Harry Conn / Jack Benny
In Volume Three of Jack Benny’s Lost Broadcasts, (25 episodes from October 30, 1932 to January 26, 1933), Benny and scriptwriter Harry Conn face upheaval on every front. Sponsor Canada Dry moves them to a new network (CBS) and different broadcast nights (Thursdays at 8:15pm and Sundays at 10:00 pm). New bandleader Ted Weems and songstress Andrea Marsh take the place of George Olsen and Ethel Shutta, but Mary Livingstone’s role expands. Canada Dry insists that Sid Silvers join the cast as writer and stooge, and demands that the show narrative change to have Jack become a frustrated Broadway producer. After several weeks, Benny, Conn and Livingstone rebel. The sponsor backs down, and the show revives the comic banter, movie parodies and humorous ads that had made Benny famous. Until the rug is pulled out from under them. Highlights of Volume Three include:Gracie Allen and George Burns burst into the January 8 episode as she searches for her missing brother George, winning national attentionParodies abound of popular films like Grand Hotel, stage chestnuts like Bertha the Sewing Machine Girl, and origins of the Diddleberries versus Van Twiffs feudHigh-stakes drama for Benny surrounding Canada Dry’s imposition of the 'Bubbles of 1932' Broadway production storyline onto his show These 25 fascinating radio scripts show Benny facing some of the biggest challenges of his career. Kathryn Fuller-Seeley is the author of Jack Benny and the Golden Age of Radio Comedy (2017) and books on early motion pictures and nickelodeon audiences. She teaches media history at the University of Texas at Austin.
