Remembering The Jack Benny Program Quiz

Answer: The Sportsmen Quartet

It's the Sportsmen Quartet. Old-time comedy or variety radio shows usually had a band and singers. They would usually do a number in the middle of the broadcast or performance about the show's sponsor, such as Benny sponsors Jell-O, Grape-Nuts and Lucky Strike cigarettes. One fantastic running gag was Benny's inability to get his pitchmen, The Sportsmen Quartet, to cooperate.

The Sportsmen would sing the show's Lucky Strikes commercial then go on an out-of-control tangent that eventually left Benny screaming, "Wait - a - minute!" A few times Benny tried to fire them, especially on one occasion in 1954 where the skit got out of hand that Benny broke the fourth wall to talk directly to the studio audience.

The Ink Spots was an all-black quartet that sometimes appeared on Benny's show.

The Andrew Sisters were famous during World War II. I made up The Dapper Dans.

Answer: Professor LeBlanc

Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny (and about 1,000 other voices), played various roles on Benny's show, including Professor LeBlanc, who tried - and failed - to teach Benny how to play violin. In one episode, as Benny went through his exercises, the professor kept time by saying,

"Play it softly
Play it smoothly
One-se, two-se
I hates you-se."

Answer: Polly the Parrot

While Polly the Parrot appeared on Benny's radio show, it never guarded Benny's legendary vault, where he kept all of his money. Usually guarding the vault was a Revolutionary War veteran, who almost never left the vault and had no idea what century it was.

A quicksand trap appeared on the TV show. In 1939, Benny introduced a new protection measure: a polar bear named Carmichael, voiced by the incomparable Mel Blanc (who also did the soldier and Polly the parrot).

Answer: Mary Livingston, who ordered a "chiss sweeze" sandwich

During a scenario set in a diner on the Oct. 27, 1946, show, Mary (Benny's real-life wife Mary Livingstone) was supposed to order a Swiss cheese sandwich. The line was supposed to be the last one spoken before a big payoff. But Mary accidentally mangled the line (YOU try saying Swiss cheese perfectly every time!) and what was originally supposed to be a simple line that moved the story along turned into one of the show's greatest screamers. Benny tossed away the carefully orchestrated script and stuck with the flub for the rest of the show. Phil Harris did call Benny "Jackson" but never "Action Jackson." Dennis Day didn't mangle "Danny Boy." And for more than a decade, the show was sponsored by Lucky Strikes, but Don Wilson did not flub the sponsor as indicated above.

Answer: Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga

Mel Blanc first begged passengers on Jan. 7, 1945, to get aboard the "train leaving on Track 9 for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga." Blanc became increasingly desperate to get passengers for the train, even sobbing that he would lose his job. In subsequent versions of the gag, the word "Cucamonga" was stretched out; on one occasion, Blanc said "Cu" and then 10 minutes later chimed in with "camonga."

Answer: Ronald Colman

While all four appeared at various times on Benny's shows (Benny and Jimmy Stewart were close friends), real-life couple Ronald and Bonita Colman played themselves as Jack Benny's exasperated neighbors, who thought Jack was a buffoon.

Answer: Ronald Colman's Oscar

The mugger took Ronald Colman's Oscar, which he had won in 1947 for "A Double Life." This March 28, 1948, gag was the most famous one that Benny ever did and eventually became Benny's signature joke concerning his famous stinginess. The set-up: Benny went to his next-door neighbor (on radio, anyway), actor Ronald Colman, to borrow his Oscar to show it to Don Wilson. On the way back home, a mugger held up Benny at gunpoint, threatening him by saying, "Your money or your life!" After stalling, Benny famously said, "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!" The rest was radio history.

Answer: False

According to Benny, it's false. While "Your money or your life!" became Benny's signature gag, it didn't get the biggest laugh. The biggest laugh, Benny once said, came on April 25, 1948, with famous opera singer Dorothy Kirsten as the guest star. She and the announcer, Don Wilson, talked on and on about opera, while Benny and Mary listened.

The buildup went on for minutes, eating up a significant chunk of the show. Benny, as the opinionated know-it-all, of course just had to have his say in the conversation.

The audience knew it and expected Benny to arrogantly put in his two cents about all things opera. Silent for a long time, Benny finally tried to butt in. He got no further than "Well, I think - " when Mary cut him off with "Oh, shut up." And the audience lost it. Benny explained later: "That was the longest laugh we ever got.

It went on for minutes. We just couldn't continue. (Such a situation is) bigger than a joke. It's better than a joke. It's more important than a joke." (Quote source: "Jack Benny: A Biography in Sound," a circa-1960s LP.)

Answer: "If you say 'I beg your pardon,' then I'll come back to you"

One of Jack Benny's longest-running gags started in 1951 on radio and lasted to the end of his television show in 1965. Jack "wrote" a really awful song, with a terrible tune, lousy lyrics and the tongue-trippy title, "If you say 'I beg your pardon,' then I'll come back to you." Jack would use various tricks and cons to get his guest stars and other radio show hosts to sing the song, but it was so wretched that no one ever made it through. Even his close friend George Burns labored through the torturous tune every once in a while on the Burns & Allen Show, but apparently never reached the last note.

Answer: Allen tricked Benny out of his pants by making him "King for a Day"

Fred Allen started a long-running friendly and very funny "feud" with his great friend Jack Benny. A simple line started it in 1937, after a young guest on Benny's program played his violin better than Benny ever could. Later that evening on his own show, Allen remarked that, "Jack Benny ought to be ashamed of himself." And it took off from there.

The two traded barbs almost weekly, sometimes coming on the other's show to do it. Audiences loved it. The feud was always best when Allen got the best of Benny.

The greatest instance came on May 26, 1946, on Allen's show when Allen tricked Benny into becoming a contestant for his new (but phony) show, "King for a Day," based on a real show called "Queen for a Day." The ending is one of the wildest and funniest in radio history with Allen causing Jack literally to lose his pants. Allen's announcer wasn't even able to get in the closing commercial. I made up the other gags, although on one occasion, Allen and Benny ripped off each other's shows by having their casts perform variations of the other's show.

Answer: Rochester socked Benny and knocked him down

During one radio program, Benny's valet, Rochester - beautifully played by the gravelly-voiced Eddie Anderson - punched Benny and knocked him down. Benny was trying to prove that he was tough enough to take a punch from fellow radioman Fred Allen; so, a reluctant Rochester socked him in the jaw.

He didn't actually hit Benny; it was done with sound effects and was part of a funny gag, but racists were outraged that a black man knocked down a white man on one of the country's most popular radio shows. Benny didn't care, regardless of the mail he received from outraged people.

After all, Rochester usually got the better of Benny, just as the other cast members did.

Answer: Frank Nelson

Frank Nelson played various supporting roles for years on Benny's TV and radio shows. His signature line was greeting Benny contemptuously with "Yeeeeeeeesss?" followed by sarcastic put-downs. Bob Crosby, brother of Bing Crosby, joined the cast toward the end of the radio show's run, replacing bandleader Phil Harris. Kenny Delmar was one of Fred Allen's cast members. And Gale Gordon starred on "Our Miss Brooks" as the pompous principal.

Answer: Mary Livingstone

Mary Livingstone, Benny's real-life wife, never had her own show. Phil Harris starred with his wife, Alice, on "The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show." Dennis Day, a fantastic singer, starred in "A Day in the Life of Dennis Day." Mel Blanc, truly a man of a thousand voices, had his own short-lived radio show called "The Mel Blanc Show."

Answer: A postman

Blanc played all of those roles regularly on Benny's show except the postman. The postman was Blanc's long-suffering, hen-pecked husband who delivered mail on the Burns and Allen Show. Blanc supplied the sounds for Benny's broken-down Maxwell car, sounds that he later duplicated for the late-1960s cartoon "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop," as The Ant Hill Mob's car "Chug-a-boom." During World War II, Jack visited a department store to buy a silly and cheap (cheap being key) present for his announcer, Don Wilson. Mel Blanc played the clerk who helped him.

Unfortunately, Jack kept changing his mind about the gift, sending Blanc over the edge. The scenario was so popular it became a Christmas-season staple.

Answer: His bathroom was coin-operated

It's the bathroom. Probably the longest-running Jack Benny joke was that he was a stingy ol' miser. He played the part so well that people thought the miser was the real Benny, even though he was actually a very generous man. While Benny didn't have a coin-operated bathroom in his fictional house (he did have a coin-operated lamp and a candy machine), he was in real life "caught" in a public bathroom that had coin-operated stalls. Benny dropped a dime on the floor.

It rolled into a stall, and when he crawled out from under the door after retrieving his dime, a fan was standing next to him with a huge grin on his face.

The fan thought he had caught Jack Benny in the act of getting a free bowel movement!

Answer: The Horn Blows at Midnight

While Benny starred or played in all of these films, only "The Horn Blows at Midnight" was a pure bomb. Benny starred as a really bad trumpet player in a heavenly orchestra who was tasked with blowing the horn of judgment at midnight to signal the end of the world. On his radio and TV shows, Benny and his writers made the movie and Benny's lead role the butt of many jokes and gags. For example, in one 1950s radio show, Benny and company went to a drive-in theater. When "The Horn Blows at Midnight" was announced as a surprise second feature, everyone in the drive-in fled except for Benny.

Sadly, "To Be or Not To Be" was Benny's co-star Carol Lombard's last film, as the much-loved actress died in a plane crash in January 1942.

Answer: Don Wilson

Dennis Day joined the Navy in 1944, serving until 1946. When he returned, he rejoined "The Jack Benny Program" and also launched his own show, "A Day in the Life of Dennis Day." A running gag soon developed where Day crowed over the fact that he had two shows. Jack Benny served in the Navy in the First World War. And Phil Harris, along with his entire band, joined the Navy in 1942, serving until the end of the war. Harris rejoined the cast as band-leader, remaining with Jack Benny until 1952. Like Dennis Day, Phil Harris launched his own show after the war, starring opposite his real-life wife, Alice Faye.

Answer: CBS

Apparently chafing under his treatment by NBC, Benny accepted William S. Paley's offer to come to CBS. Benny ended the radio show in 1955.

Answer: Grape-Nuts

Between 1942 and 1944, Grape-Nuts sponsored the Jack Benny program. Previously, his sponsors were Canada Dry Ginger Ale (1932-1933), Chevrolet (1933-1934), General Tire (1934) and Jell-O (1934-1942). Between 1944 and 1955, Lucky Strikes cigarettes sponsored the radio show.

Answer: Love in Bloom

"Love in Bloom," which Benny sometimes hummed to himself on his show, was combined with "Yankee Doodle Dandy" for Benny's signature theme. "Hooray for Hollywood" usually ended the show. "I'll Be Seeing You" was a popular song during World War II. "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" was one of the theme songs for Warner Bros. "Loony Toons" and "Merry Melodies" cartoons.