I recently got all his specials on dvd and they're great! I wish this type of comedy would come back it was for the whole family. Some of the dvd's have the original commericals intact, he even worked the commericials into his show which they don't do now.

I love Jack Benny. He was so funny to me.

Oh! Rochester! Jack Benny was a great. I have a DVD with a handful of episodes.

he is one of my all time faves too

Jack Benny was a classic comedian.

I never knew that Mary Livingston was his real life wife.

...whose real name was Sadye Marks [her brother Hilliard later produced Jack's radio and early TV shows], originally served as Jack's "straight woman" in vaudeville. By 1933, he initially "worked" her into his radio show as "Mary Livingstone", a "fan from Plainfield, New Jersey"- eventually, her role became that of a "cast member" and friend, who often deflated Jack's ego {"I'm in my late 30's- or my early 40's"/"You were in your 'early 40's' in the Gay Nineties!"}. She could get a laugh with her unique, sarcastic tone of voice in just three words; in an April 1948 episode, when guest star Dorothy Kirsten and announcer Don Wilson were discussing opera, Jack tried to enter the conversation {"Well, I thought..."}, and Mary squelched him with "OH, SHUT UP!". Jack never failed to mention in later years that, with those three words, she got one of the longest laughs ever heard on the radio show.

Eventually, she acquired a slight aversion to performing before live audiences {sometimes, she'd faint after the show had ended}, and by 1954, was literally recorded her lines in her bedroom for insertion into the radio shows (it was either Jack's script secretary Jeannette Eyman or Joan Benny [their daughter] who read Mary's lines during the actual taping of those shows, with Mary's voice substituted later). Mary never appeared on Jack's live TV episodes either, preferring to make her appearances on film, without a live audience in attendance. When her close friend Gracie Allen announced her retirement in 1958, Mary did the same [her last filmed episode of "THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM" was telecast in March 1959]. Joan Benny's account of life with her mother [and not all of them were pleasant memories] is featured in her book "Sunday Nights At Seven".

I'd love to see several of Jack's monthly "SHOWER OF STARS" specials for Chrysler between 1955 and '58; those are the ones that aren't readily available...

:violin:

...whose real name was Sadye Marks [her brother Hilliard later produced Jack's radio and early TV shows], originally served as Jack's "straight woman" in vaudeville. By 1933, he initially "worked" her into his radio show as "Mary Livingstone", a "fan from Plainfield, New Jersey"- eventually, her role became that of a "cast member" and friend, who often deflated Jack's ego {"I'm in my late 30's- or my early 40's"/"You were in your 'early 40's' in the Gay Nineties!"**. She could get a laugh with her unique, sarcastic tone of voice in just three words; in an April 1948 episode, when guest star Dorothy Kirsten and announcer Don Wilson were discussing opera, Jack tried to enter the conversation {"Well, I thought..."**, and Mary squelched him with "OH, SHUT UP!". Jack never failed to mention in later years that, with those three words, she got one of the longest laughs ever heard on the radio show.

Eventually, she acquired a slight aversion to performing before live audiences {sometimes, she'd faint after the show had ended**, and by 1954, was literally recorded her lines in her bedroom for insertion into the radio shows (it was either Jack's script secretary Jeannette Eyman or Joan Benny [their daughter] who read Mary's lines during the actual taping of those shows, with Mary's voice substituted later). Mary never appeared on Jack's live TV episodes either, preferring to make her appearances on film, without a live audience in attendance. When her close friend Gracie Allen announced her retirement in 1958, Mary did the same [her last filmed episode of "THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM" was telecast in March 1959]. Joan Benny's account of life with her mother [and not all of them were pleasant memories] is featured in her book "Sunday Nights At Seven".

I'd love to see several of Jack's monthly "SHOWER OF STARS" specials for Chrysler between 1955 and '58; those are the ones that aren't readily available...

:violin:

Great Info
even though I'm 11 years late !