Jack Benny’s Comic Legacy is Alive & … Well!

To those of you who are fortunate enough to be in Austin on Monday December 8, don’t miss the free-for-all History Of Television show. We do these every other month and this month we pay a long overdue tribute to a man who, pretty much more than anybody else, created the sitcom as we know it. His enormously popular radio show was succeeded in the ’50s by a television version that kept the looseness, geniality, intimacy and good humor of the radio show. Jack Benny was a comic catalyst who gave his collaborators most of the good lines and managed to to wonders with a look or a small gesture.

We will be joined by UT Professor Kathryn Fuller-Seely, who is writing what we hope will be the definitive book about Jack Benny for introductions and information about Benny, his times & his legacy.

Here are a couple of clips of Benny in his element with famous guest stars.

Rod Serling (cutting up!):

Marilyn Monroe: