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| Other names | The Jack Benny Show The Canada Dry Program The Chevrolet Program The General Tire Revue The Jell-O Program The Grape Nuts Flakes Program The Lucky Strike Program |
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| Genre | Comedy |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | NBC (Blue) (05/02/32–10/26/32) CBS (10/30/32–1/26/33) NBC (Red) (03/03/33–09/28/34) NBC (Blue) (10/14/34–06/21/36) NBC (Red) (10/04/36–12/26/48) CBS (01/02/49–05/22/55) |
| TV adaptations | The Jack Benny Program (1950–1965) |
| Starring | Jack Benny Mary Livingstone Eddie Anderson Phil Harris Dennis Day Kenny Baker Mel Blanc Frank Nelson Artie Auerbach Bea Benaderet Sara Berner Joseph Kearns Sheldon Leonard |
| Announcer | Don Wilson |
| Written by | Harry Conn Al Boasberg William Morrow Edmund Beloin Hugh Wedlock Jr. Howard Snyder George Balzer Sam Perrin Milt Josefsberg John Tackaberry Al Gordon Hal Goldman |
| Produced by | Hilliard Marks (1946–'55) |
| Original release | May 2, 1932 – May 22, 1955 |
| No. of episodes | 931 |
| Opening theme | Love in Bloom/The Yankee Doodle Boy |
| Ending theme | Hooray for Hollywood "The J & M Stomp" |
The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio and television comedy series. The show ran for over three decades, from 1932 to 1955 on radio, and from 1950 to 1965 on television. It won numerous awards, including the 1959 and 1961 Emmy Awards for Best Comedy Series, and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy.[1]
Throughout his career, Jack Benny played the same character: A pompous, vain, and stingy man who played the violin badly but was convinced of his own talent. Although technically the star of his show, Benny was constantly the butt of jokes from his cast members, including Mary Livingstone (Sayde Marks Benny, his real-life wife); Phil Harris, his band leader; Kenny Baker or Dennis Day, his tenors; Don Wilson, his portly announcer; and Rochester Van Jones (Eddie Anderson), his African American valet.
As radio historian John Dunning explains, "Unlike Bob Hope, Jack Benny didn't tell jokes. On his show, Jack was the joke. Everything revolved around him and his comic foibles, with Benny serving as 'straight man.' The other characters on the show were the comedians, making wisecracks, remarks, and asides about Benny's stinginess, his vanity, or his lousy violin-playing."[1]
- ^ a b Dunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Revised ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 355–363. ISBN 978-0-19-507678-3. Retrieved December 19, 2023.