Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1 • Becoming Benny: Th e Development of Jack Benny’s Character-Focused Comedy for Radio
2 • “What Are You Laughing at, Mary?” Mary Livingstone’s Comic Voice
3 • Masculine Gender Identity in Jack Benny’s Humor
4 • Eddie Anderson, Rochester, and Race in 1930s Radio and Film
5 • Rochester and the Revenge of Uncle Tom in the 1940s and 1950s
6 • Th e Commercial Imperative: Jack Benny, Advertising, and Radio Sponsors
7 • Jack Benny’s Intermedia Juggling of Radio and Film
8 • Benny at War with the Radio Critics
9 • Jack Benny’s Turn Towards Television
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

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.

Reviews

"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."
*Splitsider*

“…a deeply researched and powerfully argued analysis of Benny’s persona, productions, distribution, advertising, and sponsorship from the early 1930s through the late 1950s. …It is a must-read for scholars seeking to understand the inner workings, products, and impact of mass media and intermedia develop­ment, consumer culture, and celebrity culture during the heyday of mid-twentieth-century American commercial radio broadcasting and how to write about such issues incisively and inclusively.” 
*The Journal of American History*

"Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley’s monograph on Jack Benny provides the first full-length scholarly account of the comedian’s influential broadcasting career, which began in 1932 and ended with his death in 1974. As well as discussing his film and television work, she presents an extremely detailed analysis of Benny’s long-running, but largely overlooked, multifaceted radio program (1932–1955) which she calls his ‘greatest achievement’."
*Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television*