Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy

AvKathryn H. Fuller-Seeley

Häftad, Engelska, 2017

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Beskrivning

The king of radio comedy from the Great Depression through the early 1950s, Jack Benny was one of the most influential entertainers in twentieth-century America. A master of comic timing and an innovative producer, Benny, with his radio writers, developed a weekly situation comedy to meet radio's endless need for new material, at the same time integrating advertising into the show's humor. Through the character of the vain, cheap everyman, Benny created a "fall guy," whose frustrated struggles with his employees addressed mid-century America's concerns with race, gender, commercialism, and sexual identity. Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley contextualizes her analysis of Jack Benny and his entourage with thoughtful insights into the intersections of competing entertainment media and argues that transmedia stardom, branded entertainment, and virality are, in fact, the newest versions of key elements in the history of American popular culture.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2017-10-10
Mått:152 x 229 x 25 mm
Vikt:544 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:392
Förlag:University of California Press
ISBN:9780520295056

Utforska kategorier

Komedi och stand-up inom Kultur
Radio / podcasts inom Kultur
Biografi: konst och underhållning inom Biografier

Mer om författaren

Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley is Professor in the Radio-Television-Film department at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of, among other books, At the Picture Show: Small Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture and the editor of Hollywood in the Neighborhood: Historical Case Studies of Local Moviegoing.

Recensioner i media

"By discussing in depth the ways the show was and wasn’t distributed during and after its initial run (including the balance of radio stations carrying the show vs. TV stations carrying the show throughout the ‘50s), Fuller-Seeley makes the book itself an intermedia experience, encouraging readers to contribute to the vital work of media archiving."

Innehållsförteckning

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1 • Becoming Benny: Th e Development of Jack Benny’s Character-Focused Comedy for Radio2 • “What Are You Laughing at, Mary?” Mary Livingstone’s Comic Voice3 • Masculine Gender Identity in Jack Benny’s Humor4 • Eddie Anderson, Rochester, and Race in 1930s Radio and Film5 • Rochester and the Revenge of Uncle Tom in the 1940s and 1950s6 • Th e Commercial Imperative: Jack Benny, Advertising, and Radio Sponsors7 • Jack Benny’s Intermedia Juggling of Radio and Film8 • Benny at War with the Radio Critics9 • Jack Benny’s Turn Towards TelevisionConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex