The Jack Benny Program (season 5)
This is a list of episodes for the fifth season (1954–55) of the television version of The Jack Benny Program.
The Jack Benny Program | |
---|---|
Season 5 | |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of episodes | 16 |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Original release | October 3, 1954 – May 1, 1955 |
Season chronology | |
Episodes
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original air date | |
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32 | 1 | "Entire Cast Show" | October 3, 1954 | |
Jack falls asleep during the monologue, and Don tells the audience why: Jack had been extremely nervous about the first show of the new season, and had encountered one disaster after another. Don had called in a doctor (Frank Nelson) to calm Jack down; after telling Jack how lousy he was last season, the doctor gave him something that would make him sleep... for 10 hours. | ||||
33 | 2 | "Jam Session at Jack's" | October 17, 1954 | |
Special guests: Dick Powell, Tony Martin, Fred MacMurray, Kirk Douglas, and Dan Dailey. | ||||
34 | 3 | "How Jack Found Mary" | October 31, 1954 | |
A writer visits Jack at home and hears the story of how Jack found Mary Livingstone in the fall of 1932: A brash, young Jack goes into the May Company department store to buy a shirt when hosiery counter clerk Mary catches his eye. He flirts shamelessly with Mary while she and her co-worker Sally give him a hard time. Finally, she agrees to meet Jack that evening for dinner. While Jack is posing for photos with the writer, Don and the Sportsmen Quartet drop by; Rochester joins them for a song and dance number. | ||||
35 | 4 | "The Giant Mutiny" | November 14, 1954 | |
Special guests: Leo Durocher, Beans Reardon, Chuck Dressen, Fred Haney, and Bob Lemon. | ||||
36 | 5 | "The Life of Jack Benny" | November 28, 1954 | |
Rochester is typing the script for next week's show: Jack Benny's life story. Jack auditions people for the various roles, including a beautiful young woman (Leigh Snowden) to play his first girlfriend (who kisses him passionately), and his actual first girlfriend to play his mother. He passes on a young boy who auditions to play Jack as a boy, instead choosing the pushy young boy who acts as the first boy's agent. | ||||
37 | 6 | "Jack Does Christmas Shopping Show" | December 12, 1954 | |
Rochester, after winning a crooked card game, takes the day off and leaves Jack stuck with the household chores. Jack then sticks Don with the work so that he himself can do some holiday grocery shopping. At the store, Jack encounters a surly fruit vendor (Benny Rubin), a racetrack tout (Sheldon Leonard), Mr. Kitzel, and an insulting clerk (Frank Nelson). After having had enough of Jack's inability to find anything, Nelson throws him into a shopping cart and pushes him around the store. | ||||
38 | 7 | "San Diego Naval Training Center Show" | December 26, 1954 | |
This show was broadcast live from the Naval Training Center in San Diego. Jack delivers a monologue full of military jokes, then he and Don talk about having been in the Navy. A gown-clad WAVE (Leigh Snowden) walks across now and then to "recruit" future sailors. Mel Blanc appears as Sy, accompanying the Sportsmen Quartet for the middle commercial. Finally, Jack and several band members perform a medley of "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" on the stage while Rochester dances. | ||||
39 | 8 | "Bedroom Burglar" | January 9, 1955 | |
The main sketch in this episode is a remake of the one in episode Nº 13, "Jack Gets Robbed," including the bed/cradle and the live tiger in the safe. | ||||
40 | 9 | "Jack and Gisele MacKenzie's Violin Duet" | January 23, 1955 | |
Special guest: Gisele MacKenzie. | ||||
41 | 10 | "Four O'Clock in the Morning Show" | February 6, 1955 | |
Jack is awakened at 4 a.m. by a phone call from Hank, the all-night DJ, who asks him an inane trivia question. Unable to get back to sleep, Jack is drowsy by the afternoon when Mary takes him to buy a new suit at a store managed by Frank Nelson. Falling asleep on his feet, Jack is mistaken for a mannequin, and he wakes up later to find himself in a window display, re-dressed and holding a fishing pole. When Jack finds out that Frank advertises on Hank's all-night radio show, he goes straight for Nelson's throat. Note: this was adapted from a November 1953 radio episode. | ||||
42 | 11 | "Jack's Lunch Counter" | February 20, 1955 | |
Special guest: George Raft. | ||||
43 | 12 | "Jack Takes Beavers to the Fair" | March 6, 1955 | |
In this color episode, Jack takes a group of boys called the Beverly Hills Beavers (one of them is young Harry Shearer) to the fair. Things get off to a bad start; he has to be shot down when he holds too many helium balloons, he falls off the merry-go-round, and he succeeds in ringing the bell at the top of the strength meter only after one of the Beavers sticks a pin in his backside. Several times they run into Mr. Kitzel, who's a "utility player" working wherever he's needed. At one point, Jack steps into a lion cage, thinking the animal is Mr. Kitzel in a costume; it isn't. As Benny and the boys leave, they pass a hula girl show — and the girl is Mr. Kitzel! | ||||
44 | 13 | "Gary Crosby Show" | March 20, 1955 | |
Special guest: Gary Crosby. | ||||
45 | 14 | "You Bet Your Life" | April 3, 1955 | |
Special guest: Groucho Marx. | ||||
46 | 15 | "Preparing for New York Trip" | April 17, 1955 | |
Jack and Rochester are driven to the train station by a cab driver (Mel Blanc) who keeps crying because he can't bear to say goodbye; he even follows Jack inside and buys him candy and flowers. In the station, Jack encounters Mr. Kitzel in a kilt, a young couple who won't stop kissing, a racetrack tout who tells him which train he should take, a PA announcer making ridiculous announcements, and Frank Nelson at the ticket window. | ||||
47 | 16 | "Jackie Gleason Show" | May 1, 1955 | |
Special guest: Jackie Gleason. |