In the last show of the season, the success of the competing show "Stop the Music" is mocked. The denizens of Allen's Alley discuss their upcoming vacations. In a sketch, Fred goes to visit his nemesis, Jack Benny. otrcomedy.blogspot.com
My dad was born in 1931 and he loved this show. He would have been in high school at this point. He loved comedy, and some of his favorites were Milton Berle, George Burns, Jackie Gleason, Johnny Carson, etc. He is gone now, but I'm grateful that he passed on his love of comedy to me.
"I have to see Jack off" ...How did that line get pass the censors?😂😂😂😂 It's still a funny program. Jack was a master of timing and allowed his friends to make him the butt of jokes. Fred Allen was a master of the rapier wit and I heard he used to read at least a dozen newspapers. These guys were the kings of radio comedy.
People weren't so crude-minded in those days. That term was not well known and certainly not acknowledged in public. You must be too young to remember Jocelyn Elders.
@@jamespfitz Dude, In those days there used to be something called " eight pagers", little sex cartoon books , with jokes ,"The kind men like". These booklets were also known as " Jo Jo books", "Tillie and Mac" or "Maggie and Jiggs" books. These books had popular comic strip characters or movie stars in sexual situations. The artwork and stories were crude but it dealt with sexual humor for working class adults. These " Tijuana Bibles" were passed around secretly because a person could go to jail for selling them because of their sexual jokes and nudity. A comic strip character would use the term "jack off "or " jerk" off if he couldn't get laid. These books were popular in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. I'm sure there were a lot of ex GI's , Sailors and Marines in the audience that day and got the punchline. Fred Allen probably thought the line would probably go over the heads of the censors at NBC, lol. I remember Jocelyn Elders, she was the first African American Surgeon General in the first Bill Clinton administration (1993) and was forced to resign because of her comments about masturbation.
@@shawnmalone9711 "Fred Allen probably thought the line would go over the heads of the censors." And therefore the audience, per my original point. I'm quite aware dirty jokes existed then-- they existed in ancient Rome. My point, as you've corroborated, was that the joke wasn't understood by anybody in the audience who didn't read dirty comic books, which was most everybody. 40 years later Jocelyn Elders was vilified for mentioning "jacking off" in MEDICAL terms. I refuse to believe that most of the people in that audience, or listening, knew what jack off meant. (Let's just start with the fact that a small majority of them were women.)
'STOP THE MUSIC", which indeed aired directly opposite Fred on Sunday nights, was drawing more listeners by this time- and Fred, who was genuinely disgusted at HOW many people were tuning away from his program, kept "needling" it during most of 1948.
dlsofsetx I once heard Trump's voice was modelled on a cheap social climbing con man-circus barker from Queens who imagines the world revolves around his bellybutton and every incoherent word that escapes his Ralph Cramden-like BIG mouth... Queen Elizabeth's; not from Queens btw, secret name for LaTrumpa is reportedly, His Imperious Travesty, Trumpius da Foist, a regularly pain in the Monarchs rear admiralty. Prince Philip, always a bit sharper in his assessment of people, has noted that the foist couple of America, are Trump and the Courtesan, ie. tramp. He' s a tad salty at 98, but so far the marriage has lasted 72 years, and HMQ has remained otherwise mum on the matter of "US President Presidential couples I have known, with this exception: She reportedly was wild about Harry(Truman)but not so much about his Boss, Bess.
@@dlsofsetx Actually it was modeled after those Southern Senators that , every time a civil rights measure would come up for a debate, would literally would go on for Days - Even Weeks - sometimes months, going off on the wildest tangents (Like reciting Corn bread recipes) just to waste the time and help kill the bill. This was before the other side learned how to use cloture.
DWD I think that Fred Allen had a drier wit as a political satirist and needed certain people to play off of...Jack had a wider range not only with his bunch of oddballs to play off of but he could be stingy/childish/ great lover/violinist on his own...
@@KeithDec25 Good observation. If ‘pulling taffy’...making air-time marketable w/marginal material is desirable skill in broadcasting, and it certainly is, then Allen could spin cotton candy from practically nothing. And his ad libs belie a LONG vaudeville tradition of stagecraft, where live action and no second takes were the norm. Making most of the momentary flubs, and, occasionally going to the well just slightly too often, he took some pretty lame ‘comedy’ and sold Fords and everything else,...”warmed the seats.” Basically the straightman playing off the characters. Benny also needed foils to play off, but lapsed into character himself much. In later years relied on schtick and was very scripted.
