The Jack Benny Program

- Season 9

(1958)

Jack welcomes superstar Gary Cooper, who makes his television debut. Cooper does an Elvis-like turn with a guitar and the Sportsmen quartet. Jack also wears huge-heeled boots, vying for a cowboy movie part as Cooper's twin brother.

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Oscar Levant suspects Jack is suffering from a nervous breakdown, so he takes him to see his doctor. Levant also rehearses a piano solo for Jack's show.

Jack goes to the barbershop. He then tells of his trip to Hong Kong and his suit purchase. Gisele sings and the two perform a few songs on violin. Jack was really a very good violinist.

Jack is Christmas shopping at a department store and can't decide on what to buy for his friends. Should the gifts be nice or cheap. He is driving the staff crazy with his choices.

This show is a spoof of the famous Ingrid Bergman vehicle Gaslight, for which Bergman won her Academy Award, with Jack taking Charles Boyer's job trying to drive his wife crazy. There is also a very funny radio version with Ingrid herself in the role. It's a natural story to turn into the broad satire so welcome to see in early television.

Ernie shares his mustache collection with Jack; Don becomes a Beatnik to sing about Lucky Strikes; we see what prisons will be like in 1970.

His sponsor walks out on Jack's show, when his sponsor's in town for contract renewal, so Jack's afraid to take him to a nightclub featuring a comic competitor. A puppet show seems a safe (and cheap) alternative, but filling in for the sore-throated puppeteer is golden throated Danny Thomas, whose charity and charm entrance the sponsor, but paralyze Jack.

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Candice isn't around when Jack visits the Bergen household, but Charlie McCarthy is - he's actually a real child, headed to the city dump in his tuxedo, for target practice. Jack can't believe his eyes, and Frances Bergen sings "Them There Eyes." By the time Edgar Bergen shows up to discuss the Bergens' upcoming appearance on the Benny program, Jack's even more confused than Mortimer Snerd usually is.

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