Your Ticket To The Jack Benny Show

February is a busy month, with President's Day, Valentine's Day and also the birthday of one of the comedy greats of old-time-radio all in close succession.

Although it's a little early to celebrate his birthday, I wanted to write a little about the Jack Benny Show.

If you were visiting Hollywood, a Sunday afternoon would probably find you lined up with hundreds of others at the NBC studios, trying to get into see the Jack Benny Show.

Unfortunately, only 350 lucky folks could have the privilege every week (that was all of the studio seats), so even if you were on the spot your chances would be small.

I can't even begin to imagine what it must have felt like back in those days, to be one of the lucky ones who were whisked through the great double doors, into the silver-walled hush of the studio, where you'd choose your own maroon-upholstered seat...

The time would be around 3:30pm, half an hour before air time, but you'd be just in time for the pre-broadcast show to warm up the cast and the audience, before the "On The Air" signal turned to red. 

One of the comments made on RUSC about the show reads:-

 July 4, 2016

By Joe

Just finished listening to over 500 episodes of the Jack Benny show, and loved everyone of them. The casts were fantastic, and the writing superb!! Every night I looked forward to listening to each show. Being that the shows were from the 30's to the 50's the dialogue was not politically correct, but it shows you how far we have come. I recommend these shows to everyone!!!

It's definitely a review that I would agree with 100%.

Jack Benny was there through radio's true Golden Age, and although I'm sure that a large percentage of our wonderful members will have listened to at least one or two of his shows, no old-time-radio collection would be complete without a visit to Jack's house. 

There are over 600 shows though, so it may take you a while to get through them all!

Happy listening!