Transfer of Jack's Surrealism from Radio to TV

[Maxwell]

I've been watching some of the Benny shows that are now being shown in Chicago on the low-powered station WWME (Channel 23) Sunday nights at 10:00 p.m., which we get on Comcast Cable (Channel 223 for those in the Chicago area).

Last night's show (from 1954, if I read the copyright date correctly) was a good example of how the surrealism of the radio show transferred to TV, making for pretty good visual comedy.

Last night's episode was the "Burglars" episode with Jack coming home after rehearsal, having trouble sleeping, and then once asleep having his house invaded by burglars (Mel Blanc and Benny Rubin).

There was a nice blend of humor in the dialogue, sight gags, and even audio in the show. Some examples:

1) Jack's lamb chop, Rochester explained was last night's lamb stew dried out and glued on one of the ribs they'd had before.

2) Jack holds up an olive that is last night's peas that Rochester "blew up."

3) Polly get sucked into Rochester's vacuum cleaner. This was by far the worst sight gag because it involvsed a cut to get the live bird out of the cage and a stuffed bird into to vacuum cleaner bag, and another cut to get the stuffed bird out of the bag and back into the cage.

4) Some grade use of sound with a leaking faucet that stops whenever Jack tries to fix it or tries to get Rochester to hear it.

5) A nice sight gag where Jack has trouble sleeping, so Rochester pulls on a cord, raising the canopy from the bed, and another pull to lift the bed off the floor. He then folds down the bed posts and turns it into a cradle to rock Jack to sleep.

6) Some nice booby traps for the burglars: a seltzer bottle in Jack's chest of drawers that squirts Rubin and then Blanc; a trap drawer that opens up to return some shirts Blanc was about to steal back to their rightful place when he sets them on top of the chest; and of course the tiger in Jack's wall safe. Of course the piece de resistance was the slot Jack had inserted labeled, "To open window, insert 25 cents." Of course the window shuts after only one escapes so Jack collects four bits on the deal.

I won't even go into the pajamas that Rochester bought Jack. Perhaps the ugliest pair of pajamas ever conceived of.

Certain elements of the radio show didn't quite work so well on TV. I don't remember Polly lasting too long because it's pretty hard to get shots of a bird reacting to Rochester's using her eggs for Jack's breakfast or whatever. The Maxwell and the vault, I think were generally considered failures on TV, too. But this show really was a good example of how Jack's writers did manage to work in some strictly visual yet pretty surrealistic stuff that was every bit as good as a lot of that type of humor used on the radio show.

[shimp scrampi]

See, this is one aspect where I will definitely argue for the single-camera filmed Benny TV shows. I know a lot of folks prefer the live audience give-and-take, but they were able to use film to good effect for the surreal bits. Also the "4 O'Clock in the Morning" show has a lot of these. Jack getting up for a walk before the smog settles in, and being able to see the statue of liberty, and, with his glasses, the Eiffel tower - or, the obvious mannequin that gets hauled around as Jack dozes off in the store. They aren't even really trying to be "good" or convincing special effects, just stock footage cut in in the one case, but they sell the gag, much like exaggerated sound effects did on radio.

The live shows couldn't quite work the surreal angle as well, though there are a couple of exceptions.

[Maxwell]

I have to agree on that. The kind of gags they were messing around with would be pretty hard to duplicate on live TV. Even though the gag with Polly was pretty obvious, despite Eddie Anderson trying his best to minimize the stuffed bird's exposure to the camera, at least they were able to show the empty cage, the bird in the vacuum bag, and then the bird back in the cage. You couldn't do that live.

I can see all kinds of things going wrong in the rest of the show, too. Seltzer bottles not squirting when they should, a boxing glove coming out of another opening to knock out Rubin (forgot to include that) not working, the tiger in the cage getting nervous or jumping back behind the curtain in the wall safe, all kinds of things.

Film even allowed some little things that they would not have been able to do on live TV. For example the sketch starts out with a dissolve from Jack's monologue to Jack's "house." No need to get Jack out from in front of the camera and for the curtain behind him to open.

Film allowed Jack to do things in a visual medium that they had been able to do easily on radio.

[shimp scrampi]

Max, did you know that that same script was done as a live show? Not the earlier stuff with Polly, but basically the whole Jack being put to bed and the burglars breaking in. And, exactly what you predict, the gags are a little 'off' in the live show - you can edit and time such things so much better with film. Both versions are floating around on the various public domain DVD collections, and the live one is the more common version out there.

[Maxwell]

I've never seen the live one, at least that I'm aware of. I'd love to see them back to back as a comparison. One of these days I'll get around to it.

[Brad from Georgia]

This is hard to put into words, but at times I loved Jack's use of TV in a sort of understated surrealism. Best way to explain is to use an example: Jack is changing clothes and goes into the bathroom for a shower. Rochester needs a quarter and takes one from Jack's pants pocket. A bathrobed Jack re-enters, picks up the trousers--and thoughtfully hefts them, a pained look on his face as he detects the missing weight.

Priceless!

[Mel Blanc]

I must admit I'm more acquainted with JB through his television show and only have heard a couple of his radio programs, but I can see where things like Jack's vault would be difficult to reproduce on TV with the same comedic effect. (Gee that's a long sentence!)

I realy need to get copies of the radio programs but I just recently got a DVD player that plays the MP3 format that most of the sets I seen are recorded on.