Favorite Guest Stars

[Roman]

My favorite guest stars - by a large margin - were Ronald and Benita Colman. They, especially Ronald, were so funny every time they appeared on Jack's show and the writing seemed to rise to an even higher level on those shows. If you've seen A Tale of Two Cities, you know that Ronald Colman had wonderful comic timing - even in an otherwise serious movie. But in many of his movies, like Lost Horizon, his comic gifts were rarely used. But he and Benita were tremendous on Jack's show. There were so many great shows but my favorite may have been when Jack tried to get Ronnie to co-star with him in a western. Just about every moment was hilarious, from Ronnie describing his past history to Benita ("Yes, Benita, I plunked a mean banjo; I was England's answer to Frank Remley), to he and Benita reading from that god-awful script Jack brought over ("I reckon I do, little lady, I reckon"), to Ronnie lamenting how others can look out their windows and see beautiful vistas, while he and Benita look out and see Jack luxing his undies. Every show with the Colmans was sublime.

The most disconcerting guest star for me was Bing Crosby. Now Bing was funny and an entertaining guest (and, my, what a singer!). But whenever he or the cast would talk about Bing's family, I can't help thinking about the real Bing that the audience, of course, knew nothing about, but of whom we know far too much.

[Alan]

The Colmans eps are probably my favorite guest stars of the entire series.

I also agree that the show really went to its A+ level when they were on....it may be that their show characters were such a perfect counterpoint to JB's (including Ronald's delivery and comments) and that JB could really go full-out when he was playing off them.

One of the many eps (i read once there were 31 Colman appearances?) i luv is when JB "invites" himself over for dinner....

[Gerry O.]

In the same vein as Ronald and Benita Colman, I love it whenever Jack's show has a super-dignified dramatic actor as the guest star.....

Gentlemen like Claude Raines, Basil Rathbone, Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall were always given hilarious out-of-character lines, and having them be subjected to Jack and his cast (especially Dennis and Phil) was great fun......

Oh, and speaking of dignified actors, we CAN'T forget Orson Welles' appearances on the Benny program!

[Jack Benny]

I love the episodes with Jimmy Stewart! They were absolutely hilarious and sounded like a lot of fun was had by all!

[Clyde]

I, too, enjoy the episodes with Ronnie and Benita. Just listened to the episode not too long ago where Jack takes up an offer for a free cooking demonstration and of course, the Colmans have to be part of the party!

My favorite guest star has to be Jimmy Stewart. (Seated at the table of a swank restaurant...."I'll have the WHOOPS").

Just listened to the two-part version of "King Solomon's Mines" with Deborah Kerr. (That's CAR!). I felt she worked great with Jack.

Oh...and another favorite guest star was the episode with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Jack always seemed to bring out the comedic talents in all of his guests, whether their forte was drama or comedy!

[Gerry O.]

Just listened to the two-part version of "King Solomon's Mines" with Deborah Kerr. (That's CAR!). I felt she worked great with Jack.

This brings up an interesting point.....throughout his radio and TV career, Jack was often able to get one of the spoofed movie's actual stars to appear as a guest and take part in the spoof.

Both male and female stars would participate in this, and the star always sounded like he or she was having a ball lampooning his or her own film.

I simply cannot imagine the film stars of today doing that....Just try to picture Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, George Clooney or Tom Cruise making fun of their current film and their role in it. Most stars today take themselves and their films S-O-O-O-O seriously, and I imagine that if Jack were around today and tried to get our current stars to take part in good-natured spoofs of their films, most (if not ALL) of them would firmly refuse to do so.

[Maxwell]

I love the episodes with Jimmy Stewart! They were absolutely hilarious and sounded like a lot of fun was had by all!

Slight thread hijack here:

WWME-TV in Chicago played one of the Jimmy/Gloria episodes from Jack's TV show last night. Part of it was a reworking of the radio script where Jack and a girlfriend are attending a violin concert and Jack sees Jimmy and Gloria directly below him from his front row balcony seats. Jack tries to get their attention by throwing things (peanuts, the bag they came in, the bowtie that flies off his neck when his too-tight collar springs open) at them.

I mention this because it was a reworking of a Colman-Hume radio script. Kind of the best of both worlds, although the gags were funnier on radio probably because that culminates with Jack throwing his toupee at them.

[shimp scrampi]

This episode is one of my favorite of the TV shows, it's right up there with the best of the radio shows. The gag with Jimmy Stewart hemming and hawing about the corsage is priceless, and Barbara Nichols is always great as well.

Though the Stewarts were used basically as Colman surrogates on TV, there's a subtle difference in performance to me - the Colmans 'barely tolerated' Jack out of their British sense of propriety and civility - whereas the Stewarts had more of the 'midwestern nice folks' rationale for keeping up the illusion of pleasantry.