60 Piece Orchestra RARE Jack Benny Television Show episode 

I am a professional violinist, and I play in a symphony orchestra. First of all, the violin he is playing with the orchestra in this episode is a Stradivarius which he willed to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and is played by the associate concertmaster there to this day. He has a very relaxed style and plays amazingly well for someone who did not have a formal violin education. In other episodes he pretends to play poorly which, as @floydriggle857 said, is very difficult to do. In this episode he plays a few difficult licks, but most of the really hard things are played by the first violins - some of which he plays along with. All the episodes in which he plays, either alone, or with violinists like Isaac Stern,and manages to clown around at the same time are absolute genius - and so hilarious! The sad thing, at least from my perspective, is that I think people used to be able to relate to listening to melodic instruments like the violin, but these days most people don’t even know what a Stradivarius is anymore, much less can they relate to anything like what is happening in this episode. 😢

I love this episode. I have never seen it but have searched for years to grab an example of Jack Benny REALLY playing the violin. Loved it.

One of the genius ways that Jack worked was how he worked commercials in - rather than read copy they worked it into the storyline most of the time. Brilliant man

My gosh. Jack Benny was not only one of the greatest comedians but immensely talented violinist. And can we also talk about how great an actor he had to be to pull off the "bad violist" act??? I'm a huge fan who discovered JB only a few years ago & now I can't get enough of his hilarity on especially radio show classics in which he & his equally talented band of actors serve endless laughs. The way I get excited whenever I discover an episode, like this one, which I haven't seen!!! And not even even being on vacation, in another country, can stop me from streaming this man's gems who, also, was very handsome. 😃 Thank you. Please keep more coming. 🙏

That musical sketch with Jack and the studio orchestra was terrific!

I love the story about how Jack Benny joined the US Navy in WW1 and was in a military troupe entertaining the sailors . The MC of the troupe was Pat O' Brian later a famous actor himself. Jack played his violin straight for the audience of US Sailors and they didnt want to hear it, the Sailors wanted to see showgirls/ comedians and the crowd got restless. O' Brian pulled Jack off the stage and told him to stop playing the violin or the Sailors will riot. O'Brian suggested that Jack just talk and tell stories to the sailors. Which Benny did and intentially playing his violin badly. The Navy Sailors loved it and that was the start of a wonderful career. Jack Benny a real Veteran of the US Navy performed Military shows for free for decades. True or not? But Ive heard that story several times including by Pat O' Brian.

Wow! Who dug this up? I thought I had all the rare episodes that the club and friends have seen, but have never seen this one! I’ve been to the Paley center soI know there’s a lot more unreleased live episodes out there, keep ‘‘em coming guys. So glad you are collaborating to bring the club this new RU-vid channel!

Classical mind, classical music, classical comedy. Superb. LSMFT!

His best performance available on film is his performance with Isaac Stern at Carnegie Hall, with a hilarious speech afterwards

Jack Benny, who had played the violin from the age of three has claims to be one of the greatest violinists cog the twentieth century. If he had stuck to it and not gone into comedy, maybe the greatest. His style I find much more appealing than Stern’s whom he was more than a match for when the played Bach’s double violin concerto. A remarkable man (whom I’ve only discovered recently) .

Wow! A long time fan of Jack Benny here, and I have never seen this. IT WAS WONDERFUL! Thank you for posting it.

Brilliant episode ❤👏

Need to add one more thought. Jack was an excellent Comedian. Jack was also an excellent and well trained Violinist . How could I say this? You watch this clip and you see and hear Love in Bloom performed correctly. But watch other clips of "Jack" playing badly. and it always got a laugh. It takes a very qualified musician who can take an instrument, and play it "WRONG" and the "RIGHT" time. Jack could have done poorly with Love in Bloom or any other piece at any point in the number. There could have been any where from NO response to a titter. But Jack knew where to put it so it would get a great laugh, and where his prior playing complemented the mistake. Such a class act. As Bob Hope saId at Jack's Funeral "When Benny Kubelsky was born, who in their wildest dreams would imagine that eighty years later, at the event of his passing, every television program, every radio show would stop, and that every magazine and newspaper would headline it on their front pages."

I think the description is a little backwards. It's actually the very rare 5th episode of the 3rd season of the Jack Benny Show. What a delight to be able to see this! Thank you so much!

Please more ‘lost’ episodes, if you got them .

16:55- That's Larry Kurkdjie, the concertmaster in Mahlon Merrick's studio orchestra. He initially gave violin lessons to Jack when he wanted to play "seriously" for this episode....and for when he later gave "charity concerts" with symphonic orchestras.

Wow😮

Wasn’t he great. ❤

Smoking cigarettes commercial 😂, it's almost disappeared from tv