Jack Benny & alternate sponsors

[Ron W]

    The 12/21/52 broadcast caught me by surprise--the sponsor is Home Insurance Company of New York, rather than Lucky Strike.  This particular copy was recorded off the air from WGBS New York.  (I have the show from two different sources, obtained years apart, and they're both the same.)

    It would seem that Home Insurance was the regular sponsor for Jack in New York, as Don Wilson says "brought to you every week by Home Insurance...."

    Of particular interest, the mid-show commercial is integrated into the script, as with Luckies.  That raises the question--was the show recorded two (or more?) times, once for each sponsor?  This particular show was done at Long Beach VA Hospital.

    I'd never heard of alternate, local area sponsors for Jack's radio show.  Was this commonly done?

    Thanks for all info & comments about this alternate sponsor matter.  I'm curious as to how they pulled it off.

    Footnote:  my copy of 4/9/44, in the Grape Nuts era, is sponsored by Pall Mall cigarettes ("...pell mell, they're swell...") .  Perhaps a preview of things to come the following autumn?

[YKW 04]

"Ron W" <kg...@STOPlycos.com> wrote in message
news:10gaefg...@corp.supernews.com...

> The 12/21/52 broadcast caught me by surprise--the sponsor is Home
Insurance Company of New York, rather than Lucky Strike. This particular
copy was
> recorded off the air from WGBS New York. (I have the show from two
different sources, obtained years apart, and they're both the same.)
> It would seem that Home Insurance was the regular sponsor for Jack in
New York, as Don Wilson says "brought to you every week by Home
Insurance...."
> Of particular interest, the mid-show commercial is integrated into the
script, as with Luckies. That raises the question--was the show recorded
two (or more?) times,
> once for each sponsor? This particular show was done at Long Beach VA
Hospital.
> I'd never heard of alternate, local area sponsors for Jack's radio
show. Was this commonly done?
> Thanks for all info & comments about this alternate sponsor matter.
I'm curious as to how they pulled it off.

If you listen to that "integrated ad" again, you'll note that it's
completely out of context with anything else going on around it; Don Wilson
drops out of the party-prep storyline and away from the rest of the cast to
perform the mid-show commercial.

This would seem to be evidence that this isn't really an "integrated ad" at
all, but rather one inserted into the program for a syndicated run --
presumably during the post-CBS Charles Michelson syndication era that began
in 1958.

You could conceivably hear Don Wilson do an ad for a local syndie run in a
larger metro area that could afford his services (and the special version of
the program that Michelson would have had to prep); most localities would
have run these shows with commercials at pre-determined break-points within
the syndicated package. (Great American Audio released a series of these
Benny edits in the late 1980s and early 1990s; the ad breaks are indicated
with an abruptly inserted version of the Lucky Strike era show opening
fading out within the space of a single second.)

> Footnote: my copy of 4/9/44, in the Grape Nuts era, is sponsored by
Pall Mall cigarettes ("...pell mell, they're swell...") . Perhaps a preview
of things to come the
> following autumn?

Wild guess: This was a mock-up version produced in the summer of 1944 by
Hilliard Marks and/or someone in-house at American Tobacco to show how the
Benny show would sound under Pell Mell sponsorship.

When Benny switched sponsors in the summer of 1944, he was initially
contracted to work for Pell Mell. There he remained for several weeks until
Information, Please's Dan Golenpaul decided he'd had enough of the
increasingly heavy-handed commercials for Lucky Strike, American's flagship
brand, at the beginning and close of his program and chose not to work under
the American banner that fall. thus freeing G.W. Hill to move his premier
brand to the premier entertainment vehicle at his disposal.

[Ron W]

    Good call, YKW.  I gave another listen to that 12/21/52 recording, and you're right, the integrated mid-commercial was not so integrated.  The lead-in at the beginning was fair, but the transition back to the program at the end was pretty abrupt--zilch segue.  Moreover, Don Wilson's voice during the Home Insurance spots is noticeably bassier than his banter with the cast in the program, suggesting recordings made at two studios with minor differences in their audio passbands.  That might also suggest recordings that were made years apart.

    Yes, the syndicated rebroadcasts long after Jack quit radio would explain any number of unfamiliar, local sponsors.

    And that was an interesting revelation about Jack almost getting Pall Mall as his permanent sponsor in '44 rather than Luckies.  Too bad; the Sportsmen could have had a lot of fun with "pell mell."

   But then we would have missed all those great routines about E. Speed Riggs and the other tobacco auctioneers.

 

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