Jack Benny 411026 (jokes I don't understand)

[DavidinBerkeley]

Don has done his usual introduction of Jack, making fun of something about him. Jack has taken exception this time.

JB: You know, Don, they have a program out here where a man sits by himself in a small room and plays phonograph records all night long. He's called "Hank, the Night Watchman".

DW: Uh-huh.

JB: Well, one more introduction like that and you going to be known as "Don, the Decca Day Man".

[audience laughs and applauds]

So, I know already about the all-night radio shows (like "The Torch Hour") where a DJ plays music overnight, which was considered an undesirable job. And I get that Jack is threatening Don with being fired/demoted to a similar position.

But there's that extra applause that makes me think there MIGHT be something else that informs this (I'm not positive, because there was really more applause than laughter). Do you know what it might be?

***

Jack announces the play they are doing tonight, and adds:

JB: ...and I'd like to announce that this production will be done entirely in Technicolor.

Mary: Huh! How can you do Technicolor on the radio?

JB: We're on the Red and Blue Networks with a green cast.

[laughter and applause]

So I get that NBC controlled 2 different networks called "Red" and "Blue" (I think Red later became ABC). I get that "green" can mean inexperienced. And I know that the 3 dots of color that make up a TV picture are red, blue and green.

But again there might be a bit more to this that made the audience applaud, especially since TV became common only around 1949, and certainly not in color.

(I might be inclined to write it off as just extra-clever, getting all three colors into the gag, but they've mentioned TV more than once in previous broadcasts, so I'm thinking it might have been part of people's thinking just then.)

****

In the play, a doctor is looking over the medical test results of a pilot.

JB: This man's flying days are over.
Dennis: You mean I'm not going to be an ace any more?

[big laugh]

JB: To us, you'll always be an ace.

[bigger laugh]


I thought the big laugh from Dennis' line had partly to do with his exceptionally-jumpy reading of the line, portraying the shakiness of the character (and getting a lot more dramatic attention than Jack's stentorian reading of his lines, which plays off an earlier gag about Jack switching parts in the play so that his would be the best). And I know that "ace" also means a pilot.

But the big laugh that followed Jack's line makes me think there's something else here. "Ace" can also be the lowest-value card in a deck of playing cards. But was it ever common to call someone or something an "ace" and mean it derisively?

****

Jack's character falls asleep and starts to snore.

DD: Well, here we go again! [referring to Jack snoring on the previous show]

Jack continues snoring.

DD: Now come the whistles.

Snoring and whistling.

DD: Gee, he looks so peaceful I think I'll count sheep and join him.

One.... two.... three.... four... No, that's an eagle....


[laugh from audience].

I'm just putting this one hear in case it might jog someone's memory. I remember that no one could figure out a similar joke last time.

[epeterd]

I think that Jack said Dennis would always be an ace as a substitute for "ass." There is another skit where Jack plays a character named Jack "Ace" Benny. (Or it may have been a different last name.) At any rate, Mary's character calls him Jack Ace, clearly a pun on jackass. He responds with "I gotta change that name." It surprises me how often the word "jackass" is used in the show.

Peter