A robber accosts Jack Benny and demands, "Your money or your life!"
The audience convulses into laughter as Benny hesitates.
The comedian deadpans, "I'm thinking, I'm thinking," which brings down the house.
That was the most famous comic bit from Benny's show, easily regarded the all-time most popular classic radio program. Benny was already an institution when he crossed over into television in 1950 to become an even greater personality once his trademark gestures and expressions could be seen.
Milton Berle is "Mr. Television." Jerry Lewis and Danny Kaye were movie stars. George Burns lived to be 100. Jim Carrey is paid $20 million per film. Neither they nor any other comic save for Bob Hope can approach Benny's reputation.
Love or hate his comedy style, there is no denying Benny was a comedy original and legendary entertainer. He was a frequent guest on "The Tonight Show" in his later years where Johnny Carson accorded him Godlike reverence and the familiar routines still worked with audiences.
Everyone remembers the gag. Benny was the perpetual 39-year-old skinflint whose cheapness was an endless source of laughs for more than four decades. He played the sarcastic wit full of himself, and his castmates took pleasure in puncturing his ego. Part of the act was mangling the violin which in reality he was accomplished at playing. The classic image of Benny is hand to cheek exclaiming "Well!" in a one-of-a-kind expression of mock surprise.
Although commonly referred to as "The Jack Benny Show," the program was actually titled after whatever company was the current sponsor. The show made its debut in 1932 on NBC as "The Canada Dry Program."
Born in 1894, Benny was a veteran vaudevillian headlining "Earl Carroll's Vanities" on Broadway when he was invited to make his radio debut on Ed Sullivan's show. This led to master-of-ceremonies duty for the then musically heavy "The Canada Dry Program" which switched to CBS in 1933. The evolution into the famous format had begun.
The audience convulses into laughter as Benny hesitates.
The comedian deadpans, "I'm thinking, I'm thinking," which brings down the house.
That was the most famous comic bit from Benny's show, easily regarded the all-time most popular classic radio program. Benny was already an institution when he crossed over into television in 1950 to become an even greater personality once his trademark gestures and expressions could be seen.
Milton Berle is "Mr. Television." Jerry Lewis and Danny Kaye were movie stars. George Burns lived to be 100. Jim Carrey is paid $20 million per film. Neither they nor any other comic save for Bob Hope can approach Benny's reputation.
Love or hate his comedy style, there is no denying Benny was a comedy original and legendary entertainer. He was a frequent guest on "The Tonight Show" in his later years where Johnny Carson accorded him Godlike reverence and the familiar routines still worked with audiences.
Everyone remembers the gag. Benny was the perpetual 39-year-old skinflint whose cheapness was an endless source of laughs for more than four decades. He played the sarcastic wit full of himself, and his castmates took pleasure in puncturing his ego. Part of the act was mangling the violin which in reality he was accomplished at playing. The classic image of Benny is hand to cheek exclaiming "Well!" in a one-of-a-kind expression of mock surprise.
Although commonly referred to as "The Jack Benny Show," the program was actually titled after whatever company was the current sponsor. The show made its debut in 1932 on NBC as "The Canada Dry Program."
Born in 1894, Benny was a veteran vaudevillian headlining "Earl Carroll's Vanities" on Broadway when he was invited to make his radio debut on Ed Sullivan's show. This led to master-of-ceremonies duty for the then musically heavy "The Canada Dry Program" which switched to CBS in 1933. The evolution into the famous format had begun.
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