Customer Reviews

The Jack Benny Program No. 1 (Johnny Carson Guests/Jack Takes Boat to Hawaii) [VHS]

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Johnny Carson and Jayne Mansfield are the guests welcomed by comedian Jack Benny on the two episodes of "The Jack Benny Program" that are presented on this videocassette.

The show with Carson (titled "The Johnny Carson Show") was first seen on network television on October 22, 1963. It was Episode #207 in the Benny TV series (the fifth episode aired during the 14th season of the series). The Benny Program would ultimately run for 15 TV seasons, encompassing a total of 258 episodes. The last show was the very funny episode called "The Smothers Brothers Show", which aired on April 16, 1965. That particular episode is also featured on one of these Universal Home Video VHS tapes (Volume 2).

Johnny Carson, at the time he appeared on this Jack Benny program, had just recently begun his second year of hosting his own TV program, "The Tonight Show". He had taken over for Jack Paar on that show just a year earlier, on October 1, 1962.

On this Benny Program, a mock version of Johnny's "Tonight Show" is staged, with Jack Benny playing a "guest" of Johnny's. Some humorous antics result.

In "Jack Takes A Boat To Hawaii", Jack ... well ... uh ... takes a boat to Hawaii. LOL! (Well, the "boat" actually never leaves Jack's Hollywood soundstage; but we'll pretend it does for this episode.) :-)

While on board the "luxury liner", Jack dreams he has a romantic encounter with gorgeous movie star Jayne Mansfield. When he awakes, he finds out differently.

Interestingly, this "Hawaiian Romance" sketch is exactly the same plotline as the season-four Benny episode from September 13, 1953 ("Honolulu Trip"), which had Marilyn Monroe in Mansfield's role for that show. That was, in fact, the very first TV appearance ever made by Marilyn.

This habit of "re-working" past scripts was not at all uncommon on the Benny Program. It was done quite often, in fact, over the 33-year history of Jack's popular radio and TV shows. The "Jack's Alone On New Year's Eve" skit was re-done a multitude of times on both TV and radio.

The "Boat To Hawaii" episode aired just a few weeks after the Johnny Carson program, on Tuesday, November 26, 1963 (Episode #211). That date is significant, of sorts, because it marked the first Benny Program to be aired after the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy (which occurred just 4 days earlier). I'm guessing that very few viewers who tuned in to see Mr. Benny that Tuesday night were in the proper mood for a comedy program. But, perhaps Jack's humor helped lift the spirits of some saddened people that evening.

This MCA/Universal video product is stamped "Volume 1" (of six) in its "Jack Benny Program" series of VHS tapes (released in the year 1994). Video is in Standard 1.33:1 television ratio; with the Hi-Fi Mono sound performing its task adequately enough. Running time is approx. 25 minutes for each of the two Benny episodes. No commercials are included.

This volume isn't my favorite in the Universal Jack Benny set of videos; but it still provides an ample amount of laughs, and certainly deserves to rest alongside the other volumes in this Benny video series.

Both of these episdoes are pretty funny. Johnny Carson is young and just starting on The Tonight Show when this episode was made. You can find out the "secret" of how Jack keeps going in this one.

The Hawai episode has some funny very funny moments but not quite as entertaining all the way through. Light and fun, which is what Jack Benny is all about.