Jack Benny’s Intermedia Juggling of Radio and Film
Jack Benny’s Intermedia Juggling of Radio and Film
Jack Benny was not only radio’s biggest star after the mid-1930s, but he was the most visible celebrity in Hollywood. This chapter examines the many ways that Benny’s radio program, and Benny’s performance career, intertwined radio and film, two powerful media industries that were often said to be at war with one another. While media conglomeration today means that performers and story ideas are moved freely across media, there were many impediments to do so in the past. Benny’s radio show was the first to parody popular movies, but he could not mention the radio stars who sold rival products. Benny’s radio-themed films made at Paramount between 1939 and 1941, met with significant box office success and even greater critical disparagement.
Keywords: intermedia, Hollywood, Southern California, tourism, audiences, fans, radio sponsors, Paramount, film critics
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