Jack Benny TV Special 1970-01-21 Friars Club Roast Of Jack Benny - Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Johnny Carson, George Burns, Milton Berle, Vice President Spiro Agnew, etc
I apologize for looking around at the start of the show. I had a time crunch deadline and people kept texting me. This is the special I was waiting for so I apologize that I appear to be not fully engaged at times.
The Dean Martin roasts were staged solely for television and, therefore, all jokes were sanitized. Those roasts were different from the genuine ones by the Friars Club. However, I have a feeling that this particular roast was also sanitized for television. Even in earlier decades, the Friars Club roasts supposedly included “bluer” humor than would be used by the comedians onstage.
It for sure was. I've listened to a few. It's quite clear that the audio roasts were never intended to go outside of the room, and if they were, they felt pretty uninhibited. But I do like this one over the Dean Roast.
NBC was so happy with Berle in early days of television they gave him lifetime contract. by the time I started watching tv in 60';s and 70's they were pushing him to do something and he was mostly annoying
