Who owns the rights to the TV shows?

[Frank Nelson]

Who owns the rights to the TV shows? You'd think they would want to make money by selling them. I've seen other TV series I've never heard for sale. I think I have all of JB's shows that are available for sale on DVD right now, but there's so many that aren't available.

Of course I still need to get some of the ones available from here.

[shimp scrampi]

MCA owns the bulk of the shows that haven't lapsed out of copyright, and the Benny estate owns the rights to all of the post-series specials. There's lots of sympatico kvetching from yours truly and others in other threads about why MCA seemingly has no interest in a DVD release.

[Jhammes]

What a pleasant surprise to watch Jack Benny's kinescope films on DVD!!!
During the 1980's and '90's, the only way to see Jack's live 1950's shows were VHS releases. Video tape, even the best quality, was still blurred,
and kinescope films were grainy and slightly off focus: these two factors
made for depressing picture quality! Still, Jack and the gang shine,
nothing like a live broadcast combined with a live audience to get the
performing juices flowing! ( Even during the later weekly series, Jack
and his performing family are always in a class by themselves. Still,
the live broadcasts are truly the best, and closest to the radio show. )
DVDs really work wonders!!! These kinescopes now look worthy for
some kind of syndication. PBS is sort of a network of cultural record.
I recall Jack's co-horts Ed Sullivan, Lawrence Welk, and Red Skelton
available on PBS affiliates. Maybe now is the time for Jack? There could
be a host to spend a minute setting up each episode, or telling behind the scenes stories. The host could also explain how the Benny-Rochester relationship, certainly of another era, was still in many ways ahead of the
times. (The New Years Eve episode, with Jack and Rochester sitting down together, and then standing together practically arm in arm singing in the new year, just one example. )

[Jhammes]

I forgot to add the fact that Rochester was also portrayed as smarter than, and always patient with, his "boss": this in a time when television was, sadly, giving us opposite portrayals. For original viewers of the television show, this was different! (I know this issue is already explaned on this forum, in a better way than I could!) Someone once wrote that Jack made what could have been a humiliating role, into a starring performance, for Eddie Anderson!
Actually, he also made stars of Don, Dennis, countless other players, allowing them to shine, when many comedians (even today) "push aside" the co-stars.
Grateful to know that a favorite comedian was also a good and decent person to his family and co-workers. How often do we hear THAT?

[Maxwell]

I forgot to add the fact that Rochester was also portrayed as smarter than, and always patient with, his "boss": this in a time when television was, sadly, giving us opposite portrayals.

I'd add the phrase, "if they were portrayed at all." I admit that I was born in 1950, but I have pretty good memories of TV from about the time I was four years old or so. There were very few African-American performers on TV in the '50s other than Eddie Anderson.

Amos and Andy had an exclusively black cast but was so laden with stereotypes that pressure from African American groups ended up removing the program from syndication. I barely remember the shows when they were new. And in fact the only reason I know I have memories of its original run is that I was able to tell people of my memory of the original sponsor, Blatz Beer.

Beulah, based, like A&A on the creation of a white radio performer (Merlin Hurt <sp? - too lazy to look up the spelling>) didn't last very long. I have no memories of it. Aside from that, all I can remember is an occasional domestic servant, such as Amanda Randolph's character Louise on the Danny Thomas Show. (She was also "Mama" on A&A.)

When I was in sixth or seventh grade I saw Ms. Randolph in a school assembly at Bradley Central Elementary School in Bradley, IL. Her sponsor was Quaker Oats, and she played (you guessed it) Aunt Jemima. As it turned out, she was a very good singer. She had a voice very similar to that of Bessie Smith. She performed a lot of music from the '20s and '30s that were pretty much identified with black performers. Naturally we were never treated to that in any of the TV shows in which she performed.

Other than that, you'd occasionally see an Ella Fitzgerald, or Louis Armstrong, or a vocal group like the Mills Brothers as guests on variety shows. (Remember those?) Nat Cole had a show that lasted less than a year because no sponsor was brave enough to take the flak they would get in the South.

So Jack was extremely progressive in the role Rochester played on his show, despite his portrayal as a domestic servant. The Cosby Show was still over 30 years away when Jack moved to TV.