Comparing Jack's Program to Today's Entertainment

[Jack Benny]

There are a lot of similarities between the two shows. I mean the episode where Mary dropped her trousers and Jack and the gang stood around throwing lunch meats at her exposed rear end was something right out of the Stern show...oh wait a minute Jack never did that, just Howard...my mistake!

[LLeff]

Does "shock humor" date badly? Well, there was no one in the 1930s whose humor was more shocking than Groucho Marx and yet his humor holds up pretty well today. Is there anyone who would argue that Richard Pryor's frequently crude humor is more dated than the clean gentle comedies of the early 1960s like Father Knows Best?

To me, there's a difference between "shock" humor and "surprise" humor. There's a line (now often censored, ironically) in "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" of: "[Chorus] He is the only white man / Who's covered every acre / [Groucho] I think I'll try and make her / [Chorus] Hooray hooray hooray." For the uninitiated, this was an inference that Groucho was going to try to "make" (i.e., jump) Margaret Dumont. Or take a line from the same scene of, "We took some photos of the native girls, but they weren't developed." Remember that this was 1930, and the nation was still warm from the Roaring 20s. So the crowd surely wasn't innocent about sex. But the lines themselves are CLEVER besides being somewhat shocking.

If the average audience member is laughing out of discomfort at something because they're shocked and rattled by it, then it's "shock humor" in my book. But if they're laughing in pleasure because something has surprised them, then that's something different. Hearkening back to Rusty Warren, she would tell jokes or make comments that might make the audience put their hands to their mouths in a collective, "Oh my gosh, I don't believe she SAID that!" But are they genuinely ill at ease over what they have heard? I don't think so. Same for Groucho.

To bring this back to Jack, Stace Tackaberry (John's son) told me that his father had a really bawdy sense of humor and would have been very at home writing for today's audience and sensibilities. And Jack himself could write some fantastically blue humor in private letters (one long story about a trip to the Mayo Clinic almost got me thrown out of a library's reading room for laughing too hard). But interestingly enough (as someone else pointed out about the Indian mohel joke), the humor was always directed at Jack. So one wonders what Jack with his writers would do with the added "freedoms" today.

[Roman]

What's amazing about Jack's show is how modern it sounds sixty and more years later. Jack, Mary, Don, and the gang sound like they could be talking today (other than the use of a few dated phrases liked "grand," "swell," "gay" and "gee whiz"). Their talking style is very relaxed and natural. This wasn't the case with the Marx Brothers, Three Stooges, or W.C. Fields. And it most definitely isn't the case with very dated comedies of the 1950s and 60s like Leave it to Beaver.

But it's not Jack's natural style that endears him to us. It's the well-written timeless humor. The test of time for Howard Stern, Seinfeld and others will be whether audiences 60 years from now will still find them funny or whether their humor will seem as dated as Father Knows Best is to us.

[Brad from Georgia]

I think Roman's very astute with those observations. I spoke with Eddie Carroll not long ago about his forthcoming performance in our home town, and he suggested that I send brochures out to the retirement homes and assisted-living facilities in the area: "They miss this kind of humor," he said.

Come to think of it...so do I.

[FrankNelson]

Something occured to me recently--I see shades of the Jack Benny Program in episodes of the Muppet Show. Although Jack's show obviously was not done with puppets, I do see some parallels in the way the Muppet Show was a show about putting on a show and had a cast of delightfully insane characters.

[LLeff]

Something occured to me recently--I see shades of the Jack Benny Program in episodes of the Muppet Show. Although Jack's show obviously was not done with puppets, I do see some parallels in the way the Muppet Show was a show about putting on a show and had a cast of delightfully insane characters.

Check out the most recent Jack Benny Times...there's a note about how Jim Henson was inspired by Jack.

[Radioman]

Although the Stern show is comparable to JB, it's not nearly the same especially since Stern is the main star, and the rest of the cast are his underlings. JB is more of an ensemble show.

However, JB does remind me very much of a radio morning show I listen to on 99X in Atlanta, which is the Toucher, Jimmy, and Leslie show. In many ways it reminds me of the whole JB show.

I posted a comparison of JB and TJ&L at my website: http://www.allensedge.com/99x/oldtimeradio.html

Unless you live in Atlanta, you might not be familar with the show. If you want, you can download clips from the links at the right hand side of the page.

allen

[Roman]

I can't comment on the Toucher, Jimmy, and Leslie show since I've never heard it but I'd disagree that the Stern show is less of an ensemble show than the Benny program. Howard is certainly the star of his show but then so was Jack Benny. Neither show was like Hill Street Blues or St. Elsewhere where there are multiple story lines each week focusing on different characters. Jack was in the center of every story and the jokes revolved around Jack and his reaction to the other characters' insults, jests, comments, etc.

The key difference between the Stern and the Benny Shows, as far as their formats are concerned, is that Jack's show was scripted and Howard's is not. Also, Howard's show runs for four hours a day, five days a week, while Jack's was 30 minutes once a week. Now clearly there are differences between the content of the two shows, some because of the different talents of the two men and some because of the far more open and risque material that is part and parcel of today's comedy (a trend certainly encouraged and pushed forward by Stern).

I think it is undeniable that both Benny and Stern fundamentally changed radio as it existed at the beginning of their respective careers and that both men were very popular for a long time. The Toucher, Jimmy, and Leslie show may better mirror Jack's format and style, but Howard Stern has rivaled Jack in revolutionizing radio comedy and in his more than two decade long national popularity. Very few entertainers dominated radio for as long as Jack did. Howard Stern is among those very few.