Eddie Anderson, Rochester, and Race in 1930s Radio and Film

African-American dancer, singer, comedian Eddie Anderson pursued an entertainment career in California, his opportunities limited by Jim Crow-era racism in Hollywood but also shaped opportunities in night clubs and cabarets that catered to both black and white patrons. Winning an audition for a one-time role on Benny’s radio show, Anderson’s inimitable gravelly voice spurred Benny to create a full time part, the character of Rochester Van Jones, Jack’s butler and valet, in late 1937. Although initially hampered by stereotyped minstrel-show dialogue and character habits, Rochester soon became renowned by both white and black listeners for his ability to criticize the “Boss” in impertinent manner. Virtually co-starred in three films with Benny that were highly successful at the box office, commenters in the black press in 1940 hoped that Rochester offered “a new day” in improved race relations.

Becoming Benny

Jack Benny drew from a successful vaudeville career to adapt his humor to radio form in 1932. Realizing the pressures of creating new program material on a weekly basis, he hires Harry Conn. Benny and Conn develop continuing, quirky characters and “comedy situations” in imaginative spaces away from the microphone, that create a new kind of American humor. Sponsored first by Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Benny and Conn develop their program through experimentation, addition of new character Mary, and turn Jack into the “Fall Guy” who was butt of his cast members’ jokes. Friction with Harry Conn nearly derails the program, but Benny finds new writers and the program hits top radio popularity ratings by mid-decade.

Masculine Gender Identity in Jack Benny’s Humor

Jack Benny’s comedy frequently upended the idea of heterosexual white masculine domination. Jack was portrayed as a struggling employer and a failure as a patriarch whose radio cast constantly get the better of him. The long-lasting comic feud with fellow radio comic Fred Allen demonstrated a playful camaraderie through insult-throwing. As a second-generation immigrant, Benny’s Midwestern Jewish identity seemed much assimilated, although his humorous themes were deeply rooted in Jewish traditions. Benny greatly enjoyed blurring the sharp divides between masculine and feminine presentation, and his role in the cross-dressing farce Charley’s Aunt, the occasional risqué humor of his radio shows, and his uncannily close imitations of Gracie Allen, discomfited an American culture becoming increasingly anxious about rules of gender identity.

Jack Benny’s Turn Towards Television

The new medium of television was to cause Jack Benny much consternation in how to best adapt his iconic radio program after 18 years to the new visual medium. Benny fretted and delayed his entry into New York City-based TV broadcasting until October 1950, meantime remaining radio’s top comic. But industrial pressures to switch networks (in Benny’s momentous move to CBS) and move to television, while trimming radio production budgets, and chasing audiences flocking to TV, pressed Benny to act. Benny struggled against critical expectations, and critical disdain, to find a way to merge the best of his radio narrative to TV’s visual demands. After 18 months of excoriation, critics discovered that Benny was utilizing his silent exasperated looks toward the camera and studio audience to communicate with the TV viewers. The critics pronounced Benny a marvelous TV comic. His program did change significantly in the new medium, but remained a popular favorite.

Jack Benny’s Intermedia Juggling of Radio and Film

Jack Benny was not only radio’s biggest star after the mid-1930s, but he was the most visible celebrity in Hollywood. This chapter examines the many ways that Benny’s radio program, and Benny’s performance career, intertwined radio and film, two powerful media industries that were often said to be at war with one another. While media conglomeration today means that performers and story ideas are moved freely across media, there were many impediments to do so in the past. Benny’s radio show was the first to parody popular movies, but he could not mention the radio stars who sold rival products. Benny’s radio-themed films made at Paramount between 1939 and 1941, met with significant box office success and even greater critical disparagement.

Rochester and the Revenge of Uncle Tom in the 1940s and 1950s

Hugely popular on radio and in film playing Rochester in the early 1940s, Eddie Anderson’s celebrity and career were at a peak in the World War II years, when in film, and in government-created publicity, he was a spokesman for black opportunity that was non-threatening across the white political spectrum. Race riots, conservative white backlash, and growth of assertive black critics rooting out “Uncle Tom” accommodation to white dominance, threatened Anderson’s career. Even Benny and his writers could occasionally unthinkingly forget to move ahead, as a recycled old script about Rochester’s minstrel-type ways raised outraged cries from the black press in 1950. Anderson became even more central to Benny’s program in the 1950s with Mary Livingstone’s retirement, as Rochester was dismissed by many as passé, but on the other hand, closer than ever to Jack as an interracial “Odd Couple” of housemates.

“What Are You Laughing at, Mary?”

Reluctant, young Sadye Marks becomes drawn into vaudeville and radio performance through marriage to Jack Benny. The character created for her by Harry Conn, Mary Livingstone, becomes a popular and unique character in American entertainment. As Jack’s sometimes-secretary and chief heckler, Mary criticizes men with remarkable freedom, yet also retains her independence and attractiveness, much like Hollywood heroines of the 1930s, and yet Mary never has to get married in the final reel. Mary Livingstone had great cultural impact, and star status, in the 1930s as a comic “Unruly Woman.” After World War II, however, Mary’s inhibitions drew her away from the microphone, and her delightfully tart tongue was heard less frequently. With a fascinating affinity for a feminist viewpoint, female characters in the Benny show narrative universe were tough and usually prevailed over the men.

Conclusion

Jack Benny accomplished major achievements in 23 years on the radio. Adapting his performance from vaudeville, he brought the progenitor of stand-up comedy to the new broadcast form through the position of the master of ceremonies, and he and Harry Conn invented the situation comedy format, which was dependent for laughs on humor stemming from characters and dialogue, not stand alone laughs. Benny incorporated advertising messages into his humorous narrative more successfully than any other performer. And he was instrumental in making radio the nation’s most powerful mass medium, all while depicting the character of “The Fall Guy” or schmo, a Yiddish character thoroughly assimilated into American culture. Benny was indelibly tied to the best features of his radio career and persona as he maneuvered the upheavals of American entertainment culture in the 1960s and early 1970s. The genius of Jack Benny’s radio humor is increasingly spread today through new media - websites sharing 750+ Benny broadcasts, satellite radio and podcast programs, and digitization of entertainment trade journals and archival sources.

Benny at War with the Radio Critics

Jack Benny and his radio program faced numerous challenges during World War II – difficult performances at military camps, key personnel lost to the draft, mediocre comedy, and creative ennui. Benny and new writers bounced back, starting in 1945, innovating with new radio characters like Mel Blanc’s violin teacher and train announcer, Frank Nelson’s obnoxious functionaries, and disdainful neighbors Ronald and Benita Colman. The “I Can’t Stand Jack Benny” context brought critical acclaim. Then a new generation of radio critics, led by John Crosby, used Benny as the symbol of all that was stale and old in primetime network broadcasting. Benny and his writers alternately complained, fought back, and innovated to regain both popular and critical acclaim.

The Commercial Imperative

Jack Benny ingeniously intertwined the advertising messages of his sponsors into his radio comedy narratives. Although early sponsors like Canada Dry were affronted by the sly, cynical attitude Benny’s joking commercials assailed the product with. Critics and the public and acclaimed the way Benny and his writers, and longtime announcer Don Wilson, brought humor and pleasure to the business of selling products. Sponsors were thrilled with the sales results. The advertising industry found Benny the best salesman they ever found. After his association with Jell-O (that pulled a failing product to great profits), Benny met the challenge of working with an infamous sponsor, American Tobacco, whose harsh ad tactics spawned a barrage of critical complaints. With creative skill, Benny and his writers devised absurdist tactics, the crazy songs of the Sportsmen Quartet and nonsense phrases, which pleased the sponsor yet delighted critics and listeners.