rodney dangerfield

[epeterd]

I was just wondering if anyone knows whether the late Rodney Dangerfield took his name from the Jack Benny show. I assume he did but I suppose it's possible he could have come up with it somewhere else.

Peter

[Yhtapmys]

I was just wondering if anyone knows whether the late Rodney Dangerfield took his name from the Jack Benny show. I assume he did but I suppose it's possible he could have come up with it somewhere else.

Well, Dangerfield's AP obit says he didn't start using that name until 1963. It was, what, 20 years earlier there was a Rodney Dangerfield reference on the Benny show?

It's hard to believe he could have remembered a throwaway name from that long ago. I wondered if maybe there was a common source in New York that Benny's writers and Dangerfield knew about

Yhtapmys
"Drive Your Blues Away!"

[Maxwell]

Well, Dangerfield's AP obit says he didn't start using that name until 1963. It was, what, 20 years earlier there was a Rodney Dangerfield reference on the Benny show?

It's hard to believe he could have remembered a throwaway name from that long ago. I wondered if maybe there was a common source in New York that Benny's writers and Dangerfield knew about

Yhtapmys
"Drive Your Blues Away!"

According to Wikipedia (which is always suspect) he got the name from a pseudonym used by Ricky Nelson on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet." Since Ozzie and Harriet go back to the same era as Jack, it's quite possible that it was borrowed either consciously or subconsciously from the character on Jack's show.

As far as Dangerfield the comedian not remembering Dangerfield the character, I'd say that he might have. The name was used in a number of episodes during Dangerfield the comedian's teen years. So either way is plausible.

[HarryP]

I researched this topic before I was aware of this group - I wanted to find out if anyone knew about the Benny show connection. I found a lot of sources quoting Rodney as having said that the name was suggested to him by a club owner in the Catskiils. He apparently had no idea it wasn't original with the club owner.

However, Johhny Carson told him the origin if the name. See Carson's Rolling Stone interview, which is quoted on this page:

http://anythingbut.com/archive/cat_people.html

It's down the page, and the stuff about Rodney is way down there, so you have to search for "Rodney Dangerfield" a couple of times to find it. Carson says:

[quote]

I knew Rodney when he worked under another name, Jack Roy. Fifteen or twenty years ago. He worked the mountains, the clubs, then he stepped out of the business for a while. I think one of his lines -- goes to show you how successful he was -- was that when he retired he was the only one who knew he had retired. And I asked him one night, "Do you know where you got the name Rodney Dangerfield?" He says, "No I don't." And I told him where the name came from.

I remembered a sketch that Jack Benny did some twenty years ago on his show, and here, I said, is the way the name Rodney Dangerfield came about. Jack and Mary Benny were holding a party. And Jack came into the room and said: "Mary, who's coming to the party tonight?" They had a big guest list. And. Mary said, "Well, Jack, the Gary Coopers can't make it, Gary is making a picture." And jack said, "Aww, they can't make it?!" And then she said, "The Ronald Colmans are busy, Ronnie was busy tonight." And Jack would go, "Ohhh, they can't make it?!" Then she said, "Jack, the Jimmy Stewarts also are not able to come tonight." "Well, who has accepted?" he asked. Mary said, "So far, we have Rodney Dangerfield." And there was a scream. The audience loved it.

[end quote]


Of course, Carson's memory is only partial (he didn't have a colleciton of mp3 shows to listen to). In fact the Benny show used RD many times and had him appear as a voiced character at least once. They also made it clear that RD was a grade-Z western hero.

[LLeff]

And I've been told that the name "Rodney Dangerfield" goes back even further in comedy than Jack, being used as a funny name in various instances. So even Jack's writers didn't originate it.

[HarryP]

That might explain why the audience laughs at the name - they already know it as a funny name from some other context.

Over time, more and more of the OTR humor becomes inaccessible, as the topical issues and contemporary references fade away. That's why it's great that so much of Benny's humor is universal - like Robert Benchley or Laurel and Hardy.