An ad for Jack Benny’s 15th year on radio!

I’ve touched upon it before and now I’ll say it again — I LOVE old time radio. Though I’ve been a fan for 17 years or so now, for awhile I was not an active listener. In the last year and a half or so, I’ve refocused my attentions on OTR and it has become a great passion in my life yet again. I thought it would be fun to post this ad celebrating Jack Benny’s 15th anniversary on radio, which I found while looking up pictures of him online.

Jack Benny is by far my favorite comedian (I think Bob Hope would probably come second) and his radio show easily trumps anything else that was ever on the air. The writing was incredibly brilliant while also being silly, the characters were developed over decades and there’s a great sense of continuity and huge payoffs to jokes throughout the series. The radio show itself would go on to have a fantastic 23 year run (1932-1955), while Benny’s TV show would last 15 years (1950-1965) and Benny himself would stay active in show business up until his death in 1974 by performing in theaters & night clubs across the world while also performing charity shows with every major orchestra in the United States (and some in Canada) where he would play the violin.

Anyway, this ad is from 1946 (during which I think the show was at a very strong point in its run). The call sign of WEAF is from what at the time was NBC’s flagship station and was based in New York.

While I’m on the subject of Jack Benny, here’s a picture of the biography I just finished reading (the second Benny bio I’ve read!):

It was written by Irving Fein, who was Benny’s longtime producer/business manager/friend. It’s a very good book written by someone who obviously had a great deal of affection towards Jack. This is not a “tell all” and there is no dirty laundry being aired here but I did find it refreshing that Fein painted a honest portrait of Jack — someone who was very kind, considerate and funny but also someone who was human and was prone to becoming angry, sad, worrisome or insecure just like we all are. An excellent read for Benny fans and I got it for only a few bucks off Amazon.

A McDonald’s Super Sizes Tray Liner

I love old fast food tray liners and this one is no exception. Look at how cute this one is with a gigantic soda, order of french fries and a shake towering over this quaint little valley as a bi-plane flies overhead and a station wagon and sports car cruise down the road. Adorable and the very embodiment of the American Dream.

We were all so much more innocent in those days. McDonald’s proudly boasted “Our Biggest Are Back!” and we, the consumers, happily drank as much soda, ate as many fries and slurped as many milkshakes as we possibly could. Demand was so great that the “super size” basically became standard issue with your fast food order. No one ever thought about calories or fat intake or how livestock was being treated back then. We didn’t know and frankly, even if you told us, we wouldn’t have cared.

This guy took the fun out of everything.

I’d love to see McDonald’s give the middle finger to all the health nuts someday by running a huge ad campaign advertising the return of the Super Size. You know what? Forget simple advertising. They need to go back to proudly boasting. Scratch that — how about downright BRAGGING?

Tyco Cliff Hangers and Nite-Glow

When you’re a young boy, all types of toy cars/vehicles are cool. You don’t believe me? Actually, on second thought, this is still true when you’re grown man. Anyway, whether it was Hot Wheels, Tonka or Micro Machines I wanted them all. Of course, what childhood would be complete without a race car track or two? Especially when they glow in the dark, which is the set of Cliff Hangers I owned. I don’t really remember them being referred to as “Daredevil Cliff Hangers” or “Zero Gravity Cliff Hangers”. They were always just “Cliff Hangers” to me and my friends.

Sadly, as was quick to happen, pieces of my track went missing until basically I was back down to running them in a regular boring oval shaped track. Not that I’ve ever thought race car tracks ever had a long lifespan anyway. It’s like NASCAR. If you’ve seen one lap you’ve seen them all. Time to turn the channel. The other factor going against sl0t-racers is that they were slot-racers! They just weren’t adept to working on any terrain other than a cheap plastic glow in the dark track set.

Nonetheless, these commercials are pretty fun, especially the 1970s commercial for Nite Glow track where the music could be interchangeable with any porn soundtrack or detective show from that same era.