This is hilarious, and really shows the depth of both Benny as well as the group. They sing one of their regular songs, but then after some banter with Jack they sing a song they wrote about his background and cheapness ("Waukegan"). Jack then invites them to his house to sing a really horrible song that he wrote. The whole thing is really, really funny.
It's also a blast from the past. As they say, the Past is a foreign country because they do things differently there.
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Jack Benny was a genius. Leo Marks' wonderful war memoir Between Silk and Cyanide. In Marks' early 20s, he headed the SOE office that trained agents being infiltrated into occupied Europe in the coding techniques they would need.
Marks was sent to Egypt to sort out some problems with the local crypto office, and met Jack Benny in the hotel. Marks:
I told him about my uncle, a distinguished bookseller who pretended to be deaf to avoid military service. He managed to fool the doctors but was called before a military tribunal for his final examination. While he was busy saying, ‘Eh?’ To whatever he was asked, someone fired a revolver. But he’d been warned about this and didn’t flinch. As he turned to go, someone dropped a coin. He still didn’t flinch. But when he reached the main hall, someone quietly said, “‘Got the time on you, Guv?’ and he looked at his watch!
He then ran for his life, chased by two military policemen, and rushed into a nearby delicatessen. Although the owner didn’t know him, he must have been familiar with his plight because he raised the lid of a herring-barrel, and uncle jumped in. He hid there for several hours until it was safe to emerge, and managed to avoid conscription, but he stank for the rest of the war and on warm nights still did, according to my aunt.
There was a long silence while he looked at me with his famous dead-pan expression. “What was that line your uncle fell for? — “Got the time on you, Guv?”’
I confirmed that he was word-perfect. The then treated me to a display of mime thousands of his admirers would buy black-market tickets for. Appearing to stand up without moving from his chair, he recreated the entire proceedings for an invisible audience, giving uncle and the delicatessen owner lines they’d have been proud of.
He was still in the herring-barrel when the door of the lounge opened and his wife walked in.
He introduced me to her as his friend Mr. Marks, and she examined me closely. ‘I’m his wife,’ she said. ‘Mind if I ask you something?’
I could only nod. She was far more attractive at close quarters than when she appeared in public as her husband’s stooge.
‘Are you Groucho in disguise?’ No one else makes him laugh like this.’
He held his nose as she pulled him from the herring-barrel, and I hoped she didn’t take it personally.
I then witnessed a transformation which I found hard to believe. He began walking like Uncle as she led him away! But I hadn’t told him that he affected a limp or that he leaned on a stick or that his right shoulder was lower than his left, though I’d seen it all in my mind when I’d described his examination....
Peter B, I really enjoyed that book - and so did the person I lent it to who didn't give it back. Endorsed.
But I don't remember that story from it, but I read it almost 20 years ago.
the canned laughter was annoying, but I've always loved Jack Benny.
I recall seeing that episode far too many years ago. Thanks for posting and giving me a great laugh. "♪♫He's a cheapskate through and through♪♫" I remember that line well.
Yep, I actually remember seeing that on TV low these many years ago... sigh
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