aisle between G and I? Why didn't you tell me to go to H?"

Frank Nelson: "You said it, I didn't!"