WA010 – The first Jack Benny radio show (May 2, 1932)

Notes on a historical landmark

Jack Benny in 1933, PR photo via Wikipedia Commons

The Canada Dry Ginger Ale Program (NBC Blue Network, May 2, 1932)

I’ve been going to bed every night for months by putting on an episode of a Conan O’Brien podcast and letting it put me to sleep. I don’t mean to imply that it’s boring. I mean to imply that it works like talk radio—except, I began to notice more and more, that it also works like a sitcom. Like a specific sitcom—like the father of all sitcoms, The Jack Benny Show. Conan is Benny, vain and thin-skinned (but also lightning quick, he kills verbally where Benny used silence), Sona is Mary Livingstone combined with Rochester, Matt is a combination of Dennis Day and Phil Harris. (The Conan and Jordan Show is subject for further consideration.)