Wouldn't be the same on Television

[bboswell]

Okay, here's another "favorite" question...

There are some jokes on radio that would simply not work at all if you actually were watching them on television. There are several factors at work here. Radio takes advantage of things we don't see.

One example is when Jack rolled his pants legs up to show Dennis that his knees are sore from kneeling down and working so hard. Dennis whistles at him. We get a little chuckle out of it, but then later we hear another whistle when Jack steps outside. Jack yells at Dennis, but Dennis says it is the man across the street, and that Jack had forgotten to roll down his pants legs. (I think later still in the program someone else whistles at him... as he has STILL forgotten to roll them down.)

These kinds of jokes are impossible to do on television without it being obvious that the camera is avoiding something, and also that (in this example,) Jack isn't rollling down his pants legs after having been reminded.

On the radio, we forget more easily.

I have two examples right off the bat...
Jack and Bob Hope are going on a picnic with the telephone operators and they see a frog. All of a sudden we hear a splash and someone says: "Where'd the frog go?"
Then in a muffled voice, Jack says... "DON'T JUST STAND THERE, PULL HIM OUT!"
Also, many times when they talk about a strange animal or bird, there's always a punch line like, "Put that back on my head," that reveals that they were talking about Jack's toupee.
Does anyone have any favorite examples of this??

[Gerry O.]

A very famous example of this "It Could Only Work On Radio" type of comedy is the radio season opener where a tour bus is taking a group of people around Beverly Hills.

The bus drives past the homes of the various cast members (Mary, Don, Dennis and Phil), and as the driver says things like, "And now we're passing the home of Dennis Day!", the show takes a few minutes and brings us into Dennis' home to hear him getting ready for that day's opening broadcast.

The show is going on like that for the first 20-25 minutes....with no sign of Jack (although the various cast members do talk about him in their segments). As the bus approaches the CBS studios, we suddenly hear Jack saying, "Driver, this is where I get off.".

This anticipation, build-up and final gag payoff results in the studio audience giving Jack loud and long applause....and as Milt Josefsberg pointed out in his book, that show would have been next-to-impossible to do as effectively on television. You wouldn't have had the true "surprise" element of suddenly hearing Jack's voice telling the driver to stop the bus and let him off.

[Brad from Georgia]

Many of the "sight" gags from radio wouldn't translate well to TV. It's funny to hear Remley fall off his seat in the orchestra; it's funny when the orchestra leader says "we'll just let him lie there until the fall. The rest will do him good." It's funny to hear Jack say "When I see all the fellas in the orchestra smiling down at me...and Remley smiling up at me..."

But if we saw it, it wouldn't work nearly as well. I think we'd tend to feel either disgust or pity for Remley, the drunk.

Of course, tastes in comedy do change, and that might just be the PC 21st century take.

[shimp scrampi]

The kind of gags bboswell is talking about are one reason the Benny shows are so fresh and undated to me - they require a little mental gymnastics on the part of the listener to reach back and think about what has been established in the course of the show to "put the image together"; same thing is true with a line of Gracie Allen dialogue, you have to backtrack a bit to make sense of what at first blush seems like a non-sequitur. Other radio "sight gags" often cited as classics (Fibber McGee's closet being one that springs to mind) might require some visual imagination - but the Jack Benny "picture gags" are a whole other step higher than that. The best combination of slapstick and cerebral. Love them!

[LLeff]

This anticipation, build-up and final gag payoff results in the studio audience giving Jack loud and long applause....and as Milt Josefsberg pointed out in his book, that show would have been next-to-impossible to do as effectively on television. You wouldn't have had the true "surprise" element of suddenly hearing Jack's voice telling the driver to stop the bus and let him off.

Well, let me submit this for the sake of argument. Let's say the tour bus is shot initially from the outside, not being able to see anyone specific inside. Then the announcements for each person's house are shot from the POV of the passenger in the first row. You see the driver making the announcements, the view out the front windshield, etc. It can be done subtly so you feel like you're a passenger on the bus and never realize that they're not showing any of the passengers inside (c.f., Twilight Zone's "Eye of the Beholder" where you don't realize you're not seeing any character's faces until the end). Then Jack's announcement shows him in the bus, and the shocked looks of all the fellow passengers. Far be it for me to disagree with Milt, but I could see that working.

Same thing with Jack's pants rolled up. Just shoot him waist up, then the whistle, then a closeup of Jack looking confused and then looking down, then a shot of his pants legs rolled up.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong!

[Maxwell]

Same thing with Jack's pants rolled up. Just shoot him waist up, then the whistle, then a closeup of Jack looking confused and then looking down, then a shot of his pants legs rolled up.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong!

That one works if you film it with a laugh track. It doesn't work if you use the 3 camera-studio audience system. Since Jack filmed movie production style, it works.

[bboswell]

I agree about the bus. It would even be easy to show the first few rows of passengers. Then when Jack delivered his line, we could see him pushing past a few passengers standing in front of him.
I also mostly agree about the rolling the pants legs up, but it would be difficult to divert the audience's attention when Dennis tells him the first time. We would want to see Jack kneel down and roll them down, and it would really stand out to us if he didn't. A good screenwriter would probably be able to find a way to divert our attention long enough.

But there are several other gags-- as a general example, many of his toupee jokes-- where the joke would simply be given away by any visuals at all.

(Of course tricky camera angles can hide a lot of things, but they might draw too much attention to themselves, and therefore spoil the joke they were trying to set up.)

[Gerry O.]

I agree about the bus. It would even be easy to show the first few rows of passengers. Then when Jack delivered his line, we could see him pushing past a few passengers standing in front of him.

Oh, I agree with you and Laura that the bus gag COULD be done on television....just not as effectively. Seeing Jack making his way to the front of the bus just wouldn't have the same "socko" surprise effect that suddenly hearing Jack's voice has.

It's like when Jack did the "Your Money Or Your Life" gag on one of his filmed TV shows. Seeing Jack standing there in long silence, with his arms raised as the robber points a gun at him doesn't have the same humorous effect as a radio listener waiting for Jack's answer...and hearing nothing but a prolonged silence.

[Brad from Georgia]

.....
It's like when Jack did the "Your Money Or Your Life" gag on one of his filmed TV shows. Seeing Jack standing there in long silence, with his arms raised as the robber points a gun at him doesn't have the same humorous effect as a radio listener waiting for Jack's answer...and hearing nothing but a prolonged silence.

True, though as I recall on TV the scene took place during a downpour. That was a visual way of adding to the humor.