Breaking Walls James Scully

By the Spring of 1944 Jack Benny’s cast had become its most familiar incarnation. Frank Nelson had begun to develop into Benny’s nemesis, as he remembered in this interview clip.

Phil Harris was a lovable and vain drunk. Mel Blanc could play any character imaginable. Others like Bea Benaderet, John Brown, and Sarah Berner rounded out the cast. Most importantly Jack was known to be the exact opposite of his character.

On May 14th, 1944 The Jack Benny Program was broadcast live at Camp Adair, Oregon.

In early May 1944 Jack and the rest of his cast were still traveling around military bases in the Pacific Northwest. On May 7th they were at the Naval Air Station in Whidbey Island, Washington as Dick Haymes continued substituting for the now departed Dennis Day.

The rating for this episode was 20.1, although lower than his season average, it was still tied for third overall, and first on Sunday evenings.

Hey everybody James Scully here, host of Breaking Walls. If you've been listening to this show for years on this RSS feed, I want you to know that you can also subscribe to the show on Youtube — www.youtube.com/@thewallbreakersllc.

I'm asking people who listen here on the RSS feed to subscribe on Youtube because Youtube offers the easiest path to monetizing this show.

I'm going to be fully transparent right now: There have been times in the history of this podcast that via RSS feed, Breaking Walls has had as many as 27000 - 30000 monthly downloads, but even with that, it's very hard to monetize the show via traditional podcast channels. However, I've been able to clear the monetization hurdles on Youtube, so please subscribe there. If you happen to listen on a computer or on a phone, I would appreciate if you listened via Youtube.

I'm also going into Youtube and slowly uploading all shows from Breaking Walls' archive in individual podcast playlists on Youtube. This way, everything that for years now has fallen off the RSS feed here doesn't matter. You can get all those archived shows FREE OF CHARGE on Youtube. Your listening for free will enable me to earn money, and I'd appreciate that very much.

So once again — www.youtube.com/@thewallbreakersllc

Keep getting out there, keep breaking those walls, and I'll catch you on the flip side.

By the spring of 1944, Benny’s ratings had continued slipping. That season, his 23.7 rating meant he’d lost roughly four million weekly listeners in just three years. At the end of this season, his contract with General Foods was up. Here's Jack Benny talking about that time.

There was tension between the two parties because Benny had helped save Jell-O from going out of business. Jack was also upset with what he felt were second-rate accommodations provided by General Foods during the cast’s ongoing army base trips.

Since Benny had full control of his show as NBC guaranteed him the Sunday time slot over any sponsor Benny could sell his program to the highest bidder. Benny’s management team quietly held a sealed auction for sponsorship on February 24th.

George W. Hill, the President of American Tobacco, wanted Benny’s show. His chief account executive was thirty-six-year-old Pat Weaver, the future president of NBC.

A surprise winner was announced: Ruthrauff & Ryan, agency for American Tobacco’s Pall Mall cigarettes, bid twenty-five thousand dollars per-week for three thirty-five week seasons. That’s roughly Four-Hundred-Forty Thousand Dollars today.

The weekly money was payable to Benny for all payroll and production costs. They also included an additional two-hundred-thousand dollars, or three-point-five million today, over the three years for marketing and promotion. American Tobacco also agreed to pay for any network and carrier line charges. The advertising community was stunned.

General Foods considered retaliating against Jack by moving The Fanny Brice Show to CBS opposite the Benny program. They also publicized the fact that they were now sponsoring three programs, The Aldrich Family, The Meredith Wilson Show, and Mr. Ace and Jane, for the same cost as just the Benny program.

On April 10th, 1944, Jack officially signed a three-year contract with the American Cigarette & Cigar Company to advertise Pall Mall cigarettes for twenty-two thousand dollars per broadcast, including a West Coast rebroadcast.

The three-year contract would begin on July 1st, 1944, and run through June 30th, 1947. American Tobacco also had a three year option to renew.

Benny was the executive producer. He funded the entire production cost out of his pay. In the case that any cast member, or Jack himself, missed a program, Jack was to furnish a substitute actor for ten thousand dollars, at his own expense. If Jack was absent for six consecutive broadcasts, American had the right to terminate the current season, but not the entire contract.

Jack also had to make up for any of his absences by adding additional programs at the end of the season.

In the midst of this, on April 30th, 1944 The Jack Benny Program signed on from the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Seattle, Washington. With Dennis Day gone to war, Dick Haymes substituted as the program’s singer.

On April 23rd, 1944 The Jack Benny Program took to the air, broadcasting from Vancouver, British Columbia. It would be Dennis Day’s last show until March 17th, 1946. He’d be departing for the Navy.

In April of 1944 Dennis Day was twenty-seven years old. He’d been starring on Jack Benny’s show since 1939, rounding into a very talented performer. Day had great comic timing and the ability to mimic voices well. That year, he’d appear on film in Music in Manhattan opposite Anne Shirley.

Mel Blanc joined the show on February 19th, 1939. Benny was adding a new touch to the miser theme: a polar bear, who would live in his basement and help protect his money. The bear was christened Carmichael, and in 1941, according to Rochester, he ate the gas man.

On Sunday December 7th, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Manila, thrusting the United States into World War II. That evening, The Jell-O Program signed on at 7PM eastern time. This is audio from that night.

Benny’s show peaked in 1941 with an average rating of 30.8. By 1942 Jack was beginning to get into disagreements with General Foods.

Variety reported as early as 1939 that the sponsor wanted to change Jack’s sponsorship to Grape Nuts Flakes. Jack resisted the move. The Jell-O brand had become uniquely associated with Benny.

However, by 1942 with wartime sugar rationing, General Foods pushed the product change through. Variety reported on March 4th, 1942 that Benny would take Grape Nuts Flakes, while Kate Smith would now be sponsored by Jell-O.

General Foods claimed the output of Jell-O would be so limited by the fall that they couldn’t justify the cost of Benny’s show. The Jack Benny Program cost General Foods twenty-two-thousand dollars per week. Kate Smith’s show only cost ten thousand.

With the October 4th, 1942 season premiere the show became The Grape-Nuts Flakes Program Starring Jack Benny. Benny wasn’t thrilled, also feeling General Foods hadn’t done enough to promote his show. After back-to-back seasons with a rating over thirty points, Benny 1942-43 rating slipped to 26.3, losing roughly two million listeners.

Jack had a unique contract. Thanks to a verbal agreement with NBC’s President Niles Trammel, Jack controlled his Sunday timeslot. At the end of Jack’s next contract he was free to approach any sponsor, pending NBC’s approval. It meant that General Foods could lose their top star and their top time slot.