Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy - by Kathryn H Fuller-Seeley

About the Book

"Jack Benny became one of the most influential entertainers of the 20th century--by being the top radio comedian, when the comics ruled radio, and radio was the most powerful and pervasive mass medium in the US. In 23 years of weekly radio broadcasts, by aiming all the insults at himself, Benny created Jack, the self-deprecating "Fall Guy" character. He indelibly shaped American humor as a space to enjoy the equal opportunities of easy camaraderie with his cast mates, and equal ego deflation. Benny was the master of comic timing, knowing just when to use silence to create suspense or to have a character leap into the dialogue to puncture Jack's pretentions. Jack Benny was also a canny entrepreneur, becoming one of the pioneering "showrunners" combining producer, writer and performer into one job. His modern style of radio humor eschewed stale jokes in favor informal repartee with comic hecklers like his valet Rochester (played by Eddie Anderson) and Mary Livingstone his offstage wife. These quirky characters bouncing off each other in humorous situations created the situation comedy. In this career study, we learn how Jack Benny found ingenious ways to sell his sponsors' products in comic commercials beloved by listeners, and how he dealt with the challenges of race relations, rigid gender ideals and an insurgent new media industry (TV). Jack Benny created classic comedy for a rapidly changing American culture, providing laughter that buoyed radio listeners from 1932's depths of the Great Depression, through World War II to the mid-1950s"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

The king of radio comedy from the Great Depression through the early 1950s, Jack Benny was one of the most influential entertainers in twentieth-century America. A master of comic timing and an innovative producer, Benny, with his radio writers, developed a weekly situation comedy to meet radio's endless need for new material, at the same time integrating advertising into the show's humor. Through the character of the vain, cheap everyman, Benny created a fall guy, whose frustrated struggles with his employees addressed midcentury America's concerns with race, gender, commercialism, and sexual identity. Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley contextualizes her analysis of Jack Benny and his entourage with thoughtful insight into the intersections of competing entertainment industries and provides plenty of evidence that transmedia stardom, branded entertainment, and virality are not new phenomena but current iterations of key aspects in American commercial cultural history.

From the Back Cover

"Jack Benny built his career on letting his second bananas cut him down to size, but media scholar Kathryn Fuller-Seeley knows a giant of twentieth-century entertainment when she sees--and hears--one. A meticulous researcher, sensitive critic, and unabashed fan, Fuller-Seeley examines the sonic wraparound and cultural reverberations of Benny's comic art and discovers an atmosphere thick with the buzz of ethnic, racial, and gendered static--not to mention some seriously funny gags, wisecracks, voices, and sound effects. Like its subject, Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy is tone-perfect and a delight to dial in to."--Thomas Doherty, Brandeis University

"At last, Jack Benny gets the treatment he deserves! This lively, wonderfully detailed and meticulously researched study of Benny's contributions to twentieth-century arts and culture will delight not only those who remember him but those who have yet to discover this icon of American comedy."--Michele Hilmes, Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"When we think of Jack Benny, his real-life wife Mary Livingstone and his radio valet played by Eddie Anderson also come to mind. Now we have another perfect pairing, the great Benny with one of our finest cultural historians. Kathryn Fuller-Seeley examines a life and career in entertainment as well as the half-century, cross-media popularity of Benny's particular form of Jewish masculinity."--Eric Smoodin, author of Regarding Frank Capra: Audience, Celebrity, and American Film Studies, 1930-1960

Review Quotes

"...a deeply researched and powerfully argued analysis of Benny's persona, productions, distribution, advertising, and sponsorship from the early 1930s through the late 1950s. ...It is a must-read for scholars seeking to understand the inner workings, products, and impact of mass media and intermedia develop­ment, consumer culture, and celebrity culture during the heyday of mid-twentieth-century American commercial radio broadcasting and how to write about such issues incisively and inclusively." -- "The Journal of American History"

"By discussing in depth the ways the show was and wasn't distributed during and after its initial run (including the balance of radio stations carrying the show vs. TV stations carrying the show throughout the '50s), Fuller-Seeley makes the book itself an intermedia experience, encouraging readers to contribute to the vital work of media archiving."-- "Splitsider"

"Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley's monograph on Jack Benny provides the first full-length scholarly account of the comedian's influential broadcasting career, which began in 1932 and ended with his death in 1974. As well as discussing his film and television work, she presents an extremely detailed analysis of Benny's long-running, but largely overlooked, multifaceted radio program (1932-1955) which she calls his 'greatest achievement'."-- "Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television"

About the Author

Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley is Professor in the Radio-Television-Film department at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of, among other books, At the Picture Show: Small Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture and the editor of Hollywood in the Neighborhood: Historical Case Studies of Local Moviegoing.