icecream
10-11-2020, 07:39 PM
No, not Jack Benny the comedian who died when he was "39". The thread title only allows a certain amount of characters. I am of course referring to The Jack Benny Program which aired 258 TV episodes over a 50 year span. While it does have variety show elements with some episodes taking place entirely there, Jack Benny also has episodes set at his home. The variety show elements are just a fancy staged element of the home life of Jack Benny's character. You could call that a varietycom, more sitcom than full fledged variety shows. Like shows of today are often dramedies that could fall in both categories. I like what I have seen of Eight is Enough, but that show listed in the 70s sitcoms here is all drama with a strange laugh track thrown in. Burns and Allen doesn't use quite the same approach, but it has George keeping his family and neighbors under surveillance watching on a separate TV, having a bunch of long standup monologues, and later seasons with Burns and Allen having standup duo bit on a stage like Jack Benny's to close the episode. Basically, The Jack Benny Program and The Burns and Allen Show are both sitcoms that often broke the 4th wall. Decades later Seinfeld used some of the same approach. The early seasons always had their episodes open and close with Jerry's real life standup comedy act. With the marathon Antenna TV is treating us to in two weeks, it could bring new fans of The Jack Benny Program here to discuss it. The only place they would have under the current layout is General Sitcoms or maybe All Other TV Shows, where threads there could get quickly lost in all the myriad of talk shows/judge shows that dominate today's TV too much.