Here's the reprise of the previous episode of Jack Benny. The grocery store bit is fairly short, but actually pretty good as Don Wilson seems to be doing a fairly decent impression of Chico Marx. Before we get to the sketch, The cast all make their entrances as if they were sleepy and tired. Jack has been busy making movies, Frank Black and Mary have their own excuses. Also we are entertained by a violinist who doesn't play too well. No, it isn't Jack. Finally, the last segment of the show is one where Jack makes radio history to recieve an award for his work on radio. The first ever to go to a radio comedian.
The audio quality is fair, mostly due to record skips, and some noise from the needle dragging. Much of the noise seems to be from later recording when an unknown transcriber took out the music tracks. There is noise from the needle dragging and hitting scratches through the short, silent gaps with no music being played.
Trivia: Besides learning about one of Jack's earliest films being made, there are several mentions of the Marx Brothers, including an impression of Chico. Jack gets in a good ad lib. In my opinion, a little better humor than his usual writer at the time. The writing and humor of Harry Kahn was great for it's day, lots of plays on words, old jokes, even for the day, but some of those jokes are so old, it's almost like hearing them as new ones.
Mary definitely had a different approach to her character back then. She isn't quite as sassy as she would become in just a couple more years. She comes across as being a little vacant in the head, and obvlious. Later she was less so, and always ready for a snappy comeback on Jack.
Frank Black, the tenor, began the image of a naive, boyish character. We don't see much of him in this episode. His type of character would be improved on when Kenny Baker would come on board in 1935, and more still when Dennis Day replaced Kenny.
Due to the music being cut out, we don't hear much from Don Besser. His speaking parts portrayed him as the straight man who Jack's jokes never seemed to affect. In his unflappable way, we would usually deflect the jabs, and have a terse comeback based more in reality than comedy.
The final regular cast member, Don Wilson is always ready to turn the slightest play on words into a Jello commercial. He does more character acting in his early days. He did work on other shows all through his career, but once teamed up with Jack, he would stay on as a cast member until the finaly show on both radio and television.
Bonus Tracks:
Billy Murray. Starlight Moon. 1908.
Tommy Dorsey. Until the Moon Disappears.
PS: It looks like I'm late again with the Friday show. I also broke my theme a little. I'm in a transition phase with my collection between three hardrives, and a stack of CD's. I couldn't find the show I had intended to do, so I thought it would be a good time to play the second part of Jack's Grocery. Besides being funny, it has some historical moments in it. Due to it's shortness, with the music numbers being taken out, I decided to sandwich it between a couple of songs. A real oldie from 1908, and one that actually came after the time of this program, performed by Tommy Dorsey.
![[PLAY]](http://retro.podOmatic.com/img/play_button.gif)
