Although technically the star of his show, Benny was constantly the butt of jokes from his cast members, including Mary Livingstone (Sayde Marks Benny, his real-life wife); Phil Harris, his band leader; Kenny Baker or Dennis Day, his tenors; Don Wilson, his portly announcer; and Rochester Van Jones (Eddie Anderson), his African American valet.

The show usually opened with announcer Don Wilson doing a commercial for the sponsor (e.g. Jell-O or Grape Nuts Flakes), accompanied by a musical number from the orchestra.

Or there would be a miniplay (e.g., "Buck Benny Rides Again" or a murder mystery starring Jack as Police Captain O'Benny), or a satire of a current movie (e.g., "Snow White and the Seven Gangsters").

Don Wilson would bring the Sportsmen Quartet over to Jack's house, to sing a new commercial for the sponsor, Lucky Strike Cigarettes, to Benny's consternation.

In October, 1934, General Foods agreed to take up sponsorship from the struggling tire-maker, using the show (now airing on the Blue network) to promote its low-selling Jell-O desserts.

In early 1936, Harry Conn left the program after creative conflicts with Benny, who had to resort to vaudeville writers Al Boasberg and Edmund Beloin through the end of the season.

Aside from having a new writing team (Beloin and Bill Morrow, with script doctoring by Boasberg), Benny returned to the NBC Red Network and established the program in Hollywood.

During this period, the Benny character gradually became that of the vain, miserly, untalented performer for which he would be recognized, while the "ditzy" role went from Mary to Kenny, and Don Wilson would become the target of jokes about his weight.

Halfway through the season, the famous "feud" with Fred Allen began, climaxing with a visit to New York, after which Eddie Anderson was cast as a porter for the train trip back to Los Angeles.

Sometimes, the sponsors were the butt of jokes, though Benny did not use this device as frequently as his friend and "rival" Fred Allen did then, or as cast member Phil Harris later did on his successful radio sitcom.

Starting in the Lucky Strike era, Benny adopted a medley of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Love in Bloom" as his theme music, opening every show.

In a 1956 episode, African American actor Roy Glenn plays a friend of Rochester's, and he is portrayed as a well-educated, articulate man[18] not as the typical "darkie stereotype" seen in many films of the time.

In the Golden Age of Radio, line flubs were common during live broadcasts, especially on a show like The Jack Benny Program, which used sophisticated humor and complex, well-written scripts.

(According to several sources on the show, including writer Sam Perrin, Jack collapsed in laughter on hearing Nelson's ad lib, and it was several minutes before he could continue.

Benny alone sustained a classic repertoire of running gags in his own right, though, including his skinflint radio and television persona, regular cast members' and guest stars' reference to his "baby blue" eyes, always sure to elicit a self-satisfied smirk or patently false attempt at modesty from Benny, perpetually giving his age as 39, and ineptitude at violin playing, most frequently demonstrated by futile attempts to perform Rodolphe Kreutzer's Étude No.

Benny even had a sound-based running gag of his own: his famous basement vault alarm, allegedly installed by Spike Jones, ringing off with a shattering cacophony of whistles, sirens, bells, and blasts before ending invariably with the sound of a foghorn.

Its inane lyrics and insipid melody guaranteed that it would never be published or recorded, but Benny continued to try to con, extort, or otherwise inveigle some of his musical guests (including The Smothers Brothers and Peter, Paul and Mary) to perform it.

Remley was portrayed in various unflattering situations, such as being thrown into a garbage can by a road sweeper who had found him passed out in the street at 4 am, and on a wanted poster at the Beverly Hills police station.

Each year, Benny would buy a ridiculously cheap Christmas gift for Don Wilson, from a harried store clerk played by Mel Blanc.

Over the years, in the Christmas episodes, Benny bought and repeatedly exchanged cuff links, golf tees, a box of dates, a paint set (water colors or oils), and a gopher trap.

In later years, Benny would encounter Mel Blanc's wife (played by Jean Vander Pyl or Bea Benaderet) or the clerk's psychiatrist at the store, and drive them crazy, as well.

Starting with the October 24, 1937, radio show, when Jack proudly announced the purchase of his car, a running joke began that Benny drove an old Maxwell automobile, a brand that went out of business in 1925.

By 1941, Jack Benny's Maxwell had become such a well-known aspect of popular culture that it was referenced in the Billy Mills song "I'm in Love with the Sound Effects Man" as heard on the June 17, 1941, Fibber McGee and Molly radio show and later performed on a 1943 recording by Spike Jones.

A series of gags was built around the premise that Benny appreciated the value of Sky Chief brand gasoline in keeping his car running smoothly, but was too cheap to buy more than one gallon at a time.

Benny in his memoir (Sunday Nights at Seven) and Allen in his Treadmill to Oblivion later revealed that each comedian's writing staff often met together to plot future takes on the mock feud.

Allen proudly announced, "Tomorrow night, in your ermine robe, you will be whisked by bicycle to Orange, New Jersey, where you will be the judge in a chicken-cleaning contest," to which Benny joyously declared, "I'm king for a day!"

His TV sponsors included American Tobacco's Lucky Strike (1950–59), Lever Brothers' Lux (1959–60), State Farm Insurance (1960–65), Lipton Tea (1960–62), General Foods' Jell-O (1962–64), and Miles Laboratories (1964–65).

Benny had had a strong ratings surge the previous year when his series was moved to Tuesday nights with the popular Red Skelton Hour in the time slot prior to his.

As with the radio shows, most of the television series has lapsed into the public domain, although several episodes (particularly those made from 1961 onward, including the entire NBC-TV run) remain under copyright.

[36] This set, part of Benny's private collection at the UCLA film and television library, included guest shots by Jack Paar, John Wayne, Tony Curtis, Gary Cooper, Dick Van Dyke, Rock Hudson, Natalie Wood, and President Harry Truman, and the only TV appearance with longtime radio foe Ronald Colman.