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Explain this joke

J

johnbasalla

I was watching "The Jack Benny Program" on Antenna TV. The guest was Carol Burnett. She was on stage with Jack and one of the jokes she said is that if she had her way, she'd like to have major changes to Jack's program. She continued..."For instance, I'd like to have you come out from behind the curtain in the middle of the stage, instead of that looong walk you make from the side." Jack asks, "Well, why is that?". She says it's because other Hollywood actors and actresses are now doing the same thing. Jack asks, "Like who". Carol responds "Loretta Young"... laughter ... Jack shakes his fist and says "Now, cut that out!". I don't get the joke since I don't know much about Loretta Young. Help, if you can.
 
johnbasalla said:
I was watching "The Jack Benny Program" on Antenna TV. The guest was Carol Burnett. She was on stage with Jack and one of the jokes she said is that if she had her way, she'd like to have major changes to Jack's program. She continued..."For instance, I'd like to have you come out from behind the curtain in the middle of the stage, instead of that looong walk you make from the side." Jack asks, "Well, why is that?". She says it's because other Hollywood actors and actresses are now doing the same thing. Jack asks, "Like who". Carol responds "Loretta Young"... laughter ... Jack shakes his fist and says "Now, cut that out!". I don't get the joke since I don't know much about Loretta Young. Help, if you can.
Click to expand...
Loretta Young was a major movie star of the 30s and 40s. In the '50s, she made the transition to TV, hosting her own dramatic anthology, Loretta Young Presents.She often starred in the dramas, and always introduced each episode, making a very elaborate entrance while wearing beautiful, elegant clothing. This became the trademark of the show, and was what viewers remembered, moreso than any of the actual content of the episodes. It was often lampooned on sketch comedy shows(Carol Burnett, I'm sure, did her own takeoff on it, and even her famous 'Scarlett O'Hara' spoof on her own show may have been influenced somewhat by Young, as well as 'GWTW')
 
johnbasalla said:
I was watching "The Jack Benny Program" on Antenna TV. The guest was Carol Burnett. She was on stage with Jack and one of the jokes she said is that if she had her way, she'd like to have major changes to Jack's program. She continued..."For instance, I'd like to have you come out from behind the curtain in the middle of the stage, instead of that looong walk you make from the side." Jack asks, "Well, why is that?". She says it's because other Hollywood actors and actresses are now doing the same thing. Jack asks, "Like who". Carol responds "Loretta Young"... laughter ... Jack shakes his fist and says "Now, cut that out!". I don't get the joke since I don't know much about Loretta Young. Help, if you can.
Click to expand...

Loretta Young had a one hour anthology program on TV from about 1953 - 61 that she hosted - called (not surprisingly) The Loretta Young Show. She also acted in many of the dramas.

This is a fuzzy memory (I was a kid), but I believe she was famous for walking out to introduce the show in very expensive flowing gowns - and to show off whatever fashion she was wearing, she wouldn't walking right out from behind the curtain, but diagonally from left to right across the stage.

And if I remember correctly, comics would parody this - like Milton Berle, perobably. So Benny and Burnett were probably joining in on the fun.

I just Googled it- apparently some of the Young shows are available on DVD.
 
Me-TV is running a Loretta Young Show marathon this Sunday afternoon in honor of her 100th birthday.
 
Actually "The Loretta Young Show" was a half-hour (Sunday
10-10:30 PM on NBC) for its entire run, and her entrance
was sort of a swirling one (Wilma Flintstone once did her take
on it when she was hired to do a television show). The show
was a fixture in daytime reruns on NBC until the mid-'60s and
showed up for a while in syndication (it aired in Tampa in the
late '60s), but Ms. Young eventually asked that the show be
taken out of syndication as her dresses had gone out of style.

Ms. Young had one other series, "The New Loretta Young Show,"
on CBS; she played a widowed magazine writer with a brood of
kids (including a young Dack Rambo). Despite being part of CBS's
otherwise powerhouse Monday-night schedule it failed to make it
through the 1962-63 season (being on against ABC's "Ben Casey"
didn't help).
 
LKeller & Onairb circled the wagons well on this one. Benny's feigned offense at Burnette's barb must have been related to Loretta Young's famed entrances while dressed in exquisite gowns. I don't recall this particular Benny episode myself, but it must have been hilarious.
 
Didn't Loretta sue some distributor or other, to STOP showing her in reruns (maybe DVD), due to the outdated garb she trotted out each week?

cd
 
Didn't Loretta Lynn name her son Jack Benny Lynn?

I read somewhere that Loretta Young, during the run of her show, allegedly wore a figure enhancing leotard under her clothes that padded her breasts, hips, rear and legs. Another story was about her "cuss jar" into which her co-workers had to drop money if they swore. Someone shoved a fiver into the jar and said "why don't you go ---- yourself, Loretta?"
 
cd637299 said:
Didn't Loretta sue some distributor or other, to STOP showing her in reruns (maybe DVD), due to the outdated garb she trotted out each week?

cd
Click to expand...

I mentioned that she asked that the reruns be withdrawn because her dresses were out of date; I don't know if she sued anybody to get that done.

Re Loretta's aversion to foul language: she was, from what I've read, a devout Catholic who attended Mass practically every day. On one occasion, Jack Haley managed to talk Jackie Gleason (who was also Catholic but who rarely went to Mass) to come with him to church; Loretta saw Gleason and nearly dropped dead from shock!
 
Don't know how they obtained a copy, but EWTN occasionally airs an ep of TLYS in which Young plays a nun who's a nurse.

ixnay
 
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