pkarnold Jack Benny is my most missed comic from the 60s. Yes, Bob Hope and Johnny Carson were hilarious and well worth watching. I enjoyed Dean Martin and George Gobel. But of all the comedians of early television, Jack Benny's timing was unbelievable. I don't think any modern comedian can match his subtlety or his timing.And while Jack Benny could deadpan a gag, usually he was on the receiving end of it, a few shows could give you insight into how much he enjoyed comedy, his show, and perhaps comedy in general.I saw a you-tube film of him on the Carson show, with Mel Blanc and the "Si gag." And the very thought of Mel Blanc doing an English Horse whinny, or "Si" just cracked him up.I also saw a video of Foster Brooks roasting Jack Benny, and Benny couldn't help but laugh, laugh, and laugh some more. And if you see the show where Groucho Marx is doing a "Say the Magic Word" skit or was it really on the Who Do You Trust set, it is just hilarious to see what lengths Benny would go to to win that $100 prize.Another insight was from What's My Line, the game show where the celebrity panel was blindfolded and Benny signed in as Heifitz. He couldn't help but play a gag or two on the host and the panel, admittedly while answering in a falsetto "uh, huh" or "uh, uh." The crowd roared when he entered on the show, and roared at every single comedy gag he came up with.So while I lament that the Jack Benny show is no longer on the Comedy Channel, any time you can get a hold of an episode of the Jack Benny Show, please do so because this man was truly a master at work. And the main reason was because the guy was genuinely funny, understood comedy, and was as happy to be the butt of a joke as to deliver a punchline.

dantiger02 To me "The Jack Benny Show" was a classic and the man himself a genius. Hewas the absolute king of timing. He would always start a skit so optimistic and calm.. Then little by little his innocent world would begin to unravel. Lines that were not really funny became classic such as "Oh Rochester, oh Rochester?His dates with Mary were a favorite of mine. He was so well intentioned andseemed to always loose control of the situation. I am so sad that great shows like this are not there for my son andgrandchildren. I can not imagine growing up without "Laurel and Hardy" or "The Little Rascles." Who owns these shows and how dare they not make themavailable to a world that so badly needs laughter?

jeffhill1 In the early 1960's TV Guide critic Cleveland Amory started his review of "The Jack Benny Program" with "There are two kinds of jokes. Regular jokes and Jack Benny jokes." Regular jokes hit you, if you are lucky, only once. Jack Benny jokes hit you, if you are lucky, over and over. What Cleveland Amory at the time was referring to was the way a joke that popped up in the beginning of any given Jack Benny program episode was not an end in itself but a set-up for two, three, or four jokes that would emerge throughout he show.Some time before I was born, Jack Benny started to use, but never milked, familiar masks: his awful violin playing, his stingy nature, his offense at being insulted by his patented pause followed with, "Well!", his insistence that he was thirty nine years old, and his recurring attempts to get a renowned musician to play his pitiful song, "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano"."Hello, Police Department? I want to report a lost wallet. It is brown leather. Inside there are three one dollar bills. And the serial numbers are......" Inside a sauna: "Gee. I haven't sweated this much since they closed the banks in 1934."As Jack Benny delighted in telling later in life, sometimes the stories behind the jokes were even more funny than the jokes themselves. Jack would work with the writers in mid-week before any given show. As Jack told it, one week one of the writers thought up the scenario, "Jack is walking down the street and a thug comes up to him with a pistol and demands, 'Your money or your life!'" All readily agreed that that was a good premise for a joke. "But how is Jack going to respond?" All in the room were puzzled and when one writer got impatient by calling out, "Well?", Jack, still stumped for a good punch line, snapped back, "I'm thinking it over!" When the other writers started laughing, Jack asked, "What's so funny?" It took Jack Benny a few moments to get it that he had just invented the best joke of his career.That Jack will forever be remembered as being forever thirty nine years old is now not a joke but an inspiration for us his fans and survivors to hold on to youth and humor for as long as he did.

sandiego-4 I just finished watching an hour-long JACK BENNY SHOW from 1965 with perhaps the best guests ever assembled: Bob Hope, Elke Sommer, The Beach Boys (introducing some now very classic songs), and Walt Disney! The first skit was a parody of popular shows of that era (The Munsters, The Addams Family, Bewitched, My Mother the Car, The Fugitive, and Peyton Place), but the best skit was an Italian film style version of Mary Poppins with Elke Sommer in the title role, Bob Hope as a chauffeur, and Jack Benny as the father. There is also a great skit with Benny visiting Disney's office asking for free tickets to Disneyland for 110 guests. Lots of music from the Beach Boys and Elke Sommer (who manages to steal every scene, even up against Hope and Benny!). If you find this at an on-line auction somewhere (that's how I found it) it is well worth the investment. A classic the entire family will love.