The __________ Show Starring Jack Benny

[visaman]

Re: The __________ Program Starring Jack Benny

It's also not clear which radio program you listened to: Jell-O, Grape Nuts or Lucky Strike.

You forgot The Canada Dry Program, starting in 1932, on the NBC Blue Network. Now that first Program was vastly different from the program we are used to.

The shows belonged to the sponsors, and I guess the sponsors wanted a winning formula.

 

[visaman]

the discs were made for the fighting boys in WW2. The Armed Forces Network, would ask the networks to edit out the live commercials, so more often than not, the commercials were replaced with music. That is what we hear today, and that's why the music seems to break in arbitrary.

Speaking of WW2, Benny would do 2 live shows a night, one for the East Coast and one for the West Coast. On December 7, 1941, Benny had just done the East Coast show when the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was released. The West Coast show had to be canceled, due to the West Coast blackout. All the lights went out from the coast of British Columbia to California.

 

[MattParker]

Speaking of WW2, Benny would do 2 live shows a night, one for the East Coast and one for the West Coast. On December 7, 1941, Benny had just done the East Coast show when the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was released. The West Coast show had to be canceled, due to the West Coast blackout. All the lights went out from the coast of British Columbia to California.

The attack was at dawn in Hawaii. News reports were being broadcast in the early afternoon (around 1pm) Eastern Time - mid-morning Pacific Time. Black-outs were frequent in major coastal cities during World War. Radio broadcasts were not cancelled.

What were you doing when you heard the news was a key point in Stalag 17 (they were having lunch in Cleveland).

 

[Ultimajock]

Speaking of WW2, Benny would do 2 live shows a night, one for the East Coast and one for the West Coast. On December 7, 1941, Benny had just done the East Coast show when the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was released. The West Coast show had to be canceled, due to the West Coast blackout. All the lights went out from the coast of British Columbia to California.

...the announcement of the Pearl Harbor attack was made around 2:30 P.M. Eastern Time (11:30 A.M. Pacific), hours before Benny's first scheduled broadcast that day...

 

[MattParker]

Reuters had it on the wire ahead of the official announcement - and ahead of AP, UP and INS.

 

[Ultimajock]

The attack was at dawn in Hawaii. News reports were being broadcast in the early afternoon (around 1pm) Eastern Time - mid-morning Pacific Time. Black-outs were frequent in major coastal cities during World War. Radio broadcasts were not cancelled.

...throughout much of the war, radio broadcasts would continue during blackouts. However, on 7 December 1941, there was a complete blackout ordered of all of Washington, Oregon and California. I have the aircheck of KIRO Seattle announcing its 7:00 P.M. sign-off that night, and a Blue Network newscast from 11:30 P.M. Eastern Time (8:30 Pacific) that includes a description from San Francisco of the blackout, including a comment that the Blue Network affiliate in San Francisco, KGO, was not airing the broadcast as they were off the air. Benny's West Coast broadcast that night was indeed scrubbed, as most of the Mountain zone Red Network affiliates took the East Coast feed, so Benny would have been feeding to stations that weren't even on the air...

 

[Ultimajock]

Reuters had it on the wire ahead of the official announcement - and ahead of AP, UP and INS.

...but only by a matter of minutes, and Reuters was rarely used by local stations, mainly networks. The earliest documented bulletin broadcast about the attack by a U.S. station was at 2:24 Eastern Time, with WOR New York interrupting its broadcast of the New York Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers NFL game, using the 2:22 AP flash. (There's no indication that WOR was feeding the game to the Mutual network.) John Daly at CBS was narrating the dramatic program Spirit of '41, and conflicting reports have Daly interrupting that broadcast at 2:25 with the bulletin, or waiting until the scheduled The World Today newscast at 2:30. NBC aired its first bulletin at 2:29, shortening the station break on the Red Network before The University of Chicago Roundtable and interrupting the Blue Network program Great Plays...

 

[landtuna]

I have a recording of the Jack Benny Program (Jello sponsor) dtd 7 Dec 1941 which begins with a network voice advising that "additional information on the attack will be announced as it becomes available". The program then begins with the orchestra number "The Gay Ranchero". It is obvious that the people doing this show knew about the attack upon Pearl Harbor but it isn't clear where this show is originating or what time zone it was intended for. There is also no station identification.

 

[Ultimajock]

I have a recording of the Jack Benny Program (Jello sponsor) dtd 7 Dec 1941 which begins with a network voice advising that "additional information on the attack will be announced as it becomes available". [snip] There is also no station identification.

...I suspect the lack of station ID doesn't actually mean much. Some of Benny's surviving recordings have station ID's; the premiere Canada Dry program does have a WJZ New York ID at the end (with the earliest known recording of the G-E-C variation of the NBC Chimes), indicating Benny's beginnings on the Blue Network rather than the Red, and most of the broadcasts from the period of the initial "feud with Fred Allen" in 1937 feature IDs and the occasional commercial from KFI Los Angeles. But starting around 1939, there aren't many -- I can't actually recall any -- that have an ID of any sort aside from the Red Network/NBC, CBS and Armed Forces Radio Service network tags. However, on the 7 December 1941 broadcast that I have, midpoint through Dennis Day's song, there is a bulletin making general reference to local police and sheriff's departments (without actually identifying the municipality or county involved). As it is of a much higher sound quality than most of NBC's surviving airchecks of that day, which were recorded on paper-based Memovox discs, and there also exists a high-quality transcription of George Putnam's local WEAF New York newscast (yes, that George Putnam) from 11:00 P.M. Eastern, it's safe to assume the Benny program transcription originated from either WEAF or, as a lesser possibility, WMAQ Chicago...