Editing Jack Benny (section)

==Television==
{{Main|The Jack Benny Program}}
[[File:TrumanBennyMaxwell.jpg|right|thumb|Jack Benny (shown here shaking hands with [[Harry S. Truman]] from the seat of a c. 1908 Maxwell Roadster March 21, 1958) kept the [[Maxwell Motor Company|Maxwell]] familiar in U.S. popular culture for half a century after the brand went out of business.]]

[[File:Benny and livingstone 1960 cbs.JPG|thumb|Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone, 1960]]
After making his television debut in 1949 on local Los Angeles station [[KTTV]],<ref>April 4, 1949 Life Magazine article "Benny Tries TV", with photo and review</ref> then a CBS affiliate, the network television version of ''[[The Jack Benny Program]]'' ran from October 28, 1950, to 1965, all but the last season on CBS. Initially scheduled as a series of five "specials" during the 1950–1951 season, the show appeared every six weeks for the 1951–1952 season, every four weeks for the 1952–1953 season and every three weeks in 1953–1954. For the 1953–1954 season, half the episodes were live and half were filmed during the summer, to allow Benny to continue doing his radio show. From the fall of 1954 to 1960, it appeared every other week, and from 1960 to 1965 it was seen weekly.

On March 28, 1954, Benny co-hosted ''[[General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein]]'' with [[Groucho Marx]] and [[Mary Martin]]. In September 1954, CBS premiered Chrysler's ''[[Shower of Stars]]'' co-hosted by Jack Benny and [[William Lundigan]]. It enjoyed a successful run from 1954 until 1958. Both television shows often overlapped the radio show. In fact, the radio show alluded frequently to its television counterparts. Often as not, Benny would sign off the radio show in such circumstances with the line "Well, good night, folks. I'll see you on television."

When Benny moved to television, audiences learned that his verbal talent was matched by his controlled repertory of dead-pan facial expressions and gesture. The program was similar to the radio show (several of the radio scripts were recycled for television, as was somewhat common with other radio shows that moved to television), but with the addition of visual gags. [[Lucky Strike]] was the sponsor. Benny did his opening and closing monologues before a live audience, which he regarded as essential to timing of the material. As in other TV comedy shows, a [[laugh track]] was added to "sweeten" the soundtrack, as when the studio audience missed some close-up comedy because of cameras or microphones obstructing their view. Television viewers became accustomed to live without Mary Livingstone, who was afflicted by a striking case of stage fright that didn't lessen even after performing with Benny for 20 years. Hence, Livingstone appeared rarely if at all on the television show. In fact, for the last few years of the radio show, she pre-recorded her lines and Jack and Mary's daughter, Joan, stood in for the live taping, with Mary's lines later edited into the tape replacing Joan's before broadcast. Mary Livingstone finally retired from show business permanently in 1958, as her friend [[Gracie Allen]] had done.

Benny's television program relied more on guest stars and less on his regulars than his radio program. In fact, the only radio cast members who appeared regularly on the television program as well were [[Don Wilson (announcer)|Don Wilson]] and [[Eddie "Rochester" Anderson]]. Singer [[Dennis Day]] appeared sporadically, and [[Phil Harris]] had left the radio program in 1952, although he did make a guest appearance on the television show ([[Bob Crosby]], Phil's "replacement", frequently appeared on television through 1956). A frequent guest was the Canadian-born singer-violinist [[Gisele Mackenzie]].

As a gag, Benny made a 1957 appearance on the then-wildly popular ''[[The $64,000 Question|$64,000 Question]]''. His category of choice was "Violins", but after answering the first question correctly Benny opted out of continuing, leaving the show with just $64; host [[Hal March]] gave Benny the prize money out of his own pocket. March made an appearance on Benny's show the same year.

[[File:Benny television special postcard.JPG|thumb|right|Benny did many television specials after leaving his regularly scheduled show. This is a promotional postcard for one of them, from 1960.]]
Benny was able to attract guests who rarely, if ever, appeared on television. In 1953, both [[Marilyn Monroe]] and [[Humphrey Bogart]] made their television debuts on Benny's program.<ref>McMahon, Ed & David Fisher. ''When Television Was Young: Live, Spontaneous, and In Living Black and White.'' Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007. p. 103.</ref><ref>Becker, Christine. ''It's the Pictures That Got Small: Hollywood Film Stars in 1950s Television.'' Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2008. p. 35.</ref>

Another guest star on the Jack Benny show was [[Rod Serling]], who starred in a spoof of ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]'' in which Benny goes to his own house and finds that no one knows who he is; Jack runs away screaming in panic; Serling [[breaks the fourth wall]] and remarks not to worry about Benny on the grounds that anyone who has been 39 years old as long as he has is a citizen of the "Twilight Zone".

In 1964, [[Walt Disney]] was a guest, primarily to promote his production of ''[[Mary Poppins (film)|Mary Poppins]]''. Benny persuaded Disney to give him over 110 free admission tickets to [[Disneyland]] for his friends and one for his wife, but later in the show Disney apparently sent his pet tiger after Benny as revenge, at which point Benny opened his umbrella and soared above the stage like Mary Poppins.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{YouTube|XLdcUNTCmq8}} Jack ends TV episode as Mary Poppins</ref>

CBS dropped the show in 1964, citing Benny's lack of appeal to the younger demographic the network began courting, and he went to [[NBC]], his original network, in the fall, only to be out-rated by CBS's ''[[Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.]]'' The network dropped Benny at the end of the season. He continued to make occasional specials into the 1970s, the last one airing in January 1974. Benny also appeared on ''[[The Lucy Show]]'' twice: Once as a plumber who resembles Jack Benny and in 1967 "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's account" where Lucy takes Jack on a tour of his new money vault. In the late 1960s, Benny did a series of commercials for [[Texaco]] Sky Chief gasoline, using his "stingy" television persona, always telling the attendant, played by Dennis Day, after being implored, "Mr. Benny, won't you please fill up?", "I'll take a gallon."

[[File:Thomas benny hope benny special 1968.JPG|thumb|Benny with [[Danny Thomas]] (left) and [[Bob Hope]] (right) in a 1968 special]]
In his unpublished autobiography, ''I Always Had Shoes'' (portions of which were later incorporated by Jack's daughter, Joan Benny, into her memoir of her parents, ''Sunday Nights at Seven''), Benny said that he, not NBC, made the decision to end his TV series in 1965. He said that while the ratings were still very good (he cited a figure of some 18 million viewers per week, although he qualified that figure by saying he never believed the ratings services were doing anything more than guessing, no matter what they promised), advertisers were complaining that commercial time on his show was costing nearly twice as much as what they paid for most other shows, and he had grown tired of what was called the "rate race". Thus, after some three decades on radio and television in a weekly program, Jack Benny went out on top. In fairness, Benny himself shared [[Fred Allen|Fred Allen's]] ambivalence about television, though not quite to Allen's extent. "By my second year in television, I saw that the camera was a man-eating monster&nbsp;... It gave a performer close-up exposure that, week after week, threatened his existence as an interesting entertainer."<ref name=book/>{{rp|279}}

In a joint appearance with [[Phil Silvers]] on [[Dick Cavett]]'s show, Benny recalled that he had advised Silvers not to appear on television. However, Silvers ignored Benny's advice and proceeded to win several [[Emmy]] awards as Sergeant Bilko on the popular series ''[[The Phil Silvers Show]]''.