JELL-O AGAIN

I bought a set of dvds of the old Jack Benny television series. (For those who know me, yes I actually spent money. I know I usually expect to get change back when I spend a nickle, but these were 4 dvds for less that $7.00. Jack would have been proud of me.) The ones from the early 1950s are fascinating because it is obvious the technicians and performers were still working out how to do television. It was a cross between radio and theater. The pace was slow, the middle commercial was actually worked into the skit, and even Benny himself, who became a master of the medium, was occasionally bewildered. In one show he came out with a small piece of paper in his hand that he occasionally checked as if reminding himself what came next. At the end of one show he came out from behind the curtain, put on his glasses, and checked his watch trying to determine how much time he had. He was startled when the orchestra began playing. “Is that it?” he asked. “Are we out of time?”

Benny had a 15 year run on television. On the one hand, at 71 he had tired of the grind of doing a weekly show. On the other, the networks (CBS in 1964 and NBC in 1965) felt the show didn’t appeal to younger audiences anymore. Benny was squashed in the ratings by Gomer Pyle: USMC.

Jack Benny died while I was in my first year at seminary. I remember how one of my roommates, Wayne Walther, offered a prayer for Jack Benny “who taught us to laugh.” I wish I had thought to do that. For a number of years the Cultural Center in Chicago (the old Public Library) had a reproduction of Jack Benny’s famous vault. It was gone the last time I went there. 

The Lutheran Magazine had Jack’s picture on it cover a couple of months back. Someone had to complain about using a image from a past generation which contemporary people won’t recognize. Well, they should.  There are lessons to be learned from this great comedian. Jack Benny was never vulgar. There was no cursing or degrading language on his shows. He let himself be the object of jokes. He introduced an African-American character Rochester, played by Eddie Anderson, who was not stereotyped. He might have been a servant in the fictional Benny home, but he was treated as an equal often one-up on Benny.

I miss Jack and his style of humor. None of us who refuse to move beyond out 39th birthday will forget him.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.





I can’t resist plugging myself. A Pilgrim’s Place has been listed in “The Top 50 Lutheran Blogs.”    Of course this is a shameless attempt to increase traffic to a site about which I know nothing either positive or negative, but I’ll take any reinforcement I can get.



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