foreign
[Music]
welcome to this day in Jack Benny I'm
John Henderson this is not an episode of
The Jack Benny Program but a bonus
episode I had the opportunity to speak
with the great film critic and historian
Leonard Moulton about his book The Great
American broadcast I co-hosted with my
friend Zach Eastman so sit back and
enjoy the show
[Music]
welcome thank you thank you we are here
to talk about your book The Great
American broadcast and how in doing that
and all the lovely work you've done in
film over the years that you um got to
interact with a lot of the Benny cast
and crew but
um I want to kick it off with this first
question before we let John kind of
handle some stuff here what prompted you
to write the book and how did you come
about the process of handling radio
research versus film research
well it happened because my wife's
favorite actor is Ronald Coleman and a
friend said well have you heard the Jack
Benny episodes with Ronald Coleman and
we said I'm sorry but it's true at the
time we said duh no
so he gave us he gave us audio cassettes
and we started listening to them in the
car fell in love with them we just kind
of got hooked we went to our first bird
back meeting
and uh saw our first Recreation of old
time radio with
original old-time radio actors wow yeah
this is almost 40 years ago so a great
many of them were still alive and I fell
in love with all of that and when I fall
in love with something I have to write
about that's just just my Mo so I I
Pissed My publisher
uh a book and so and then other things
got in the way so it took me 11 years
wow to to write it which uh turned out
to be a blessing because I kept meeting
new people
and getting new information and new
material
and I also got to rethink and and
rewrite absolutely I'm very proud of the
book it it didn't uh make the best
seller list uh but uh but I'm very very
proud of it yeah I I just got my copy in
the mail I'm really looking forward to
reading it can I still get my free CD
well Carl Amari is still uh alive and
well I don't and he's the kind of guy
that would probably make good
that's awesome I had this what I thought
was a a perfect
buy an idea which was to glue a little
sleeve
inside the the yeah of the hardcover
book
with a CD inside you know multimedia why
not Carl was going to do it for free for
alamari of Radio Spirits
but uh penguin my publisher uh said it's
going to cost 50 cents to glue
no sleeves and we don't want to spend
that
and I was ahead of the game just by them
publishing
oh yeah in the first place so so in
doing the research for the book tell us
a little bit about the people you met
like Dennis day I was working then for
Entertainment Tonight
which at that time was a hugely
successful and popular show yes and
being affiliated with it opened doors
for me it just gave me access
to all sorts of people Dennis came to ET
to do an interview or some Nostalgia
piece they were working on and so I of
course grabbed hold of him for an
additional 10 or 15 minutes so it was a
very brief chat that I had with him but
he was such a nice man ready willing
eager to talk about
his time with with Jack uh what year
approximately was this well this I'm
guessing in the mid to late 80s yeah the
single most exciting
moment that I had in this Arena
was that I got to attack Frank Nelson on
the shoulder today oh mister
mister
and he turned around and said in it a
level at a volume level that I dare not
try to reproduce
[Laughter]
[Music]
but but he was just a lovely man and a
wonderful interview
so um in the in the process of meeting
the cast I think one name sticks out for
not just radio fans but animation fans
and it's Phil Harris well yes one time
that was his calling card
for uh for vast numbers of people he's
blue he's blue the bear they were
reissuing the Aristocats
and that was
my opportunity to have Entertainment
Tonight book an interview with him wow
they decided to do it at Disneyland in a
nice comfortable uh bench with Tom
Sawyer Island behind us I met Alice face
subsequent to that here too later she
said uh who are purple sweater that New
York said yes she said I chose that
sweater
[Laughter]
and I have a I have a souvenir photo of
the two of us sitting on that bench he
was just he was just what you wanted
Phil Harris to be open and friendly and
easy to talk to and he loved Jack
just you can see him on the the episode
of this is your life you can see the
affection
between them and uh and he was so
grateful somebody everyone was grateful
to Jack
uh because Jack was generous
both literally and figuratively Ellie
it's uh Lewis
said Jack would send him little bonus
checks
when when he got laughs doing his
Oddball character yeah
and Elliott Lewis was a big time like he
went on to be a big time old-time radio
producer too right yes he did he wound
up writer producer director and
incidentally accurate I asked everybody
I interviewed who's the best radio actor
and all the West Coast people said
without hesitation Elliott Lewis huh but
he wound up playing Frankie remley yeah
that's right Phil Harris Alice face show
for for a number of years uh because he
enjoyed it and there was a point
actually even to when they when they
ceased using the remley name later on in
the uh Phil and Alice show they just
referred to him as Elliot but Phil was
very grateful
to jack for the fact that when he got
when Phil and Alice got their own show
on Sunday night immediately following
Jack at 7 30 Jack moved to CBS they were
on NBC and Jack made sure that Phil's
segment
and the Jack Benny show occurred in the
first quarter hour right to give Phil
time to go
down the block to uh to NBC from CBS
yeah and he didn't take that for granted
at all absolutely I think a lot of his
cast were generous to him because he had
been generous to them in the past yes
and as far as get I interviewed Lauren
the call once I asked what it was like
to
and Bogart here together
um Jack Benny's show right yeah I said
you know essentially what she said was
he felt safe they felt safe they knew
that they would not be embarrassed in
any way right yeah they were in good
hands there is another uh cast member
that I I'm always eternally fascinated
by this man because he is a um he he
would go on to become a very major TV
Legend uh Sheldon Leonard yes yeah Bill
Leonard I can't say I got to know him
well but I got to talk to him on several
occasions
and and one time did a formal interview
with him this is a man who's resume uh
is one of the longest and most eclectic
of of anybody associated with Jack
uh
because he started as an actor yeah
actor
um and he played little of everything
it's like Good Guys bad guys and
everything in between
he was a very good actor and of course
he had he kind of cornered the market on
playing
under certain underworld types yes and
that was perpetuated in a very funny way
by The Jack Benny show where he was the
the racetrack cow would say hey hey bud
and and he is the one who actually got
to say to Jack Benny your money or your
life
oh really I think it's the television
one in which he does it ah did you speak
to him at all about uh any of his
television producing like his
involvement in the Dick Van Dyke Show uh
just a little bit so because that's what
everybody asked him about sure but he
too you know he he liked everyone that I
that I met uh was happy to be part of
the extended Jack Benny ensemble
and again it took no persuasion to get
him to talk about George balzer one of
Jack's writers did it feel any different
talking to a writer did you feel like
you had to ask him different types of
questions as opposed to
um a performer or well sure of course
yeah and and I wanted to put it in I
wanted to have some context to
understand his career before and after
he was a very nice man he was retired
the thing I remember most
has nothing to do with actual writing
Jack came back from a meeting one day
well fellas we're set for another seven
years
and uh
as George said you know you just didn't
hear things like that it just didn't
happen
of course no one could have known what
kind of upheaval television would
create
and how they would deal with it they
dealt with it beautifully of course no
but no one could have predicted that
it appears seamless to us but it was not
read reviews of the first TV show
you know and not everybody was happy
yeah you know you talk about the
transition to television and unlike
William Conrad the cast of The Jack
Benny show more or less fits the
characters that they had been playing
and I wonder when you met them in real
life how closely did like Phil Harris
and Dennis day fit the characters that
they had played I think it's fair to say
in almost no way
Phil Harris told me that he and Alice
didn't want to do a TV show too much
work they were very happy living in the
Palm Springs area
but they wanted to be active they just
didn't want to overdo it and that's why
they chose to do a radio show
they could drive up on say Friday
and do rehearsal and dress rehearsal
Saturday you know and and uh then have
the rest of the week to themselves back
back where they were comfortable where
they were raising two daughters
so he was he was far from
the happy-go-lucky hard drinking right
Playboy Jack took one part of you
and then Amplified it 500 times or put
it under a microscope and then there is
a there's a a blank in the room what is
it like sitting in a room or talking to
Mel Blanc
well he was one of my idols
I wrote him a fan letter when I was like
12 years old and he answered he answered
on stationary
that had kind of a light rendering of
Bugs Bunny that I wrote again and then
finally when I moved here about to meet
him
on a couple of the case he was a
performer's performer
you know and and he needed no persuasion
to do his characters for it
you know you wanted Yosemite Sam you got
Yosemite Sam 100
yeah do you have a favorite character he
did on Jack's show I think I I think
Professor LeBlanc
I mean it's hard it's hard not to say
the yeah the Mexican yeah the seaside
Sue guy yeah everything he did was great
and and and he talked about the fact
that Jack was again jack was such a
great audience
people go out of their way to say how
nice
how how kind how generous how giving as
a scene partner as a boss
everyone feels the same about the Jack
so Mel black also told stories about how
Jack was uh
given to such enthusiasm this is the
greatest cup of soup I've ever had
so when you're interviewing Mel or
anybody how do you decide like
especially with such a huge career how
do you decide what questions you're
going to ask
well it depends on if there's a purpose
for the if there's a specific purpose
for the interview
when I was working on the radio book
Great American broadcast that was my
focus it was almost all about radio
that's awesome it there's a there's like
if you get the Looney Tunes golden
collections which you are on many of the
featurettes I think you can hear Mel and
um Arthur Q Bryan like in some rehearsal
sessions in one or two clips of them
doing Kill the Wabbit and his Jolson I
love it I love it
I just want to ask about the uh the you
know since we mentioned the Looney Tunes
and the golden collection and those
special features that you appear on I
notice you wear like a a Bugs Bunny pin
and I wonder if you've got any Jack
Benny pins of any kind I do collect pins
and I try to wear them on appropriate
occasions I don't have a Jack Benny pin
I'm just gonna have to Fashion one on my
own I guess I can't go into the Metal
Works and what I may do is is I may take
one of the radio mirror magazines
one of those magazines it's a nice
rendering of him
and uh just shrink it down that would be
a good one find a t-shirt from John yeah
I've got lsmft right now which is Lucky
Strike means fine tobacco my daughter
who is now 36 grew up listening to The
Jack Benny show tapes that we would play
in our car when she made her first
gravels in her teen years without us
she took those tapes along as kind of
her security blankets yes I heard on one
of your podcasts where she mentioned
seeing you showed a picture of the cast
for the first time and what was her
response I didn't want to know
you didn't want to know what they look
like he just take it away she had
already created in her mind her images
of of the cast unlike some other old
radio shows that I played for her uh I
didn't have to explain any of the jokes
yeah there was mostly non-topical humor
I played some
craft music halls with Al Jolson Oscar
Levant and she said uh it required too
much explaining yeah oh yeah and Fred
Allen is the same way where there's too
many references to topical things but
the advantage of Fred Allen I found is
that it actually gives you an entry
point to educate yourself on local and
uh national news of the era it's like a
yes yes it's true which we think is a
benefit when I was a kid watching the
Warner Brothers cartoons they were my
sort of uh social education or
the 40s yeah yeah I'm surprised that
when we watch those cartoons with my
children
they are fascinated and they want to
know who everybody is and it's not like
because they don't know them they don't
want to watch those cartoons they're
like I want to see another one like that
they love those caricature cartoons yeah
that's great I mean it's and of course
when Rocky and bowel came along it took
me Years Years
to learn that there was a an opera named
Boris udonov
and The Simpsons do the same thing The
Simpsons their frame of reference is so
broad I've started a thing with my kids
where during the summer they can only
watch black and white
and so you know they complain I don't
want to watch this I say then go outside
and play and they'll go outside and play
but when they want to come in and watch
something it's black and white I I
showed my uh nephew Looney Tunes when he
was very very young and the Roadrunner
got him very excited I've got a I've got
a last question for you too Leonard if
if we could you're a movie guy uh so of
all the Jack Benny movies which one do
you think is the best and which is maybe
the worst well I actually like the
meanest man in the world oh but the best
movie without a sliding scale right is
to be or not to be because that is it's
not a Jack Benny movie it's an Ernst
lubitch movie that stars Jack Benny and
Carol Lombard and it is a masterpiece a
great great movie my favorite Jack Benny
movie is probably the horn blows at
midnight such a fun joyous time to watch
it even though you kind of like you you
can objectively recognize why it didn't
do super well but like internally you're
just like yeah but this is just fun and
it's fun to have fun yeah
well I heard on the radio that it wasn't
very good I didn't bother going to see
it I I had the opposite I actively
looked for it I'm like get me a VHS
player immediately
[Laughter]
um well Leonard thank you so much for
taking the time I am so delighted and I
I know John feels the same way that we
got to talk about your love of radio
this time and to hear your hear your
voice in your eyes and see your eyes
light up that dimension of a lot of
these figures that you grew to love and
got to me I feel so lucky my timing has
been good in life I came along at the
right moment to when I wanted to write
about animation and learn about
animation history uh
so many of the people were still alive
and the same for radio yes well I know
because I just bought this book that
even though it's not in print it is
still available and I'd also like to
recommend to anybody if you can find a
copy of make them laugh it's a great PBS
documentary Series in which Leonard
Moulton appears on the Jack Benny
portion yeah and if folks out there want
to see Leonard at his finest and if you
can find them
get some of these Walt Disney Treasures
please
this uh this on the front lines uh thing
taught me a lot in high school that the
teachers weren't teaching me my kids
love the Annette series that's their
favorite yeah you're raising your kids
right
[Laughter]
but more importantly on on that front
you've been as kind as Jack is with your
time with us it's so greatly appreciated
my friend well this this is no chore
it's a treat for me
no
[Applause]
[Music]