RONALD & BENITA COLMAN ALONG WITH "HOLDUP MAN" EDDIE MARR GAVE JACK BENNY SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
"YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!"
Jack Benny met with his writers after his program every Sunday to begin planning the next week’s script. Their meeting on March 21, 1948, was especially lively because just the night before Ronald Colman had won the Academy Award as Best Actor for 1947’s A Double Life.- and Colman would be the guest on Benny’s next show.
A timely setup had fallen into the writers’ laps.
Benny’s four writers worked in two teams - Sam Perrin and George Balzer on one team and Milt Josefsberg and John Tackaberry on the other. Rotating every two weeks, one team worked on the first half of the show involving Benny’s regular cast - Mary Livingston, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Phil Harris, Don Wilson and Dennis Day - while the other team developed the second half of the program which was often a sketch featuring a guest star. It was Josefsberg & Tackaberry’s turn to write the March 28th skit with Ronald & Benita Colman.
It didn’t take long for them to come up with an Oscar-inspired storyline that could stretch out until the Colmans’ next scheduled guest shot with Benny in May. It began with the comedian visiting his “next door neighbors” and borrowing the actor’s Academy Award statuette, then losing it in the dark of night to a holdup man who demanded, “Your money or your life!”
That 18th Century highwayman’s command had become a hackneyed line of second-rate melodrama and was a hilarious ultimatum for the notoriously cheap Benny. The only problem was coming up with Jack’s response to top it.
Five days passed and none of the proposed comeback lines made Benny or his writers laugh.
As reported in Arthur Wertheim‘s text Radio Comedy, the group gathered in their workroom at Benny’s home on Friday the 26th to settle the issue and finish the script. Perrin and Balzer sat a table reading a list of discarded punch lines, Josefsberg paced the floor and Tackaberry stretched out on a couch with his eyes shut, saying nothing.
Josefsberg looked down in frustration at his partner and angrily said, “Dammit, Tack, throw out a couple lines! Don’t just lie there on your fat butt daydreaming. There’s gotta be a great answer to “Your money or your life!”
With his eyes still closed, Tackaberry calmly replied, “I’m… thinking it over…”
The room went silent for a moment as his words sank in, then it erupted in laughter. The perfect punch line was born.
The gag’s debut on the very entertaining March 28th broadcast is posted below. Ronald & Benita Colman make their first appearance at 10:15 for a delightful four minute conversation. Benny joins them at 19:45 to begin the set-up.
The legendary gag itself starts at 26:00 with veteran character actor Eddie Marr playing the part of the thief who steals Colman’s Oscar and sets off Benny’s seven week problem of recovering the stolen statuette.
The holdup routine was repeated the next week at 02:00 into the April 4th program, posted below. (Sharp-eared listeners will note that in the original performance Jack was interrupted by Marr while humming I’m An Old Cowhand - a week later the song was Love In Bloom.) This particular broadcast is interesting for even more reasons:
First, for one show only, the Sportsmen Quartet is replaced by the Ink Spots who turn their signature hit, If I Didn’t Care, into a Lucky Strike commercial. Secondly, Benny’s tells two different versions of the holdup story and in each case the cowardly comedian becomes a heroic victim. Finally, Bing Crosby is the program’s guest resulting in script stumbles and ad-libs that make a shambles of the program’s timings and cause several awkward and obvious tape edits.
The running gag was put into hibernation with only an occasional mention until Ronald & Benita Colman paid their final visit of the season to the Benny program on May 9, 1948. A clever twist to the entire missing Oscar saga begins at 16:50. (1)
Eddie Marr returns at 19:30 in the dual role of the Colmans’ chauffeur and the “holdup man” to retell the story of the incident 19:55.
Not to be outdone, Benny returns to the Colman house to tell yet another version of his story at 24:40. His reaction to finding the tough guy there who originally demanded, “Your money or your life!” is quickly resolved with a sound effect.
And so ended the quintessential Jack Benny joke regarded by many as the greatest gag of Network Radio’s Golden Age. Few radio buffs remember how Ronald Colman or his Academy Award were involved but no one has forgotten, "Your money or your life!"
(1) It’s never been explained if the unique resolution that Benny’s writers devised for the missing Oscar was planned from the very beginning in March or if it came to them along the way. Either way, it was logical, clever and a tribute to their talents.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Jack Benny met with his writers after his program every Sunday to begin planning the next week’s script. Their meeting on March 21, 1948, was especially lively because just the night before Ronald Colman had won the Academy Award as Best Actor for 1947’s A Double Life.- and Colman would be the guest on Benny’s next show.
A timely setup had fallen into the writers’ laps.
Benny’s four writers worked in two teams - Sam Perrin and George Balzer on one team and Milt Josefsberg and John Tackaberry on the other. Rotating every two weeks, one team worked on the first half of the show involving Benny’s regular cast - Mary Livingston, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Phil Harris, Don Wilson and Dennis Day - while the other team developed the second half of the program which was often a sketch featuring a guest star. It was Josefsberg & Tackaberry’s turn to write the March 28th skit with Ronald & Benita Colman.
It didn’t take long for them to come up with an Oscar-inspired storyline that could stretch out until the Colmans’ next scheduled guest shot with Benny in May. It began with the comedian visiting his “next door neighbors” and borrowing the actor’s Academy Award statuette, then losing it in the dark of night to a holdup man who demanded, “Your money or your life!”
That 18th Century highwayman’s command had become a hackneyed line of second-rate melodrama and was a hilarious ultimatum for the notoriously cheap Benny. The only problem was coming up with Jack’s response to top it.
Five days passed and none of the proposed comeback lines made Benny or his writers laugh.
As reported in Arthur Wertheim‘s text Radio Comedy, the group gathered in their workroom at Benny’s home on Friday the 26th to settle the issue and finish the script. Perrin and Balzer sat a table reading a list of discarded punch lines, Josefsberg paced the floor and Tackaberry stretched out on a couch with his eyes shut, saying nothing.
Josefsberg looked down in frustration at his partner and angrily said, “Dammit, Tack, throw out a couple lines! Don’t just lie there on your fat butt daydreaming. There’s gotta be a great answer to “Your money or your life!”
With his eyes still closed, Tackaberry calmly replied, “I’m… thinking it over…”
The room went silent for a moment as his words sank in, then it erupted in laughter. The perfect punch line was born.
The gag’s debut on the very entertaining March 28th broadcast is posted below. Ronald & Benita Colman make their first appearance at 10:15 for a delightful four minute conversation. Benny joins them at 19:45 to begin the set-up.
The legendary gag itself starts at 26:00 with veteran character actor Eddie Marr playing the part of the thief who steals Colman’s Oscar and sets off Benny’s seven week problem of recovering the stolen statuette.
The holdup routine was repeated the next week at 02:00 into the April 4th program, posted below. (Sharp-eared listeners will note that in the original performance Jack was interrupted by Marr while humming I’m An Old Cowhand - a week later the song was Love In Bloom.) This particular broadcast is interesting for even more reasons:
First, for one show only, the Sportsmen Quartet is replaced by the Ink Spots who turn their signature hit, If I Didn’t Care, into a Lucky Strike commercial. Secondly, Benny’s tells two different versions of the holdup story and in each case the cowardly comedian becomes a heroic victim. Finally, Bing Crosby is the program’s guest resulting in script stumbles and ad-libs that make a shambles of the program’s timings and cause several awkward and obvious tape edits.
The running gag was put into hibernation with only an occasional mention until Ronald & Benita Colman paid their final visit of the season to the Benny program on May 9, 1948. A clever twist to the entire missing Oscar saga begins at 16:50. (1)
Eddie Marr returns at 19:30 in the dual role of the Colmans’ chauffeur and the “holdup man” to retell the story of the incident 19:55.
Not to be outdone, Benny returns to the Colman house to tell yet another version of his story at 24:40. His reaction to finding the tough guy there who originally demanded, “Your money or your life!” is quickly resolved with a sound effect.
And so ended the quintessential Jack Benny joke regarded by many as the greatest gag of Network Radio’s Golden Age. Few radio buffs remember how Ronald Colman or his Academy Award were involved but no one has forgotten, "Your money or your life!"
(1) It’s never been explained if the unique resolution that Benny’s writers devised for the missing Oscar was planned from the very beginning in March or if it came to them along the way. Either way, it was logical, clever and a tribute to their talents.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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| jack_benny_04_04_48.mp3 |
| jack_benny_05_09_48.mp3 |
