Rochester spin off show

[mackdaddyg]

I was reading some older posts here, and one mentioned something about a spin-off show featuring Rochester that never aired.

Could somebody fill me in, or direct me to a link here to find out more?

Thanks.

George

[Roman]

A Rochester spin-off certainly would have made sense since Phil, Dennis and Mel Blanc all got their own shows and since Rochester was certainly talented enough to deserve his own show. The fact that it didn't happen, despite Eddie Anderson's apparent interest in doing it, must, I assume, be attributed to the racial barriers of the time. Was any black entertainer or actor offered the starring role in a program during the radio era? But to Jack's eternal credit, no black performer was offered as important and prominent a role in radio (or television until at least the late 1950s) as was given to Eddie Anderson. It really is a shame though that he wasn't able to get his own show.

[Yhtapmys]

I was reading some older posts here, and one mentioned something about a spin-off show featuring Rochester that never aired.

Could somebody fill me in, or direct me to a link here to find out more?

http://www.vintageradioplace.com/ra/sametime040815.ram

Go to the about 32:30 mark and you can hear the two pilot shows for CBS. They're 15 minutes each and not all that funny.

I'm sure Laura has them available.

Yhtapmys
"Drive Your Blues Awaaaay!"

[Mister Kitzel]

I just listened to the two Rochester shows, and I think they could have gone somewhere.

Sam Perrin and Frank Nelson were part of the show, and they could not have been cheap. Eddie Anderson was likely to be paid well, too. The show sounds a lot like The Mel Blanc Show or The Alan Young Show. It was not bad, but like all new shows it had not yet found a perfect formula.

[Yhtapmys]

I just listened to the two Rochester shows, and I think they could have gone somewhere.

<snip>

It was not bad, but like all new shows it had not yet found a perfect formula.

I've been thinking about this, Mr. K., and I think all the spin-offs necessarily borrowed from some basic premise on the Benny show for audience identification purposes then added from there. Any I think they all suffered.

I've never liked Dennis Day's show. It was like suddenly he was in a different world, then returned to the Benny world. Mel Blanc's show wasn't a spin-off but he was saddled with extremely talented actors playing completely unsympathetic or weird people. There was no one to connect with. They tried to counteract it with Mel's dialects and familiar voices and it didn't work. Phil's show was probably the best but you really have to let your credibility be stretched some times. (one-liners about a character's attributes work better than the base an entire character around them).

Sam Perrin had a tough job. He had to go back through old Benny shows, find any possible ancillary characters they could connect to Rochester and try to make them more than one-dimensional.

Realistically, I wonder if listeners would have accepted Rochester had ANY "private life" away from Jack Benny, other than with a bunch of Harlem stereotypes vaguely referenced in earlier broadcasts.

Now, about the Mr. Kitzel Show....

Yhtapmys

[mackdaddyg]

Thanks Yhtapmys, for providing the link to the Rochester shows.

They're not hilarious, but there were a few moments that showed some promise. I thought a few of the gags were pretty good. With the right tinkering, it could have gone somewhere.

I'm assuming it was supposed to be a daily 15 minute show, and that seems like it would be a bear to write. Too bad it didn't work out.

[Roman]

I have to disagree with Yhtapmys's opinion about the Phil Harris spin-off. I think that it was an extremely funny and well-written show that stands on its own with the best of the radio comedy shows. As far as credibility being stretched, the same can certainly be said for most of the great radio and TV comedies, including Jack's. I mean how credible was it that Jack had a vault under his home with a Civil War-era guard who never saw the outside world. Surely Lucy's predicaments stretched credibility beyond the breaking point. And the same, of course, can be said for the best of every era's comedies, from the Marx Brothers to Burns & Allen to Danny Kaye to Mel Brooks to Will Ferrell, just to name a few. I agree that Phil's show often threw credibility and common sense out the window. But it was funny.

[williambyron]

For what its worth, Rochester's shows, or these 2 15 minute 'pilots' *were* released, albeit, on a compliation, of the greatest comedy shows, just a few years ago. It wasn't Radio Spirits I don't believe, but the next industry leader in making these OTR compilations you see frequently in Barnes & Nobles and whatnot.