Introduce Yourself!

[haverpopper]

Some of you may already know one another, but it never hurts to introduce yourself. I'll start:

Real Name: Mike

Location: From the US (originally an Army brat), but currently working temporarily in Scotland

Age: 24

Occupation: Hotel work, for the moment

Hobbies/Interests: Music, Movies, History, Travel

Book You're Currently Reading: Just finished "The Beach" by Alex Garland, and finishing David McCullough's biography of Harry Truman

How You Got Into Jack Benny: Started listening to OTR in college, during the "Napster Revolution." I wanted to hear the famous Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" episode, and that developed into an abiding interest in OTR. I read on a website that the Jack Benny show was the greatest of the OTR comedies, so I checked it out and have been listening ever since.

Favorite JB Character: Usually a toss up between Phil and Rochester

Other favorite OTR Shows: Suspense, Information Please


Anyone else? Feel free to add other questions in case I'm missing anything.

[Maxwell]

I'm pretty new here, so this is a good idea!

Real Name: Hal

Location: Chicago Suburbs (but pretty far from Waukegan.

Age: 55

Occupation: Teacher

Hobbies: Writing, jazz, history, old movies/radio/TV

Current books: I'm in the middle of rereading Shelby Foote's trilogy on the Civil War.

How you first got into Jack Benny: I grew up watching him back in the '50s. He and Red Skelton have always been my favorite radio/television comedians (and by always, I mean since I was a really young kid).

Favorite Jack Benny Characters: Frank Nelson ("Yeeeeessss?") and anybody Mel Blanc played.

Other favorite OTR shows: Lights Out, The Shadow, Fred Allen, Suspense, Gunsmoke.

Other favorite shows from TV's "golden age": Gunsmoke, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (can you tell I was a kid when westerns were popular and that Dodge City was my favorite western town?), Burns and Allen, Red Skelton.

[Jack Benny]

Other favorite shows from TV's "golden age": Gunsmoke, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (can you tell I was a kid when westerns were popular and that Dodge City was my favorite western town?).

Did you know that "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" is on TVLand every Saturday and Sunday? This is the first time I have ever seen it shown in syndication. Equally rare is the "Westerner" starring Brian Keith and that is on every Saturday and Sunday on the Encore Westerns Channel. I have been saving all the episodes of both series, just in case they go off the air again - can't afford to wait another 50 years for the re-broadcast don't you know!

[haverpopper]

Thanks for the responses! (32 views and only two responses?? Come on, people, tell us about yourself!) My favorite older TV shows are probably "I Love Lucy" and "The Dick van Dyke Show," (and "The Bob Newhart Show," "Taxi," and "Mary Tyler Moore Show," if you count the 70's) -- basically what they used to show on Nick at Nite in the mid-90s. Maxwell -- if you like old westerns, do you know Marty Robbin's "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs"? It's a CD I'm listening to now, and it's got some great stuff -- I think it would fit in very well with the classic westerns like Gunsmoke, etc.

[Jack Benny]

Real Name: Darrel

Location: Tacoma, Washington.

Age: 39 ...Ok,Ok... 40

Occupation: Middle School Counselor

Hobbies: Playing with my kids/old movies/radio/TV/comic books

How you first got into Jack Benny: 3 years ago I started commuting to work and needed something to listen to. Found out about Gunsmoke in MP3 and loved it, then I got Jack and I know think he is the greatest entertainer of all time.

Favorite Jack Benny Characters: Jack, Mary, Phil, Don, and Dennis. Give me those 5 and I'm good to jive!

Other favorite OTR shows: The Six Shooter starring James Stewart, Gunsmoke, X minus 1 - Great OTR Sci-Fi, The Shadow, Fred Allen, Suspense.

Other favorite shows from TV's "golden age": Gunsmoke, Burns and Allen, Davy Crockett, Twilight Zone, all westerns on TV.

[Jack Benny]

How could I forget Rochester! Oh, well...

[TC]

Hello: I'm new here ( as of today). I found this site by chance, and was impressed with your president Laura, and her kindness and efforts with my questions, so seemed right to join.

Real name: Russell

Location: Stockholm Sweden ( originally San Fernando Valley)

Age: 50 something...

Hobbies: Paragliders

Favorite Jack Benny Characters: Mel Blank Frank Nelson

Other favorite programs: Have gun will travel, Gun Smoke. ( Mighty Mouse....)

I worked in the " business" as a child, and had the pleasure of working a week with Jack when I was 12, and have been a fan ever sense.

Thanks again for Laura for your efforts in my quest. Best Regards!

[bboswell]

Real Name: Brian

Location: temporarily Midwest US (formally Orange County CA)

Age: 35

Occupation: Video and Audio Post Production

Hobbies/Intrests: Music, Film, OTR

Book You're Currently Reading: I Chronicles, Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

How You Got Into Jack Benny: I grew up listening to shows like Amos & Andy, and Fibber McGee thanks to my dad, and Jack Benny was a short leap from there.

Favorite JB Characters: Frank Nelson, Mel Blanc, all the other minor chars, (except John L.T. Savoni (??) Although Jack and the audience seemed to LOVE this guy.) and of course Jack himself.

Other favorite OTR Shows: Suspense, Whistler, Fibber McGee, Quiet Please, Burns & Allen, Amos & Andy, Mr. DA, Six Shooter, Bob Hope, Bob & Ray.

[shimp scrampi]

Real Name: Steve
Location: Virginia
Age: same as my tongue, a little older than my teeth. Still a good few years shy of my first 39 though.

Occupation: Archaeologist

Hobbies/Interests: horror movies, OTR, rum, roadtripping to america's loopiest tourist attractions.

Book You're Currently Reading: mostly boring stuff for work. True crime fan, too.

How You Got Into Jack Benny: Junior high or thereabouts - kind of roundabout through Burns and Allen. Loved their TV show and would stay tuned, bleary-eyed for Jack Benny when it was being run on CBN in the '80s. Also picked up some OTR cassettes (how passe!) of both around that time. Can't really remember if radio or TV was my first exposure.

Favorite JB Characters: Jack, Roch, Phil, Mary, Nelson

Other OTR: Burns and Allen. Not too much other comedy does it for me. I do like the scary stuff like Mysterious Traveler, Suspense ("The Hitchhiker" - STILL the scariest thing I've ever heard), Witch's Tale.

[LLeff]

roadtripping to america's loopiest tourist attractions.

What was that I was saying about Zippy the Pinhead?

(You have to read the strip to understand the reference. I'm not calling Shimp a pinhead.)

[shimp scrampi]

Quite the opposite, it's like an orange on a toothpick! Every night I cry myself to sleep on my HUGE pillow. (For those of you who like 'So I Married an Axe Murderer') I'm a second cousin to the BIC pen mascot.

But seriously, folks, I take an extra-large hat.

It's great being here on the International Henny Youngman Forum.

[ZEjackbennykid]

ZEjackbennykid will introduce himself

Real Name: Zach

Age: 14 years old

Location: In Colorado, though I'd rather be in California my birth state

Occupation: Lawn Mowing services in the summer.

Recent Book: The Jack Benny Autobiography Sunday Nights at 7

Recent Movies: Blazzing saddles for the second time(Mel Brooks makes very funny movies) I just saw Tyler Perry's Diary of A Mad Black Woman in theaters. Hystarical LOL funny

Hobbies: Listening and wathing Jack Benny, watching movies and TV, listening to Old Time radio, MAKING MOVIES, SKATEBOARD, golf, PS2, origami

How I learned about Jack: I listened to a Sherlock Holmes OTR show then expanded to Charlie McCarthy. On that and Burns and Allen, and Abbot and Costello I heard of someone called Jack Benny. My dad wanted to listen to the show where Groucho and Jack play checkers at the begining. I heard a few minutes and turned it off. Then at that time I had no other shows to listen to so I put on a Benny show where jack get's his camel from the frieght office and gave been a fan ever since

[Alan]

Sherlock Holmes OTR was a big part of my discovery of OTR in general as well....i have now read this several times about the Holmes series.

[Brad from Georgia]

Real Name: Brad

Location: Georgia

Age: 57

Occupation: Professor of English, novelist

Hobbies/Interests: Writing, photography, amateur acting, travel

Book You're Currently Writing: Recently finished witing "Kong: King of Skull Island" with artist Joe DeVito; currently writing "The Curse of the Midions," a young-adult mystery novel

How You Got Into Jack Benny: Began watching the TV shows when I was a kid. Began collecting tapes of the radio programs as a young adult.

Favorite JB Character: Jack himself, and Rochester.

Other favorite OTR Shows: Sherlock Holmes, the Goon Show

[Maxwell]

Other favorite shows from TV's "golden age": Gunsmoke, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (can you tell I was a kid when westerns were popular and that Dodge City was my favorite western town?).

Did you know that "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" is on TVLand every Saturday and Sunday? This is the first time I have ever seen it shown in syndication. Equally rare is the "Westerner" starring Brian Keith and that is on every Saturday and Sunday on the Encore Westerns Channel. I have been saving all the episodes of both series, just in case they go off the air again - can't afford to wait another 50 years for the re-broadcast don't you know!

I caught a couple of episodes (the one preceding and the one featuring the gunfight at the OK Corral) last week, but due to some extenuating circumstances was unable to catch them this past weekend. I remember watching Wyatt Earp reruns back in the '70s on a local UHF station in Chicago, but haven't seen them anywhere since.

I wish someone would start rerunning the shows of my two favorite comedians from when I was a kid, Jack Benny and Red Skelton. The PBS station run by the Chicago City Colleges was showing kinescopes of some of the earliest live Burns and Allen and Red Skelton shows a few years ago (the Skelton shows were NBC broadcasts before he moved to CBS), and I think they may have even shown some old Jack Benny shows, but reruns like this are few and far between.

I guess we can expect to see a lot fewer shows like this since most of the kids today won't watch anything in black and white.