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1. The Mills Brothers/the Mills Brothers, sometimes billed the Four Mills Brothers, and originally known as the Four Kings of Harmony.
2. Glenn Miller and His Orchestra/In 1923, Miller quit the orchestra to go to college.
3. What happened to Bing Crosby's children Only one made it - Phillip, who died of a heart attack at age 69.

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For music from an individual year in the 1940s, go to 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49

This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1940s.

In the developed world, swing, big band, jazz, Latin and country music dominated and defined the decade's music. After World War II, the big band sounds of the earlier part of the decade had been gradually replaced by crooners and vocal pop.

Ragtime, a genre that first became popular in the 1890s, was popular through about the 1940s. After its best-known exponent, Scott Joplin, died in 1917, the genre faded. As the 1920s unfolded, jazz rapidly took over as the dominant form of popular music in the United States.

In addition, a new form of popular music, crooning, emerged during the early 1930s. Technology played a large part in the development of this style, as electronic sound recording had emerged near the end of the 1920s and replaced the earlier acoustic recording. While singers such as Al Jolson and Billy Murray had recorded songs by yelling into a Victrola horn, as this was the only way to get audible sound with acoustic recording, the new electronic equipment allowed for a softer, more intimate style of singing. Many of the older singers such as Jolson and Murray consequently fell out of favor during the 1930s with changing tastes (although Al Jolson managed a successful career comeback after World War II).

Bing Crosby was the leading figure of the crooner sound as well as its most iconic, defining artist. By the 1940s, he was an entertainment superstar who mastered all of the major media formats of the day, movies, radio, and recorded music. Other popular singers of the day included Cab Calloway and Eddie Cantor.

Bandleaders such as the Dorsey Brothers often helped launch the careers of vocalists who went on to popularity as solo artists, such as Frank Sinatra, who rose to fame as a singer during this time. Sinatra's vast appeal to the " bobby soxers" revealed a whole new audience for popular music, which had generally appealed mainly to adults up to that time, making Sinatra the first teen idol. Sinatra's music mostly attracted young girls to his concerts. This image of a teen idol would also be seen with future artists such as Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Sinatra's massive popularity was also one of the reasons why the big band music declined in popularity; major record companies were looking for crooners and pop singers to attract a youth audience due to his success. Frank Sinatra would go on to become one of the most successful artists of the 1940s and one of the best selling music artists of all time. Sinatra remained relevant through the 1950s and 60s, even with rock music being the dominant form of music in his later years. In the later decades, Sinatra's music would be mostly aimed at an older adult audience. Sinatra became one of the most respected and critically acclaimed music artists of all time.

Big band swing could variably be an instrumental style or accompany a vocalist. In comparison to its loud, brash, rhythmic sound stood the "sweet" bands which played a softer, more melodic style. The most notable of these, in no small part thanks to a long postwar TV career, was the band of Lawrence Welk.

While swing bands could be found in most major cities during the 1930s-1940s, the most popular and famous were the bands of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Artie Shaw, which had national followings and sold huge numbers. World War II brought an end to big band swing as many musicians were conscripted into the armed forces and travel restrictions made it hard for bands to tour. In 1944, Glenn Miller was killed when his plane crashed into the English Channel en route to a USO show in France. His death is widely considered to mark the close of the swing era.

After the war, a combination of factors such as changing demographics and rapid inflation made large bands unprofitable, so that popular music in the US came to be dominated instead by traditional pop and crooners, as well as bebop and jump blues.

Before the Hot100 was implemented in 1958, Billboard magazine measured a record's performance with three charts, "Best-Selling Popular Retail Records", "Records Most Played By Disk Jockeys" and 'Most-Played Juke Box Records': However, since the latter two charts were not implemented until mid-decade, we focus on ' Best-Selling Retail Records of the 1940s.' Since it consisted of ten positions for most of the decade, only ten per week were recognized. Each week fifteen points were awarded to the number one record, then nine points for number two, eight points for number three, and so on, with one point for number ten. This system balances songs that reach the highest positions, as well as those that had the longest chart runs. Calculations are unaffected by year-end cutoffs as with Billboard ( see discussion).

13

Les Brown and his Orchestra (Vocal Chorus by Doris Day)

Columbia 36769

November 20, 1944

January 22, 1945

US Billboard 1945 #1, US Pop #1 for 8 weeks, 28 total weeks, 213 points, Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, 1,000,000 sales

23

Glenn Miller and his Orchestra

Victor 27934

August 1, 1942

September 12, 1942

US Billboard 1942 #3, US Pop #1 for 7 weeks, 18 total weeks, 181 points, 1,000,000 sales

27

Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra (Vocal Frank Sinatra and Pied Pipers)

Victor 27974

July 1, 1942

July 17, 1942

US Billboard 1943 #3, US Pop #1 for 5 weeks, 26 total weeks, US R&B 1943 #22, Harlem Hit Parade #2 for 1 week, 13 total weeks, 176 points, 1,000,000 sales

36

Bing Crosby

Decca 18595

February 17, 1944

April 1944

US Billboard 1944 #7, US Pop #1 for 4 weeks, 28 total weeks, 168 points

39
The Harmonicats
" Peg o' My Heart"

Vitacoustic 1

March 1947

April 1947

US Billboard 1947 #4, US Pop #1 for 8 weeks, 26 total weeks, 165 points

Benny Goodman performing in Stage Door Canteen (1943)

In the early 1940s, bebop emerged, led by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and others. It helped to shift jazz from danceable popular music towards a more complex "musician's music." Differing greatly from swing, early bebop divorced itself from dance music, establishing itself more as an art form but lessening its potential popular and commercial value. Since bebop was meant to be listened to, not danced to, it used faster tempos.

The swing era lasted until the mid-1940s, and produced popular tunes such as Duke Ellington's " Cotton Tail" (1940) and Billy Strayhorn's " Take the 'A' Train" (1941). When the big bands struggled to keep going during World War II, a shift was happening in jazz in favor of smaller groups. Some swing era musicians, like Louis Jordan, later found popularity in a new kind of music, called " rhythm and blues", that would evolve into rock and roll in the 1950s.

By the end of the 1940s, the nervous energy and tension of bebop was replaced with a tendency towards calm and smoothness, that eventually influenced the birth of cool jazz, which favoured long, linear melodic lines in the 1950s.

By the 1940s, Dixieland jazz revival musicians like Jimmy McPartland, Eddie Condon and Bud Freeman had become well-known and established their own unique style. Most characteristically, players entered solos against riffing by other horns, and were followed by a closing with the drummer playing a four-bar tag that was then answered by the rest of the band.

Some of the most notable Jazz artists of the 1940s include Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and also Nat King Cole.

Vaughn Monroe as a guest star in a 1962 Bonanza episode

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, became widely popular through the romanticization of the cowboy and idealized depictions of the west in Hollywood films. Singing cowboys, such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, sang cowboy songs in their films and became popular throughout the United States. Film producers began incorporating fully orchestrated four-part harmonies and sophisticated musical arrangements into their motion pictures.

In the post-war period, country music was called "folk" in the trades, and "hillbilly" within the industry. In 1944, The Billboard replaced the term "hillbilly" with "folk songs and blues", and switched to "country" or "country and western" in 1949.

But while cowboy and western music were the most popular styles, a new style - honky tonk - would take root and define the genre of country music for decades to come. The style meshed Western swing and blues music; featured rough, nasal vocals backed by instruments such as the guitar, fiddle, string bass, and steel guitar; and had lyrics that focused on tragic themes of lost love, adultery, loneliness, alcoholism and self-pity. One of the earliest successful practitioners of this style was Ernest Tubb, a Crisp, Texas native who had perfected his style on several Texas radio stations in the mid- to late-1930s. In 1940, he gained a recording contract with Decca Records, and a year later released his standard " Walking the Floor Over You." The single became a hit and sold over one million copies. Allmusic critic David Vinopal called "Walking the Floor Over You" the first honky tonk song that launched the musical genre itself. As the decade progressed, the style was picked up by Floyd Tillman and Hank Williams, and by the end of the 1940s was the predominant style in country music.

Williams, a Butler County, Alabama native, began earning a reputation as both a songwriter and a performing artist. Using traditional honky-tonk themes, Williams grew to become one of the most important country performers of all time. His recording of " Lovesick Blues" (and its flip side, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry") in 1949 remains a landmark in both country and popular music to this day. But even by the late 1940s, it became well known that Williams drank heavily, and his personal problems would continue to grow as the 1950s dawned. Still, his overall style inspired countless artists in country and other styles of music, including rock music, and his songs would be performed by numerous artists in many styles.

On August 25, 1945 Jenny Lou Carson became the first woman to write a No. 1 country music hit when " You Two-Timed Me One Time Too Often," performed by Tex Ritter, reached the top of the Billboard Most Played Juke Box Folk Records. In 1949 Carson had another No. 1 country music hit as a songwriter when " Don't Rob Another Man's Castle," performed by Eddy Arnold, topped the Billboard Folk Best Seller Charts. From 1945 to 1955 Carson was one of the most prolific songwriters in country music. Women weren't absent from the scene as vocalists; in fact, the No. 1 song on Billboard magazine's very first Most Played Juke Box Folk Records chart, dated January 8, 1944, saw The Andrews Sisters get co-credit along with Bing Crosby on " Pistol Packin' Mama." In 1949, Margaret Whiting teamed with Jimmy Wakely to have a No. 1 country and pop hit, a cover of the Floyd Tillman song " Slippin' Around." Kitty Wells was a popular concert attraction, performing with her husband Johnnie Wright and his duet partner, Jack Anglin; and Wilma Lee Cooper was prominently featured on recordings with her husband, Stoney. Other popular female acts were Patsy Montana, Martha Carson, The Maddox Brothers and Rose, Molly O'Day with the Cumberland Mountain Folks, and Lulu Belle (of Lulu Belle and Scotty), while Mother Maybelle Carter re-formed the Carter Family with her daughters, Anita, June, and Helen and their popularity would only grow in time.

Eddy Arnold, known as "The Tennessee Plowboy," became an innovator of crossover music, or music of one particular genre (in this case, country) that was popular among mainstream audiences. His style combined elements of refined honky tonk with popular music sounds, evident on hits like "That's How Much I Love You," "I'll Hold You In My Heart ('Til I Can Hold You In My Arms)," "Anytime" and "Boquet of Roses," and several of these songs charted on both the Billboard country and pop charts. He was so dominant that by 1948, five of that year's six No. 1 songs on Billboards' country chart bore Arnold's name, a record that Charlie Rich would tie 26 years later but otherwise has been unmatched. Arnold would go on to score more than 150 chart hits during a career that spanned until his death in 2008.

Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Tino Rossi, were popular French singers.

The Cuban bolero has traveled to Mexico and the rest of Latin America after its conception, where it became part of their repertoires. Some of the bolero's leading composers have come from nearby countries, most especially the prolific Puerto Rican composer Rafael Hernández, Some Cuban composers of the bolero are listed under Trova. Some successful Mexican bolero composers are María Grever, Gonzalo Curiel Barba, Gabriel Ruiz, and Consuelo Velázquez which song Verdad Amarga (Bitter Truth) was the most popular in Mexico in the year 1948; another example is Mexico's Agustín Lara.

Consuelo Velázquez with Pedro Vargas

Other famous performers include Pedro Vargas, Luis Aguilar, Ana María González, Trío Calaveras, Trío Los Panchos

Mariachi an ensemble that consists of guitarrón, vihuela, guitar, violins and trumpets. Between 1940 mariachi and rancheras originated in the western states of the country.

This folk ensemble performs ranchera, son de mariachi, huapango de mariachi, polka, corrido, and other musical forms. It originated in the southern part of the state of Jalisco during the 19th century. The city of Guadalajara in Jalisco is known as the "Capital of Mariachi". The style is now popular throughout Mexico and the Southwestern United States, and is considered representative of Mexican music and culture.

In China, the 1940s was the golden era of Mandarin pop songs which were collectively termed ' Shidaiqu', literally "songs of the era". Shanghai Pathe Records, then belonging to EMI, emerged to be the leading record company in China and featured a blend of Chinese melodies and western orchestrations as well as Big Band Jazz elements in arrangements of music, leading to their superseding traditional Chinese operas in radio broadcasts. With the help of growing radio audience in the nation, Shidaiqu successfully became prevalent and listening to Mandarin pop songs was regarded as trendy. Among all Chinese contemporary singers, Zhou Xuan, Yao Li (also known as Hue Lee), Wu Yingyin, Bai Guang, Bai Hong, Gong Qiuxia and Li Xianglan were the seven most famous artists (七大歌星), who gained nationwide popularity. Zhou Xuan was the most representative of all, who later became one of the emblematic and legendary figures in the history of Chinese pop songs. In addition, despite the ravages of the Japanese occupation, there saw an immense development and maturation in the Chinese movie industry. Very often, pop songs were intermingled with episodes in films, providing the audience with multiple entertainment at one time. Nonetheless, little attention was paid on the groundbreaking breakthroughs of Chinese Mandarin pop songs in the 1940s, both by the academia and the community in China as well as Western countries. Shidaiqu had its influence even in Hong Kong and Taiwan music in the 1950s and 1960s as well as in Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese communities. Rose, Rose, I Love you, the renowned song presented by Frankie Laine, and An Autumn Melody, were two symbolic Shidaiqu.

In Japan, Nihon Columbia and Nihon Victor were two of the larger record companies. Blues, boogie-woogie and jazz were popular. Ryouichi Hattori was a popular composer, and Shizuko Kasagi was one of the popular singers.

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For music from an individual year in the 1940s, go to 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1940s .

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The Jell-O Program.
1. Starring Jack Benny as himself, the laugh-out-loud sitcom is widely considered the epitome of 20th-century American comedy.

2. The program changed names over the years as it was sponsored by different products, but Benny remained a household name as the protagonist of the show
.
3. He continued with The General Tire Revue for the rest of that season, and in the fall of 1934,

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The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio and television comedy series, which ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy. He played one role throughout his radio and television career, a caricature of himself as a minimally talented musician and penny-pincher who was the butt of all the jokes. The show's producer, Hilliard Marks, was the brother of Benny's wife, Mary Livingstone.

On both television and radio, The Jack Benny Program used a loose show-within-a-show format, wherein the main characters were playing versions of themselves. The show often broke the fourth wall, with the characters interacting with the audience and commenting on the program and its advertisements.

In his first years on radio (c. 1932-1935), Jack Benny followed the format of many other radio comedians, standing at the microphone, telling jokes and stories, and introducing band numbers. As the characters of Jack and his cast became more defined, the show took on a "variety show" format, blending sketch comedy and musical interludes.

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. Wilson would then introduce Jack Benny as the "Master of Ceremonies," and banter with him. Gradually, the rest of the cast members - including Mary Livingstone, bandleader Phil Harris, and tenor Kenny Baker or Dennis Day - would "walk on" to join the conversation. The banter between Benny and the regulars generally covered the news of the day, Jack's latest exchange in his ongoing feud with Fred Allen, or one of the running jokes on the program, such as Jack's stinginess, his age, or his vanity, Phil's habitual drunkenness, egotism, or illiteracy, Don's obesity, Dennis' stupidity, or Mary's letters from her mother.

As the show progressed, Jack might be interrupted by a phone call from his valet, Rochester ( Eddie Anderson), reporting some problem at Benny's home (e.g. with Jack's pet polar bear, Carmichael, or with his crazy wartime boarder, Mr. Billingsley). Occasionally, Andy Devine or the Jewish character, Schlepperman (Sam Hearn), would make an appearance. At some point, Jack would tell the tenor it was time for their singing number ("Sing, Kenny!" or "Dennis, let's have your song."). Don Wilson would insert another commercial for the sponsor, and the band would do a "Big Band" number (ostensibly led by Phil Harris, although conductor Mahlon Merrick actually led the band).

The second half of the show would be devoted to a comedy sketch. Jack might leave the studio and go home to handle some problem (e.g. getting Carmichael to take his medicine). 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"). In some episodes, Jack closed the show with brief instructions to his band leader ("Play, Phil."), and the band would play a final musical number, as Don Wilson did a final commercial.

Over the years, The Jack Benny Program evolved into the modern domestic situation comedy form, crafting particular situations and scenarios from the fictionalized life of Jack Benny, the radio star. The sitcom shows often took place in Jack's house in Beverly Hills, with the story revolving around some aspect of Benny's life. For example, an entire show might be devoted to Jack taking a violin lesson, instructed by his harried violin teacher, Professor LeBlanc (played by Mel Blanc). Common situations included hosting parties, income-tax time, nights on the town, "backstage" interactions between Jack and his cast during show rehearsals at the radio studio, contract negotiations, traveling in the Maxwell, or traveling by train or plane to and from Jack's many personal appearances throughout the country (hence the "Train leaving on track five" running gag).

The sitcom shows usually opened with Jack handling some common domestic task (e.g. Spring cleaning or organizing the pantry), with help from Rochester. As the show progressed, Jack would receive visits or phone calls from Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris or Bob Crosby (who replaced Harris as the radio show's "band leader" in 1952), and Dennis Day. Following an exchange with Day, Benny would order him to "rehearse" a song ("Let's hear the song that you're going to sing on my show tomorrow night."), and Dennis would sing a number. 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.

Later in the show, Jack might step out to handle some common errand, such as going to the dentist, or visiting a store to buy a new suit, where the dentist or store clerk would inevitably turn out to be Frank Nelson. While on these errands, he might encounter Mr. Kitzel ( Artie Auerbach), the race track tout ( Sheldon Leonard) or John L.C. Sivoney ( Frank Fontaine). In other shows, Jack might fall asleep while reading a book in his study (e.g. "I Stand Condemned" or "The Search for the Elephant's Graveyard"), and dream that he was the star of the story he was reading.

In the 1950s, as The Jack Benny Program gravitated to television, the "domestic sitcom" became the show's standard format, often with Benny introducing the episode onstage. Scripts and storylines from radio show episodes were re-used and adapted for TV episodes, with the writers using visual gags and settings (e.g. Jack's underground vault) that had previously been described on air and left to the radio listeners' imaginations.

Benny was part of a USO show entertaining US troops in Korea. Here, he relaxes between shows.[6]

Jack Benny first appeared on radio as a guest of Ed Sullivan in March 1932. He was then given his own show later that year, with Canada Dry Ginger Ale as a sponsor - The Canada Dry Ginger Ale Program, beginning May 2, 1932, on the NBC Blue Network and continuing there for six months until October 26, moving the show to CBS on October 30. With Ted Weems leading the band, Benny stayed on CBS until January 26, 1933.

Arriving at NBC on March 3, Benny did The Chevrolet Program until April 1, 1934, with Frank Black leading the band. He continued with The General Tire Revue for the rest of that season, and in the fall of 1934, for General Foods as The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny (1934-42), and when sales of Jell-O were affected by sugar rationing during World War II, The Grape Nuts Flakes Program Starring Jack Benny (later the Grape Nuts and Grape Nuts Flakes Program) (1942-44).

On October 1, 1944, the show became The Lucky Strike Program Starring Jack Benny, when American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes took over as his radio sponsor, through to the mid-1950s. By that time, the practice of using the sponsor's name as the title began to fade.

The show returned to CBS on January 2, 1949, as part of CBS president William S. Paley's "raid" of NBC talent in 1948-49. There it stayed for the remainder of its radio run, which ended on May 22, 1955. CBS aired repeats of previous 1953-55 radio episodes from 1956 to 1958 as The Best of Benny for State Farm Insurance, which later sponsored his television program from 1960 through 1965.

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. Beginning from this point, Benny was heard Sunday evenings at 7, at the time seen as a "graveyard slot". However, this was eventually associated with Benny, who appeared in that very time spot for his remaining 21 years on radio (counting his TV shows, he would broadcast on Sundays for a record 28 consecutive years).

In the fall of 1935, Don Bestor was replaced by Johnny Green as the maestro, while Parker was replaced by Michael Bartlett, who himself left after 13 weeks, with Kenny Baker taking over. 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.

In 1936, after a few years of broadcasting from New York, Benny moved the show to Los Angeles, allowing him to bring in guests from among his show-business friends, including Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Judy Garland, Barbara Stanwyck, Bing Crosby, Burns and Allen (George Burns was Benny's closest friend), and many others. Burns, Allen, and Orson Welles guest-hosted several episodes in March and April 1943 when Benny was ill with pneumonia, while Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume appeared often in the 1940s as Benny's long-suffering neighbors.

The 1936-37 season brought many changes instrumental to the development of the show. 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. Benny had already done a number of shows on the West Coast for two years - featuring Jimmie Grier as guest conductor - whenever he was doing movie work. Green was replaced by Phil Harris.

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. His character was so well received that it was decided to have Anderson join the cast as Rochester, Benny's valet. In 1939, Baker chose to leave the show and was replaced by Dennis Day.

In 1941, NBC celebrated Benny's 10th anniversary in radio in an unprecedented manner, broadcasting part of a banquet dedicated to him, in which the network conceded the Sunday 7:00 to 7:30 pm slot to Benny instead of the sponsor, as it was the custom during the Golden Age of Radio.

In 1942, due to sugar shortages during war time, General Foods switched their sponsor product from Jell-O to Grape-Nuts. World War II affected the show as Harris joined the Merchant Marines, being absent from the program from December 1942 until March 1943. That fall, Morrow joined the Army and Beloin left the show; they were replaced by Milt Josefsberg, John Tackaberry, George Balzer, and Cy Howard, the latter of whom was soon replaced by Sam Perrin. Day enlisted in the Navy in early 1944, not returning until 1946. The new writers emphasized sitcom situations instead of the film parodies prevalent in earlier years.

After 10 years with General Foods, American Tobacco's Lucky Strike became Benny's sponsor from October 1944, an association that lasted until 1959.

The show switched networks to CBS on January 2, 1949, as part of CBS president William S. Paley's notorious "raid" on NBC talent in 1948-49. It stayed there for the remainder of its radio run, ending on May 22, 1955. In 1952, Harris was replaced by Bob Crosby. CBS aired repeat episodes from 1956 to 1958 as The Best of Benny.

In the early days of radio and in the early television era, airtime was owned by the sponsor, and Benny incorporated the commercials into the body of the show. 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. Nevertheless, for years, Benny insisted in contract negotiations that his writers pen the sponsor's commercial in the middle of the program (leaving the sponsor to provide the opening and closing spots) and the resulting ads were cleverly and wittily worked into the storyline of the show. For example, on one program, Don Wilson accidentally misread Lucky Strike's slogan ("Be happy, go Lucky") as "Be Lucky, go happy", prompting a story arc over several weeks that had Wilson unable to appear on the show due to being traumatized by the error.

In fact, the radio show was generally not announced as The Jack Benny Program. Instead, the primary name of the show tied to the sponsor. Benny's first sponsor was Canada Dry Ginger Ale from 1932 to 1933. Benny's sponsors included Chevrolet from 1933 to 1934, General Tire in 1934, and Jell-O from 1934 to 1942.

The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny was so successful in selling Jell-O, that General Foods could not manufacture it quickly enough when sugar shortages arose in the early years of World War II, and the company stopped advertising the dessert mix. General Foods switched the Benny program from Jell-O to Grape-Nuts from 1942 to 1944, and it was The Grape Nuts Program Starring Jack Benny. Benny's longest-running sponsor, was the American Tobacco Company's Lucky Strike cigarettes, from 1944 to 1955, when the show was usually announced as The Lucky Strike Program starring Jack Benny.

Benny employed a small group of writers, most of whom stayed with him for many years. This was in contrast to many successful radio or television comedians, such as Bob Hope, who changed writers frequently. One of Benny's writers, George Balzer, noted: "One of the nice things about writing for Jack Benny was that he never denied your existence. On the contrary, he publicized it - not just in conversations, but in interviews and on the air."

Historical accounts like those by longtime Benny writer Milt Josefsberg indicate that Benny's role was essentially as head writer and director of his radio programs, though he was not credited in either capacity. In contrast to Fred Allen, who initially wrote his own radio scripts and extensively rewrote scripts produced in later years by a writing staff, Jack Benny was often described by his writers as a consummate comedy editor rather than a writer per se. George Burns described Benny as "the greatest editor of material in the business. He's got the knack of cutting out all the weak slush and keeping in only the strong, punchy lines."

Jack Benny has a reputation as a master of timing. Since his days in radio, he often explored the limits of timing for comedic purposes, like pausing a disproportionate amount of time before answering a question. Balzer described writing material for Benny as similar to composing music, with one element being the rhythm of delivery as equivalent to musical tempo.

During his early radio shows, no recurring theme was used, with the program instead opening each week with a different then-current popular song. Throughout the Jell-O and Grape-Nuts years, announcer Don Wilson would announce the name of the show, some of the cast, then state "The orchestra opens the program with [name of song]." The orchestra number would continue softly as background for Don Wilson's opening commercial.

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. "Love in Bloom" was later the theme of his television show. His radio shows often ended with the orchestra playing " Hooray for Hollywood". The TV show ended with one of two bouncy instrumentals written for the show by his musical arranger and conductor, Mahlon Merrick.

Benny sometimes joked about the propriety of "Love in Bloom" as his theme song. On a segment often played in Tonight Show retrospectives, Benny talks with Johnny Carson about this. Benny says he has no objections to the song in and of itself, only as his theme. Proving his point, he begins reciting the lyrics slowly and deliberately: "Can it be the trees. That fill the breeze. With rare and magic perfume. Now what the hell has that got to do with me?"

Eddie Anderson was the first black man to have a recurring role in a national radio show, which was significant because at the time, black characters were not uncommonly played by white actors in blackface. Although Eddie Anderson's Rochester may be considered a stereotype by some, his attitudes were unusually sardonic for such a role. As was typical at the time in depicting class distinctions, Rochester always used a formal mode of address to the other (White) characters ("Mr. Benny", "Miss Livingstone") and they always used a familiar mode in speaking to him ("Rochester"), but the formal mode when speaking to him about another White character ("Mr. Benny" when speaking to Rochester but "Jack" when speaking to Jack).

In many routines, Rochester gets the better of Benny, often pricking his boss' ego, or simply outwitting him. The show's portrayal of black characters could be seen as advanced for its time. 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 not as the typical "darkie stereotype" seen in many films of the time.

Glenn's role was a recurring one on the series, where he was often portrayed as having to support two people on one unemployment check (i.e., himself and Rochester). Black talent was also showcased, with several guest appearances by The Ink Spots and others. Once, when Benny and his cast and crew were doing a series of shows in New York, the entire cast, including Eddie Anderson, stayed in a prominent New York hotel. Shortly after they decamped at the hotel, a manager told Benny that some White guests from Mississippi had complained to him about Anderson staying in the hotel. He asked Benny to please "do something about it." Benny assured him that he would fix the matter. That evening, Benny moved all his people into another hotel, where Anderson would not be made to feel unwelcome.

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. When they happened, Jack would laugh along with the audience, ad lib a joke or two, and continue on with the show, although the line flubs clearly annoyed him. When Eddie Anderson, who had a habit of missing rehearsals, would flub his lines on the air, Jack would sometimes shout in mock indignation, "Just one rehearsal! That's all I ask!"

As professional as he was, even Jack himself was not immune to flubs. On the November 6, 1949 episode, in a sketch where he was on a yacht cruise, Jack told the boat captain that he had been "on the Navy" during World War I, instead of "in the Navy." The episode featured so many line flubs that the following week's episode, November 13, was built around Jack calling a meeting of his cast to discuss their mistakes in the previous week's episode.

Mary Livingstone had several flubs that became notorious running gags for weeks after they happened. On the October 27, 1946 episode, during a lunch counter sketch, Mary mistakenly ordered a "chiss sweeze sandwich," instead of a "Swiss cheese sandwich." On the December 3, 1950 episode, Jack told the story of how he met his valet, Rochester. According to Jack, he was driving his car, made a turn into a garage owned by Amos 'n' Andy, and accidentally hit Rochester's car - while it was up on the grease rack. At the end of the show, Mary asked Jack, "How could you possibly hit a car when it was up on the grass reek?"

Unfortunately, these line flubs may have contributed to Mary Livingstone developing a bad case of "mike fright." In the radio show's final years (1952-1955), Mary's character appeared less and less. When the show was transcribed (pre-recorded), Mary's daughter, Joan Benny, would fill in for her mother when the cast recorded the episode in front of a live studio audience, and Mary would later dub in her lines from the safety of her living room at home.

On the broadcast of January 8, 1950, journalist Drew Pearson was the subject of a joke gone wrong. Announcer Don Wilson was supposed to say he heard that Jack bought a new suit on Drew Pearson's broadcast, but accidentally said "Dreer Pooson". Later in the show, comedic actor Frank Nelson was asked by Benny if he was the doorman. Changing his original response at the suggestion of the writers, Nelson said, "Well, who do you think I am, Dreer Pooson?" The audience laughed for almost 30 seconds.

(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. On the recording of the January 8, 1950 episode, Jack's laughter is not heard. However, since the show was transcribed, it may have been edited out of the final broadcast.)

The line flubs would occasionally cause the show to run overtime. When this happened, Jack would cut the "coda joke" at the end of the episode, and sign off with the customary statement, "We're a little late, so good night, folks."

Jack Benny rehearses with members of the California Junior Symphony Orchestra, 1959

Benny teamed with Fred Allen for the best-remembered running gag in classic radio history, in terms of character dialogue. 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. 2 in C major.[citation needed ]

In fact, Benny was a quite good violinist who achieved the illusion of a bad one, not by deliberately playing poorly, but by striving to play pieces that were too difficult for his skill level. In one of his show's skits, Benny is a USO performer in the Pacific playing his violin when he comes under fire; Benny still plays his violin when two Japanese surrender to him - all the other enemy soldiers committed suicide rather than endure listening to Benny's terrible music.

A skit heard numerous times on radio, and seen many times on television, had Mel Blanc as a Mexican in a sombrero and serape sitting on a bench. Jack Benny sits down and begins a conversation. To each question asked by Benny, Blanc replies Sí. When Benny asks his name, Blanc replies Sy, which would prompt the exchange, Sy?, Sí. And when Benny asks where Blanc is going, Blanc replies, "to see his sister", Sue ( Sue?, Sí.), who of course sews for a living ( Sew?, Sí.).

A running gag was Benny age always being 39 - a guest on the show was Rod Serling who is the mayor of a town where no one recognizes Benny; Jack runs off screaming for help while Serling breaks the fourth wall and remarks to the audience that anyone who has been 39 for as long as Benny has is a resident of this "Zone" (i.e., Twilight Zone).

A running gag in Benny's private life concerned George Burns. To Benny's eternal frustration, he could never get Burns to laugh. Burns, though, could crack Benny up with the least effort. An example of this occurred at a party when Benny pulled out a match to light a cigar. Burns announced to all, "Jack Benny will now perform the famous match trick!" Benny had no idea what Burns was talking about, so he proceeded to light up. Burns observed, "Oh, a new ending!" and Benny collapsed in helpless laughter.

A promotional photo of Benny and his vault

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. The alarm rang even when Benny opened his safe with the correct combination. The vault also featured a guard named Ed (voiced by Joseph Kearns) who had been on post down below, apparently, before the end of the Civil War, the end of the Revolutionary War, the founding of Los Angeles, on Jack's 38th birthday and even the beginning of humanity.

In one appearance, Ed asked Benny, "By the way, Mr. Benny ... what's it like on the outside?" Benny responded, "... winter is nearly here, and the leaves are falling." Ed responded, "Hey, that must be exciting," to which Benny replied (in a stunningly risqué joke for the period), "Oh, no - people are wearing clothes now."

In one episode of the Benny radio show, Ed the Guard actually agreed when Benny invited him to take a break and come back to the surface world, only to discover that modern conveniences and transportation, which had not been around the last time he had been to the surface, terrorized and confused him. (Ed thought a crosstown bus was "a red and yellow dragon".) Finally, Ed decides to return to his post fathoms below and stay there. The basement vault gag was also used in the cartoon The Mouse that Jack Built and an episode of The Lucy Show.

A separate sound gag involved a song Benny had written, "When You Say I Beg Your Pardon, Then I'll Come Back to You". 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. However, none ever made it all the way.

In keeping with his "stingy" schtick, on one of his television specials he remarked that, to his way of looking at things, a "special" is when the price of coffee is marked down.

The orchestra

Another popular running gag concerned the social habits of Benny's on-air orchestra, who were consistently portrayed as a bunch of drunken ne'er-do-wells. Led first by Phil Harris and later by Bob Crosby, the orchestra, and in particular band member Frank Remley, were jokingly portrayed as often being too drunk to play properly, using an overturned bass drum to play cards on just minutes before a show and so enamored of liquor that the sight of a glass of milk would make them sick. 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.

Crosby also got consistent laughs by frequently joking about his more famous brother Bing Crosby's vast wealth.

Christmas shopping

One popular scenario that became a tradition on The Jack Benny Program was the annual "Christmas Shopping" episode, in which Benny would go to a local department store to do his shopping. Each year, Benny would buy a ridiculously cheap Christmas gift for Don Wilson, from a harried store clerk played by Mel Blanc. Benny would then drive Blanc to insanity by exchanging the gift countless times throughout the episode.

In the 1946 Christmas episode, for example, Benny buys shoelaces for Don, and is unable to make up his mind whether to give Wilson shoelaces with plastic tips or metal tips. After exchanging them repeatedly, Mel Blanc is heard screaming insanely, "Plastic tips! Metal tips! I can't stand it anymore!"

A variation in 1948 was with an expensive wallet, but repeatedly changing the greeting card, prompting Blanc to shout, "I haven't run into anyone like you in 20 years! Oh, why did the governor have to give me that pardon!?" Benny then realizes that he should have gotten Don a wallet for $1.98, whereupon the store clerk responds by committing suicide.

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.

One Christmas program had Crosby agonizing over what to get Remley: Benny: "Well, why don't you get him a cordial; like a bottle of Drambuie?" Crosby: "That's a nice thought, Jack, but Drambuie's an after-dinner drink." Benny: "So?" Crosby: "So Remley never quite makes it 'til after dinner."

The Maxwell

Jack Benny shakes hands with Harry S. Truman from the seat of a circa 1908 Maxwell Roadster

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. Although some details such as the car's body style and its exact model year varied over the years, what remained constant was that Benny's old car was so worn out that it would barely run, but the miserly Benny insisted he could get a few more miles out of it.

Many of the sound effects for the car's clattering engine came from an actual old motor that the sound-effects shop had salvaged from a Los Angeles junkyard. When a sound-effects man missed a cue for the automobile engine, Mel Blanc quickly improvised a vocal imitation of a sputtering car engine starting up noisily that was so funny, it became a regular feature of the show.

The ongoing saga of the Maxwell was initially interrupted after just five years, when on the October 18, 1942, broadcast, Jack took his car to a local junkyard and contributed it to the World War II junk salvage drive, receiving $7.50 in war stamps in exchange. However, much of the radio audience may have remained unaware that the Maxwell was ever gone, because before long Benny was heard traveling around in a decrepit old car again, and by the end of the 1940s, his car was once more specifically identified as a Maxwell.

When the Jack Benny Program premiered on television in 1950, a 1916 Maxwell Model 25 Tourer became one of the production's standard props. Benny's Maxwell later became a 1923 Tourer. Benny often made public appearances in Maxwells. He drove a Maxwell onto the stage in one of his last television specials.

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. The automobile was also featured in the 1943 Benny film The Meanest Man in the World. Benny and his archaic auto were featured in a series of television and print ads for Texaco from the 1950s through the 1970s.

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. In the classic cartoon " The Mouse that Jack Built", Benny and his wife are driven by Rochester in a sputtering Maxwell car. In another gag Benny comes home and Rochester reports that he has just reported to the Police that the Maxwell was stolen 3 hours after it happened. When Benny asks why he waited so long, Rochester replies that it was when he stopped laughing.

Many people believe that Benny appears behind the wheel of his Maxwell in the 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but in fact, it was a 1932 Cadillac. The long shots for the scene were shot months before Benny was cast - with a stunt driver at the wheel - and the role was intended for Stan Laurel (which is why the character wears a derby, which Benny almost never did). When Laurel ultimately passed on appearing, Jack agreed to play the role. According to the commentary on the Criterion edition of the film, his close-ups were filmed on a rear-projection stage at the Paramount studio.

The Benny-Allen feud

On April 5, 1936, Benny began his famous radio feud with rival Fred Allen when he satirized Allen's show.Allen kicked the feud off on his own show on December 30, 1936, after child violinist Stuart Canin gave a performance of François Schubert's The Bee credibly enough that Allen wisecracked about "a certain alleged violinist" who should by comparison be ashamed of himself. Benny, who listened to the Allen show, answered in kind at the end of his January 3, 1937, show, and the two comedians were off and running.

For a decade, the two went at it back and forth, so convincingly that fans of either show could have been forgiven for believing they had become blood enemies. In reality, the two men were close friends and mutual admirers. Benny and Allen often appeared on each other's show during the ongoing feud; numerous surviving episodes of both comedians' radio shows feature each other, in both acknowledged guest spots and occasional cameos. On one Christmas program, Allen thanked Benny for sending him a Christmas tree, but then added that the tree had died. "Well, what do you expect," quipped Allen, "when the tree is in Brooklyn and the sap is in Hollywood."

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. If Allen zapped Benny with a satirization of Benny's show ("The Pinch Penny Program"), Benny shot back with a parody of Allen's Town Hall Tonight called " Clown Hall Tonight", and their playful sniping ("Benny was born ignorant, and he's been losing ground ever since") was also advanced in the films Love Thy Neighbor and It's in the Bag!.

Perhaps the climax of the feud came during Fred Allen's parody of popular quiz-and-prize show Queen for a Day. Calling the sketch "King for a Day", Allen played the host and Benny a contestant who sneaked onto the show using the alias Myron Proudfoot. Benny answered the prize-winning question correctly and Allen crowned him "king" and showered him with a passel of almost meaningless prizes.

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!" At this point a professional pressing-iron was wheeled on stage, to press Benny's suit properly. It didn't matter that Benny was still in the suit. Allen instructed his aides to remove Benny's suit, one item at a time, ending with his trousers, each garment's removal provoking louder laughter from the studio audience.

As his trousers began to come off, Benny howled, "Allen, you haven't seen the end of me!" At once Allen shot back, "It won't be long now!" The laughter was so loud and chaotic at the chain of events that the Allen show announcer, Kenny Delmar, was cut off the air while trying to read a final commercial and the show's credits. (Allen was notorious for running overtime often enough, largely thanks to his ad-libbing talent, and he overran the clock again this time.)

Benny was profoundly shaken when in 1956 Allen suddenly died at age 61 from a heart attack. In a statement released on the day after Allen's death, Benny said, "People have often asked me if Fred Allen and I were really friends in real life. My answer is always the same: You couldn't have such a long-running and successful feud as we did, without having a deep and sincere friendship at the heart of it." Allen himself wrote, "For years people have been asking me if Jack and I are friendly. I don't think that Jack Benny has an enemy in the world. ... He is my favorite comedian and I hope to be his friend until he is forty. That will be forever."

The radio series was one of the most extensively preserved programs of its era, with the archive almost complete from 1936 onward and several episodes existing from before that (including the 1932 premiere).

A few episodes from the series' later years remain missing, however, such as the shows from September 30 and October 7, 1951.

The March 28, 1948 episode of the radio series was chosen by the Library of Congress as a 2004 selection for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

The Jack Benny Program

Starring

Jack Benny

Composer

Mahlon Merrick

No. of seasons

15

No. of episodes

260 ( list of episodes)

Running time

24-25 minutes

Production companies

CBS Television (1950-1955)
J&M Productions, Inc. (1955-1965)

Original network

CBS (1950-1964)
NBC (1964-1965)

Original release

October 28, 1950 -
April 16, 1965

Jack Benny made his TV debut in 1949 with a local appearance on Los Angeles station KTTV, then a CBS affiliate. On October 28, 1950, he made his full network debut over CBS Television. Benny's television shows were occasional broadcasts in his early seasons on TV, as he was still firmly dedicated to radio.

The regular and continuing Jack Benny Program was telecast on CBS from October 28, 1950, to September 15, 1964. It became a weekly show in the 1960-1961 season, and was on NBC from September 25, 1964, to September 10, 1965.

343 episodes were produced. 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).

The television show was a seamless continuation of Benny's radio program, employing many of the same players, the same approach to situation comedy, and some of the same scripts. The suffix "Program" instead of "Show" was also a carryover from radio, where "program" rather than "show" was used frequently for presentations in the nonvisual medium. Occasionally, in several live episodes, the title card read The Jack Benny Show.

The Jack Benny Program appeared infrequently during its first two years on CBS-TV. Benny moved into television slowly. In his first season (1950-1951), he only performed on four shows, but by the 1951-1952 season, he was ready to do one show roughly every six weeks. In the third season (1952-1953), the show was broadcast every four weeks. During the 1953-1954 season, the Jack Benny Program aired every three weeks.

From 1954 to 1960, the program aired every other week, rotating with such shows as Private Secretary and Bachelor Father. After the radio show ended in 1955, Benny took on another biweekly series, becoming a regular on Shower of Stars, CBS's hourlong comedy/variety anthology series. He effectively appeared almost every week on one of the two series. On Shower of Stars, Benny's character finally turned 40, throwing a large birthday party for the occasion.

Beginning in the 1960-1961 season, the Jack Benny Program began airing every week. The show moved from CBS to NBC prior to the 1964-65 season. During the 1953-54 season, a few episodes were filmed during the summer and the others were live, a schedule that allowed Benny to continue doing his radio show. In the 1953-1954 season, Dennis Day had his own short-lived comedy and variety show on NBC, The Dennis Day Show.

Live episodes (and later live-on-tape episodes) of the Jack Benny Program were broadcast from CBS Television City with live audiences. Early filmed episodes were shot by McCadden Productions at Hollywood Center Studios and later by Desilu Productions at Red Studios Hollywood with an audience brought in to watch the finished film for live responses. Benny's opening and closing monologues were filmed in front of a live audience. From the late 1950s until the last season on NBC, though, a laugh track was used to augment audience responses. By this time, all shows were filmed at Universal Television.

In Jim Bishop's book A Day in the Life of President Kennedy, John F. Kennedy said that he was too busy to watch most television, but that he made the time to watch the Jack Benny Program each week.

Outside of North America (being also one of the most popular shows on the CBC), one episode reportedly aired first in the United Kingdom (where one episode was filmed). Benny had also been a familiar figure in Australia since the mid- to late 1930s with his radio show, and he made a special program for ATN-7 Jack Benny In Australia in March 1964, after a successful tour of Sydney and Melbourne.

James T. Aubrey, the president of CBS Television and a man known for his abrasive and judgmental decision-making style, infamously told Benny in 1963, "you're through." Benny was further incensed when CBS placed an untested new sitcom, the Beverly Hillbillies spinoff Petticoat Junction, as his lead in. 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.

He feared a separation of their two programs might prove fatal. Early that fall, he announced his show was moving back to NBC, where he was able to get the network to pick up another season. Benny's fears proved to be unfounded; his ratings for the 1963-64 season remained strong, while Petticoat Junction emerged as the most popular new series that fall.

In his unpublished autobiography, I Always Had Shoes (portions of which were later incorporated by Benny's daughter, Joan, into her memoir of her parents, Sunday Nights at Seven), Benny said that he made the decision to end his TV series in 1965. He said that while the ratings were still good (he cited a figure of some 18 million viewers per week, although he qualified that figure by saying he never believed the ratings services were doing anything more than guessing), advertisers complained that commercial time on his show was costing nearly twice as much as what they paid for most other shows, and he had grown tired of what was called the " rat race".

While Benny has Bing Crosby up a tree, thanks to Rochester's hammock invention, he uses the opportunity to bargain with Bing for a lower appearance fee, 1954.

Benny as composer Stephen Foster and Connie Francis as his wife who nags him to write a successful song, 1963.

Jack Benny and Eddie Anderson as Rochester from a 1977 special about Jack Benny's series; it used clips from earlier shows.

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. During his lone NBC season, CBS aired repeats on weekdays and Sunday afternoons. 104 episodes personally selected by Benny and Irving Fein, Benny's associate since 1947, were placed into syndication in 1968 by MCA TV. Telecasts of the shows in the late evening were running as late as 1966.[citation needed ]

Four early-1960s episodes were rerun on CBS during the summer of 1977. Edited 16mm prints ran on the CBN Cable Network in the mid-1980s. Restored versions first appeared on the short lived HA! network in 1990. As of 2011, the series has run on Antenna TV, part of a long-term official syndication distribution deal. The public domain television episodes have appeared on numerous stations, including PBS, while the radio series episodes have appeared in radio drama anthology series such as When Radio Was.[citation needed ]

Public-domain episodes have been available on budget VHS/Beta tapes (and later DVDs) since the late 1970s. MCA Home Video issued a 1960 version of the classic "Christmas Shopping" show in 1982 and a VHS set of 10 filmed episodes in 1990. In 2008, 25 public-domain episodes of the show, long thought lost, were located in a CBS vault. The Jack Benny Fan Club, with the blessing of the Benny estate, offered to fund the digital preservation and release of these sealed episodes. CBS issued a press statement that any release was unlikely.

June 2013 had the first official release of 18 rare live Benny programs from 1956 to 1964 by Shout! Factory. 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.

Group photograph of Eddie Anderson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Mary Livingstone, Jack Benny, Don Wilson, and Mel Blanc

Jack Benny as himself - The protagonist of the show, Benny is a comic, vain, penny-pinching miser, insisting on remaining 39 years old on stage despite his actual age, and often playing the violin badly.

Eddie Anderson as Rochester Van Jones, Jack's valet and chauffeur - Early in the show's run, he often talked of gambling or going out with women. Later on, he complained about his salary.

Don Wilson as himself - Don generally opened the show and also did the commercials. He was the target of Jack's jokes, mostly about his weight.

Eugene McNulty as Dennis Day - A vocalist perpetually in his 20s (by the time of the last television series, McNulty was 49 years old), he was sweet but not very bright. When called upon, he could use a wide variety of accents, which was especially useful in plays. He usually sang a song about 10 minutes into the program. If the episode was a flashback to a previous time, a ruse would be used such as Dennis singing his song for Jack so he could hear it before the show. McNulty adopted the name "Dennis Day" as his stage name for the rest of his career.

Sadie Marks as Mary Livingstone - A sarcastic comic foil, her varying roles all served as, to use the description of Fred Allen, "a girl to insult (Jack)." Marks, who in real life was Benny's wife, later legally changed her name to "Mary Livingstone" in response to the character's popularity. Her role on the program was reduced in the 1950s due to increasing stage fright, and Livingstone finally retired from acting in 1958.[7][37]

Phil Harris as himself - A skirt-chasing, arrogant, hip-talking bandleader, he constantly put Jack down (in a mostly friendly way). He referred to Mary as "Livvy" or "Liv", and Jack as "Jackson".[38] Harris explained this once by saying it's "as close as I can get to jackass and still be polite"[39] Spun off into The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show (1946-1954) with his wife, actress Alice Faye.[38] Harris left the radio show in 1952 and his character did not make the transition to television apart from a guest appearance.

Mel Blanc as Carmichael the Polar Bear, Professor Pierre LeBlanc, Sy the Mexican, Polly (Jack's parrot), the Maxwell, and many other assorted voices[40] - An occasional running gag went along the lines of how the various characters Mel portrayed all looked alike. He was also the sound effects of Jack's barely functional Maxwell automobile - a role he played again in the Warner Bros. cartoon The Mouse that Jack Built. Another participating voice actor was Bert Gordon. Mel also played a train-station announcer, whose catchphrase was, "Train leaving on Track Five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc-amonga."[citation needed ]

Frank Nelson as the "Yeeee-essss?" man - He was always the person who waited on Jack wherever he was, from the railroad-station agent, to the store clerk, to the doorman, to the waiter. Frank always delighted in aggravating Jack, as he was apparently constantly aggravated by Jack's presence.

Sheldon Leonard - A racetrack tout (originated by Benny Rubin), he frequently offered unsolicited advice to Benny on a variety of racing-unrelated subjects. Ironically, he never gave out information on horse racing, unless Jack demanded it. One excuse the tout gave was, "Who knows about horses?" His catchphrase was "Hey, bud... c'mere a minute".[1]

Joseph Kearns as Ed, the superannuated security guard in Jack's money vault - Ed had allegedly been guarding Jack's vault since (variously) the founding of Los Angeles (1781), the American Civil War, the American Revolutionary War, or when Jack had just turned 38 years old. Burt Mustin took over the role on television following Kearns' death in 1962. (In the 1959 cartoon The Mouse that Jack Built, Mel Blanc played the part of Ed, who asks if the U.S. had won the war, then asks what would be done with the Kaiser). Kearns also played other roles, that of Dennis Day's father, that of a beleaguered IRS agent, his dentist, and often of a clerk when it was not necessary to have Frank Nelson antagonize Jack.

Artie Auerbach as Mr. Kitzel - He originally appeared on Al Pearce's radio show in the late 1930s, where his famous catch phrase was, "Hmmmm... eh, could be!", and several years later as a regular on The Abbott & Costello Show, who originally started out as a Yiddish hot dog vendor selling hot dogs during the Rose Bowl. In later episodes, he went on to lose his hot dog stand, and move on to various other jobs. A big part of his schtick involved garbling names with his accent, such as referring to Nat King Cole as "Nat King Cohen", or mentioning his favorite baseball player, "Rabbi Maranville". He often complained about his wife, an unseen character who was described as a large, domineering woman who, on one occasion, Kitzel visualized as "...from the front, she looks like Don Wilson from the side!" He often sang various permutations of his jingle, "Pickle in the middle and the mustard on top!" Kitzel was often heard to say, "Hoo-hoo-HOO!" in response to questions asked of him.

Bob Crosby - In 1952, Crosby replaced Phil Harris as the bandleader, remaining until Benny retired the radio show in 1955. In joining the show, he became the leader of the same group of musicians who had played under Harris. Many of his running jokes focused on his apparent inability to pronounce "Manischewitz",[41] his own family, and the wealth and lifestyle of his older brother, Bing Crosby.

Benny Rubin - Played a variety of characters on both the radio and television versions. His most memorable bit was as an information-desk attendant. Jack would ask a series of questions that Rubin would answer with an ever-increasingly irritated, "I don't know!" followed by the punchline {among them: "Well, if you don't know, why are you standing behind that counter?"/"I gotta stand behind something; somebody stole my pants!" or "I missed a payment, and they nailed my shoes to the floor!"}.

Dale White - Harlow Wilson, the son of Don and Lois Wilson, on television.[42] His catchphrase, "You never did like me!", is usually uttered when Jack and he end up embroiled in an argument, though he once said it to his own mother.

Verna Felton as Mrs. Lucretia Day, Dennis' frighteningly domineering mother - She often came to near blows with Jack in her efforts to prevent him from taking advantage of Dennis, and she was often portrayed as working various masculine jobs such as a plumber, trucker, or karate instructor. Although she cares deeply for her son, Dennis' zany behavior aggravates her to no end, and the show has alluded to her hilariously myriad attempts at killing and abandoning him.

Bea Benaderet and Sara Berner as Gertrude Gearshift and Mabel Flapsaddle, a pair of telephone switchboard operators - They always traded barbs with Jack (and sometimes each other) when he tried to put through a call. Whenever the scene shifted to them, they subtly plugged a current picture in an insult such as "Mr. Benny's line is flashing!" "Oh, I wonder what Dial M for Money wants now?" or "I wonder what Schmoe Vadis wants now?"

Jane Morgan and Gloria Gordon as Martha and Emily - A pair of elderly ladies, they were irresistibly attracted to Jack.

Madge Blake and Jesslyn Fax were the president and vice president, respectively, of the Jack Benny Fan Club, Pasadena chapter.

James Stewart and his wife, Gloria as themselves - Recurring guest stars on the radio and television series, they played Benny's often-imposed-upon neighbors, in roles similar to those performed by Ronald and Benita Colman.[1]

Butterfly McQueen played Butterfly, the niece of Rochester. She worked as Mary Livingstone's maid.

Ronald Colman and his wife, Benita as themselves - They were among Benny's most popular guest stars on the radio series, portraying his long-suffering next-door neighbors. On the show, the Colmans were often revolted by Jack's eccentricities and by the fact that he always borrowed odds and ends from them (at one point, leading Ronald to exclaim, "Butter? Butter, butter!!! Where does he think this is, Shangri-La?"). Dennis Day often impersonated Ronald Colman.

Frank Parker was the show's singer during the early seasons on radio from New York.

Kenny Baker - The show's tenor singer, he originally played the young, dopey character. He was replaced by Dennis Day.

Andy Devine - Jack's raspy-voiced friend, he lived on a farm with his ma and pa. He usually told a story about his folks and life around the farm. His catchphrase was "Hiya, Buck!"

Sam Hearn as Schlepperman in 1935

Sam Hearn as Schlepperman - A Jewish character, he spoke with a Yiddish accent (his catch phrase: "Hullo, Stranger!").[43] He would return again as the "Hiya, Rube!" guy, a hick farmer from the town of Calabasas, who always insisted on referring to Jack as "rube".[citation needed ]

Ed Beloin as Mr. Billingsley - He was Benny's polite but eccentric boarder. He appeared in the early 1940s.[4]

Larry Stevens - A tenor singer, he substituted for Dennis Day from November 1944 to March 1946, when Dennis served in the Navy.[4]

Mary Kelly as the Blue Fairy - A clumsy, overweight fairy, she appeared in several storytelling episodes. Kelly had been an old flame of Jack's, who had fallen on hard times. Benny was unsure of whether to give Kelly a regular role and instead appealed to friend George Burns, who put her on his show in 1939 as Mary "Bubbles" Kelly, best friend to Gracie.[44]

Gisele MacKenzie - A singer and violin player, she guest-starred seven times on the program.

Blanche Stewart contributed a variety of characters and animal sounds.[1]

Barry Gordon played Jack Benny as a child in a skit where Jack played his own father.

Johnny Green was the band leader until 1936, when Phil Harris joined the show.

Harry Baldwin - Jack Benny's secretary, who also played "The Knocking Man," a character who would knock on the door, enter, say something ridiculous, then leave. He also played a variety of other roles.

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The Jack Benny Program , starring Jack Benny, is a radio and television comedy series, which ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy. He played one role throughout his radio and television career, a caricature of himself as a minimally talented musician and penny-pincher who was the butt of all the jokes.

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1. The consensus of the era had Louis firmly as the greatest heavyweight ever,



2. with Ali floating up and down a few spots behind depending on who you were speaking to. Although the Ali of 1979 was not quite the beloved figure he would later become



3.  the days of him being reviled were basically a thing of the past

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Joseph Louis Barrow (May 13, 1914 - April 12, 1981) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. Nicknamed " the Brown Bomber", Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential boxers of all time. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 until his temporary retirement in 1949. He was victorious in 25 consecutive title defenses, a record for all weight classes. Louis had the longest single reign as champion of any boxer in history.

Louis's cultural impact was felt well outside the ring. He is widely regarded as the first African-American to achieve the status of a nationwide hero within the United States, and was also a focal point of anti- Nazi sentiment leading up to and during World War II because of his historic rematch with German boxer Max Schmeling in 1938. He was instrumental in integrating the game of golf, helping break the sport's color barrier in America by appearing under a sponsor's exemption in a PGA event in 1952.

Born on May 13, 1914, in rural Chambers County, Alabama-in a ramshackle dwelling on Bell Chapel Road, located about 1 mile (2 kilometres) off State Route 50 and roughly 6 miles (10 kilometres) from LaFayette-Louis was the seventh of eight children of Munroe Barrow and Lillie (Reese) Barrow. He weighed 11 pounds (5 kg) at birth. Both of his parents were children of former slaves, alternating between sharecropping and rental farming. Munroe was an African American with some European ancestry.

Louis suffered from a speech impediment and spoke very little until about the age of six. Munroe Barrow was committed to a mental institution in 1916 and, as a result, Joe knew very little of his biological father. Around 1920, Louis's mother married Pat Brooks, a local construction contractor, having received word that Munroe Barrow had died while institutionalized (in reality, Munroe Barrow lived until 1938, unaware of his son's fame).

In 1926, shaken by a gang of white men in the Ku Klux Klan, Louis's family moved to Detroit, Michigan, forming part of the post- World War I Great Migration. Joe's brother worked for Ford Motor Company (where Joe would himself work for a time at the River Rouge Plant) and the family settled into a home at 2700 Catherine (now Madison) Street in Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood.

The Great Depression severely affected the Barrow family, but Joe still made time to work out at a local youth recreation center at 637 Brewster Street in Detroit. His mother attempted to get him interested in playing the violin. He is rumoured to have tried to hide his pugilistic ambitions from his mother by carrying his boxing gloves inside his violin case.

In 1933, Louis won the Detroit-area Golden Gloves Novice Division championship against Joe Biskey for the light heavyweight classification. He later lost in the Chicago Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions. The next year, competing in the Golden Gloves' Open Division, he won the light heavyweight classification, this time also winning the Chicago Tournament of Champions against Joe Bauer. However, a hand injury forced Louis to miss the New York/Chicago Champions' cross-town bout for the ultimate Golden Gloves championship. In April 1934, he followed up his Chicago performance by winning the light heavyweight United States Amateur Champion National AAU tournament in St. Louis, Missouri.

By the end of his amateur career, Louis's record was 50-4, with 43 knockouts.

Early years

Louis's amateur performances attracted the interest of professional promoters, and he was soon represented by a black Detroit-area bookmaker named John Roxborough. As Louis explained in his autobiography, Roxborough convinced the young fighter that white managers would have no real interest in seeing a black boxer work his way up to title contention:

[Roxborough] told me about the fate of most black fighters, ones with white managers, who wound up burned-out and broke before they reached their prime. The white managers were not interested in the men they were handling but in the money they could make from them. They didn't take the proper time to see that their fighters had a proper training, that they lived comfortably, or ate well, or had some pocket change. Mr. Roxborough was talking about Black Power before it became popular.

Roxborough knew a Chicago area boxing promoter named Julian Black who already had a stable of mediocre boxers against which Louis could hone his craft, this time in the heavyweight division. After becoming part of the management team, Black hired fellow Chicago native Jack "Chappy" Blackburn as Louis's trainer. Louis's initial professional fights were all in the Chicago area, his professional debut coming on July 4, 1934, against Jack Kracken in the Bacon Casino on Chicago's south side. Louis earned $59 for knocking out Kracken in the first round. $59.00 in 1934 is equivalent to $1,148.60 in 2020 dollars. Louis won all 12 of his professional fights that year, 10 by knockout.

In September 1934, while promoting a Detroit-area "coming home" bout for Louis against Canadian Alex Borchuk, Roxborough was pressured by members of the Michigan State Boxing Commission to have Louis sign with white management. Roxborough refused and continued advancing Louis's career with bouts against heavyweight contenders Art Sykes and Stanley Poreda.

While training for a fight against Lee Ramage, Louis noticed a young female secretary for the black newspaper at the gym. After Ramage was defeated, the secretary, Marva Trotter, was invited to the celebration party at Chicago's Grand Hotel. Trotter later became Louis's first wife in 1935.

Although Louis's management was finding him bouts against legitimate heavyweight contenders, no path to the title was forthcoming. While professional boxing was not officially segregated, many white Americans did not like the prospect of a black champion. In 1908, during an era of severe anti-black repression, Jack Johnson became the first black heavyweight champion. Johnson's flamboyant lifestyle and marriage to a white woman engendered an enormous backlash that greatly limited opportunities of black fighters in the heavyweight division. Black boxers were denied championship bouts, and there were few heavyweight black contenders at the time, though there were African Americans who fought for titles in other weight divisions, and a few notable black champions, such as Tiger Flowers. Louis and his handlers would counter the legacy of Johnson by emphasizing the Brown Bomber's modesty and sportsmanship. Biographer Gerald Astor stated that "Joe Louis' early boxing career was stalked by the specter of Jack Johnson".

If Louis were to rise to national prominence among such cultural attitudes, a change in management would be necessary. In 1935, boxing promoter Mike Jacobs sought out Louis's handlers. After Louis's narrow defeat of Natie Brown on March 29, 1935, Jacobs and the Louis team met at the Frog Club, a black nightclub, and negotiated a three-year exclusive boxing promotion deal. The contract, however, did not keep Roxborough and Black from attempting to cash in as Louis's managers; when Louis turned 21 on May 13, 1935, Roxborough and Black each signed Louis to an onerous long-term contract that collectively dedicated half of Louis's future income to the pair.

Black and Roxborough continued to carefully and deliberately shape Louis's media image. Mindful of the tremendous public backlash Johnson had suffered for his unapologetic attitude and flamboyant lifestyle, they drafted "Seven Commandments" for Louis's personal conduct. These included:

Never have his picture taken with a white woman

Never gloat over a fallen opponent

Never engage in fixed fights

As a result, Louis was generally portrayed in the white media as a modest, clean-living person, which facilitated his burgeoning celebrity status.

With the backing of a major promotion, Louis fought thirteen times in 1935. The bout that helped put him in the media spotlight occurred on June 25, when Louis knocked out 6'6", 265-pound former world heavyweight champion Primo Carnera in six rounds. Foreshadowing the Louis-Schmeling rivalry to come, the Carnera bout featured a political dimension. Louis's victory over Carnera, who symbolized Benito Mussolini's regime in the popular eye, was seen as a victory for the international community, particularly among African Americans, who were sympathetic to Ethiopia, which was attempting to maintain its independence by fending off an invasion by fascist Italy. America's white press began promoting Louis's image in the context of the era's racism; nicknames they created included the "Mahogany Mauler", "Chocolate Chopper", "Coffee-Colored KO King", "Safari Sandman", and one that stuck: "The Brown Bomber".

Helping the white press to overcome its reluctance to feature a black contender was that in the mid-1930s boxing desperately needed a marketable hero. Since the retirement of Jack Dempsey in 1929, the sport had devolved into a sordid mixture of poor athletes, gambling, fixed fights, thrown matches, and control of the sport by organized crime. New York Times Columnist Edward Van Ness wrote, "Louis ... is a boon to boxing. Just as Dempsey led the sport out of the doldrums ... so is Louis leading the boxing game out of a slump". Likewise, biographer Bill Libby asserted that "The sports world was hungry for a great champion when Louis arrived in New York in 1935".

While the mainstream press was beginning to embrace Louis, many still opposed the prospect of another black heavyweight champion. In September 1935, on the eve of Louis's fight with former titleholder Max Baer, Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich wrote about some Americans' hopes for the white contender, "They say Baer will surpass himself in the knowledge that he is the lone white hope for the defense of Nordic superiority in the prize ring". However, the hopes of white supremacists would soon be dashed.

Although Baer had been knocked down only once before in his professional career (by Frankie Campbell), Louis dominated the former champion, knocking him out in the fourth round. Unknowingly, Baer suffered from a unique disadvantage in the fight: earlier that evening, Louis had married Marva Trotter at a friend's apartment and was eager to end the fight in order to consummate the relationship. Later that year, Louis also knocked out Paulino Uzcudun, who had never been knocked down before.

By this time, Louis was ranked as the No. 1 contender in the heavyweight division and had won the Associated Press' "Athlete of the Year" award for 1935. What was considered to be a final tune-up bout before an eventual title shot was scheduled for June 1936 against Max Schmeling. Although a former world heavyweight champion, Schmeling, who had been knocked out by the same Max Baer Louis had handily beaten, was not considered a threat to Louis, then with a professional record of 27-0. Schmeling had won his title on a technicality when Jack Sharkey was disqualified after giving Schmeling a low blow in 1930. Schmeling was also 30 years old at the time of the Louis bout and allegedly past his prime. Louis's training retreat was located at Lakewood, New Jersey, where he was first able to practice the game of golf, later to become a lifelong passion. Noted entertainer Ed Sullivan had initially sparked Louis's interest in the sport by giving an instructional book to Joe's wife Marva. Louis spent significant time on the golf course rather than training for the match.

Conversely, Schmeling prepared intently for the bout. He had thoroughly studied Louis's style and believed he had found a weakness. By exploiting Louis's habit of dropping his left hand after a jab, Schmeling handed Louis his first professional loss by knocking him out in round 12 at Yankee Stadium on June 19, 1936. The event would lead to the historic rematch of the two, in one of the world's most famous sporting events.

World championship

After defeating Louis, Schmeling expected a title shot against James J. Braddock, who had unexpectedly defeated Max Baer for the heavyweight title the previous June. Madison Square Garden (MSG) had a contract with Braddock for the title defense and also sought a Braddock-Schmeling title bout. But Jacobs and Braddock's manager Joe Gould had been planning a Braddock-Louis matchup for months.

Schmeling's victory gave Gould tremendous leverage, however. If he were to offer Schmeling the title chance instead of Louis, there was a very real possibility that Nazi authorities would never allow Louis a shot at the title. Gould's demands were therefore onerous: Jacobs would have to pay 10% of all future boxing promotion profits (including any future profits from Louis's future bouts) for ten years. Braddock and Gould would eventually receive more than $150,000 from this arrangement. Well before the actual fight, Jacobs and Gould publicly announced that their fighters would fight for the heavyweight title on June 22, 1937. Figuring that the New York State Athletic Commission would not sanction the fight in deference to MSG and Schmeling, Jacobs scheduled the fight for Chicago.

Each of the parties involved worked to facilitate the controversial Braddock-Louis matchup. Louis did his part by knocking out former champion Jack Sharkey on August 18, 1936. Meanwhile, Gould trumped up anti-Nazi sentiment against Schmeling, and Jacobs defended a lawsuit by MSG to halt the Braddock-Louis fight. A federal court in Newark, New Jersey, eventually ruled that Braddock's contractual obligation to stage his title defense at MSG was unenforceable for lack of mutual consideration.

The stage was set for Louis's title shot. On the night of the fight, June 22, 1937, Braddock was able to knock Louis down in round one, but afterward could accomplish little. After inflicting constant punishment, Louis defeated Braddock in round eight, knocking him out cold with a strong right hand that busted James' teeth through his gum shield and lip and sent him to the ground for a few minutes. It was the first and only time that Braddock was knocked out (the one other stoppage of Braddock's career was a TKO due to a cut). Louis's ascent to the world heavyweight championship was complete.

Louis's victory was a seminal moment in African American history. Thousands of African Americans stayed up all night across the country in celebration. Noted author and member of the Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes described Louis's effect in these terms:

Each time Joe Louis won a fight in those depression years, even before he became champion, thousands of black Americans on relief or W.P.A., and poor, would throng out into the streets all across the land to march and cheer and yell and cry because of Joe's one-man triumphs. No one else in the United States has ever had such an effect on Negro emotions-or on mine. I marched and cheered and yelled and cried, too.

Despite his championship, Louis was haunted by the earlier defeat to Schmeling. Shortly after winning the title, he was quoted as saying, "I don't want to be called champ until I whip Max Schmeling". Louis's manager Mike Jacobs attempted to arrange a rematch in 1937, but negotiations broke down when Schmeling demanded 30% of the gate. When Schmeling instead attempted to arrange for a fight against British Empire champion Tommy Farr, known as the "Tonypandy Terror"-ostensibly for a world championship to rival the claims of American boxing authorities-Jacobs outmaneuvered him, offering Farr a guaranteed $60,000 to fight Louis instead. The offer was too lucrative for Farr to turn down.

On August 30, 1937, after a postponement of four days due to rain, Louis and Farr finally touched gloves at New York's Yankee Stadium before a crowd of approximately 32,000. Louis fought one of the hardest battles of his life. The bout was closely contested and went the entire 15 rounds, with Louis being unable to knock Farr down. Referee Arthur Donovan was even seen shaking Farr's hand after the bout, in apparent congratulation. Nevertheless, after the score was announced, Louis had won a controversial unanimous decision. described the scene thus: "After collecting the judges' votes, referee Arthur Donovan announced that Louis had won the fight on points. The crowd of 50,000 ... amazed that Farr had not been knocked out or even knocked down, booed the decision".

It seems the crowd believed that referee Arthur Donovan Sr. had raised Farr's glove in victory. Seven years later, in his published account of the fight, Donovan spoke of the "mistake" that may have led to this confusion. He wrote:

As Tommy walked back to his corner after shaking Louis' hand, I followed him and seized his glove. "Tommy, a wonderful perform-" I began ... Then I dropped his hand like a red-hot coal! He had started to raise his arm. He thought I had given him the fight and the world championship! I literally ran away, shaking my head and shouting. "No! No! No!" realising how I had raised his hopes for a few seconds only to dash them to the ground ... That's the last time my emotions will get the better of me in a prize fight! There was much booing at the announced result, but, as I say it, it was all emotional. I gave Tommy two rounds and one even-and both his winning rounds were close.

Speaking over the radio after the fight, Louis admitted that he had been hurt twice.

In preparation for the inevitable rematch with Schmeling, Louis tuned up with bouts against Nathan Mann and Harry Thomas.

The rematch between Louis and Schmeling would become one of the most famous boxing matches of all time and is remembered as one of the major sports events of the 20th century. Following his defeat of Louis in 1936, Schmeling had become a national hero in Germany. Schmeling's victory over an African American was touted by Nazi officials as proof of their doctrine of Aryan superiority. When the rematch was scheduled, Louis retreated to his boxing camp in New Jersey and trained incessantly for the fight. A few weeks before the bout, Louis visited the White House, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt told him, "Joe, we need muscles like yours to beat Germany". Louis later admitted: "I knew I had to get Schmeling good. I had my own personal reasons and the whole damned country was depending on me".

Well-established as one of the most significant boxing matches in history, the fight has been widely regarded as among the most important or historic sports events of all time. It was the first time that many white Americans openly cheered for a black man against a white opponent.

"Bum of the Month Club"

In the 29 months from January 1939 through May 1941, Louis defended his title thirteen times, a frequency unmatched by any heavyweight champion since the end of the bare-knuckle era. The pace of his title defenses, combined with his convincing wins, earned Louis's opponents from this era the collective nickname "Bum of the Month Club". Notables of this lambasted pantheon include:

World light heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis who, attempting to move up a weight class, was knocked out in the first round by Louis on January 25, 1939.

"Two Ton" Tony Galento, who was able to knock Louis to the canvas with a left hook in the third round of their bout on June 28, 1939, before letting his guard down and being knocked out in the fourth.

Chilean Arturo Godoy, whom Louis fought twice in 1940, on February 9 and June 20. Louis won the first bout by a split-decision, and the rematch by a knockout in the eighth round.

Al McCoy, putative New England heavyweight champion, whose fight against Louis is probably best known for being the first heavyweight title bout held in Boston, Massachusetts, (at the Boston Garden on December 16, 1940). The popular local challenger dodged his way around Louis before being unable to respond to the sixth-round bell.

Clarence "Red" Burman, who pressed Louis for nearly five rounds at Madison Square Garden on January 31, 1941, before succumbing to a series of body blows.

Gus Dorazio, of whom Louis remarked, "At least he tried", after being leveled by a short right hand in the second round at Philadelphia's Convention Hall on February 17.

Abe Simon, who endured thirteen rounds of punishment before 18,908 at Olympia Stadium in Detroit on March 21 before referee Sam Hennessy declared a TKO.

Tony Musto, who, at 5'7½" and 198 pounds, was known as "Baby Tank". Despite a unique crouching style, Musto was slowly worn down over eight and a half rounds in St. Louis on April 8, and the fight was called a TKO because of a severe cut over Musto's eye.

Buddy Baer (brother of former champion Max), who was leading the May 23, 1941, bout in Washington, D.C., until an eventual barrage by Louis, capped by a hit at the sixth round bell. Referee Arthur Donovan disqualified Baer before the beginning of the seventh round as a result of stalling by Baer's manager.

Despite its derogatory nickname, most of the group were top-ten heavyweights. Of the 12 fighters Louis faced during this period, five were rated by The Ring as top-10 heavyweights in the year they fought Louis: Galento (overall #2 heavyweight in 1939), Bob Pastor (#3, 1939), Godoy (#3, 1940), Simon (#6, 1941) and Baer (#8, 1941). Four others (Musto, Dorazio, Burman and Johnny Paychek) were ranked in the top 10 in a different year.

Louis's string of lightly regarded competition ended with his bout against Billy Conn, the light heavyweight champion and a highly regarded contender. The fighters met on June 18, 1941, in front of a crowd of 54,487 fans at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The fight turned out to be what is commonly considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxing fights of all time.

However, Louis had clearly underestimated Conn's threat. In his autobiography, Joe Louis said:

I made a mistake going into that fight. I knew Conn was kinda small and I didn't want them to say in the papers that I beat up on some little guy so the day before the fight I did a little roadwork to break a sweat and drank as little water as possible so I could weigh in under 200 pounds. Chappie was as mad as hell. But Conn was a clever fighter, he was like a mosquito, he'd sting and move.

Conn had the better of the fight through 12 rounds, although Louis was able to stun Conn with a left hook in the fifth, cutting his eye and nose. By the eighth round, Louis began suffering from dehydration. By the twelfth round, Louis was exhausted, with Conn ahead on two of three boxing scorecards. But against the advice of his corner, Conn continued to closely engage Louis in the later stages of the fight. Louis made the most of the opportunity, knocking Conn out with two seconds left in the thirteenth round.

The contest created an instant rivalry that Louis's career had lacked since the Schmeling era, and a rematch with Conn was planned for late 1942. The rematch had to be abruptly canceled, however, after Conn broke his hand in a much-publicized fight with his father-in-law, Major League ballplayer Jimmy "Greenfield" Smith. By the time Conn was ready for the rematch, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had taken place.

Louis fought a charity bout for the Navy Relief Society against his former opponent Buddy Baer on January 9, 1942, which raised $47,000 for the fund. The next day, he volunteered to enlist as a private in the United States Army at Camp Upton, Long Island. Newsreel cameras recorded his induction, including a staged scene in which a soldier-clerk asked, "What's your occupation?", to which Louis replied, "Fighting and let us at them Japs".

Another military charity bout on March 27, 1942, (against another former opponent, Abe Simon) netted $36,146. Before the fight, Louis had spoken at a Relief Fund dinner, saying of the war effort, "We'll win, 'cause we're on God's side". The media widely reported the comment, instigating a surge of popularity for Louis. Slowly, the press began to eliminate its stereotypical racial references when covering Louis and instead treated him as a sports hero. Despite the public relations boon, Louis's charitable fights proved financially costly. Although he saw none of the roughly $90,000 raised by these and other charitable fights, the IRS later credited these amounts as taxable income paid to Louis. After the war, the IRS pursued the issue.

For basic training, Louis was assigned to a segregated cavalry unit based in Fort Riley, Kansas. The assignment was at the suggestion of his friend and lawyer Truman Gibson, who knew of Louis's love for horsemanship. Gibson had previously become a civilian advisor to the War Department, in charge of investigating claims of harassment against black soldiers. Accordingly, Louis used this personal connection to help the cause of various black soldiers with whom he came into contact. In one noted episode, Louis contacted Gibson in order to facilitate the Officer Candidate School (OCS) applications of a group of black recruits at Fort Riley, which had been inexplicably delayed for several months. Among the OCS applications Louis facilitated was that of young UCLA athletic legend Jackie Robinson, later to break the baseball color barrier. The episode spawned a personal friendship between the two men.

Realizing Louis's potential for raising esprit de corps among the troops, the Army placed him in its Special Services Division rather than sending him into combat. Louis went on a celebrity tour with other notables, including fellow boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. He traveled more than 35,000 km (22,000 mi) and staged 96 boxing exhibitions before two million soldiers. In England during 1944, he was reported to have signed as a player for Liverpool Football Club as a publicity stunt.

In addition to his travels, Louis was the focus of a media recruitment campaign encouraging African-American men to enlist in the Armed Services, despite the military's racial segregation. When he was asked about his decision to enter the racially segregated U.S. Army, he said: "Lots of things wrong with America, but Hitler ain't going to fix them". In 1943, Louis made an appearance in the wartime Hollywood musical This Is the Army, directed by Michael Curtiz. He appeared as himself in a musical number, "The Well-Dressed Man in Harlem," which emphasized the importance of African-American soldiers and promoted their enlistment.

Louis was eventually promoted to the rank of technical sergeant on April 9, 1945. On September 23 of the same year, he was awarded the Legion of Merit (a military decoration rarely awarded to enlisted soldiers) for "incalculable contribution to the general morale". Receipt of the honor qualified him for immediate release from military service on October 1, 1945.

Louis was under no illusion about the state of his boxing skills, yet he was too embarrassed to quit after the Walcott fight. Determined to win and retire with his title intact, Louis signed on for a rematch. On June 25, 1948, about 42,000 people came to Yankee Stadium to see the aging champion, who weighed 213½ pounds, the heaviest of his career to date. Walcott knocked Louis down in the third round, but Louis survived to knock out Walcott in the eleventh.

Louis would not defend his title again before announcing his retirement from boxing on March 1, 1949. In his bouts with Conn and Walcott, it had become apparent that Louis was no longer the fighter he had once been. As he had done earlier in his career, however, Louis would continue to appear in numerous exhibition matches worldwide. In August 1949 Cab Calloway rendered homage to the "king of the ring" with his song Ol' Joe Louis.

After asking Gibson to take over his personal finances and switching his management from Jacobs and Roxborough to Marshall Miles, the Louis camp negotiated a deal with the IRS under which Louis would come out of retirement, with all Louis's net proceeds going to the IRS. A match with Ezzard Charles -who had acquired the vacant heavyweight title in June 1949 by outpointing Walcott-was set for September 27, 1950. By then, Louis was 36 years old and had been away from competitive boxing for two years. Weighing in at 218 pounds, Louis was still strong, but his reflexes were gone and Charles repeatedly beat him to the punch. By the end of the fight, Louis was cut above both eyes, one of which was shut tight by swelling. He knew he had lost even before Charles was declared the winner. The result was not the only disappointing aspect of the fight for Louis; only 22,357 spectators paid to witness the event at Yankee Stadium, and his share of the purse was a mere $100,458. Louis had to continue fighting.

After facing several club-level opponents and scoring a knockout victory over EBU heavyweight champion Lee Savold, the International Boxing Club guaranteed Louis $300,000 to face undefeated heavyweight contender Rocky Marciano on October 26, 1951. Despite his being a 6-to-5 favorite, few boxing insiders believed Louis had a chance. Marciano himself was reluctant to participate in the bout, but was understanding of Louis's position: "This is the last guy on earth I want to fight". It was feared, particularly among those who had witnessed Marciano's punching power first-hand, that Louis's unwillingness to quit would result in serious injury. Fighting back tears, Ferdie Pacheco said in the SportsCentury documentary about Louis's bout with Marciano, "He [Louis] wasn't just going to lose. He was going to take a vicious, savage beating. Before the eyes of the nation, Joe Louis, an American hero if ever there was one, was going to get beaten up". Louis was dropped in the eighth round by a Marciano left and knocked through the ropes and out of the ring less than thirty seconds later.

After facing Marciano, with the prospect of another significant payday all but gone, Louis retired for good from professional boxing. He would, as before, continue to tour on the exhibition circuit, with his last contest taking place on December 16, 1951, in Taipei, Taiwan, against Corporal Buford J. deCordova.

Despite Louis's lucrative purses over the years, most of the proceeds went to his handlers. Of the over $4.6 million earned during his boxing career, Louis himself received only about $800,000. Louis was nevertheless extremely generous to his family, paying for homes, cars and education for his parents and siblings, often with money fronted by Jacobs. He invested in a number of businesses, all of which eventually failed, including the Joe Louis Restaurant, the Joe Louis Insurance Company, a softball team called the Brown Bombers, the Joe Louis Milk Company, Joe Louis pomade (hair product), Joe Louis Punch (a drink), the Louis-Rower P.R. firm, a horse farm and the Rhumboogie Café in Chicago. He gave liberally to the government as well, paying back the city of Detroit for any welfare money his family had received.

Louis and Max Schmeling, 1971. The former rivals became close friends in later life.

A combination of this largesse and government intervention eventually put Louis in severe financial straits. His entrusting of his finances to former manager Mike Jacobs haunted him. After the $500,000 IRS tax bill was assessed, with interest accumulating every year, the need for cash precipitated Louis's post-retirement comeback. Even though his comeback earned him significant purses, the incremental tax rate in place at the time (90%) meant that these boxing proceeds did not even keep pace with interest on Louis's tax debt. As a result, by the end of the 1950s, he owed over $1 million in taxes and interest. In 1953, when Louis's mother died, the IRS appropriated the $667 she had willed to Louis. To bring in money, Louis engaged in numerous activities outside the ring. He appeared on various quiz shows, and an old Army friend, Ash Resnick, gave Louis a job greeting tourists to the Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas, where Resnick was an executive. For income, Louis even became a professional wrestler. He made his professional wrestling debut on March 16, 1956, in Washington, D.C. at the Uline Arena, defeating Cowboy Rocky Lee. After defeating Lee in a few matches, Louis discovered he had a heart ailment and retired from wrestling competition. However, he continued as a wrestling referee until 1972.

Louis remained a popular celebrity in his twilight years. His friends included former rival Max Schmeling, who provided Louis with financial assistance during his retirement-and mobster Frank Lucas, who, disgusted with the government's treatment of Louis, once paid off a $50,000 tax lien held against him. These payments, along with an eventual agreement in the early 1960s by the IRS to limit its collections to an amount based on Louis's current income, allowed Louis to live comfortably toward the end of his life.

After the Louis-Schmeling fight, Jack Dempsey expressed the opinion that he was glad he never had to face Joe Louis in the ring. When Louis fell on hard financial times, Dempsey served as honorary chairman of a fund to assist Louis.

Louis returned to the wrestling ring on March 15, 1959, where he lost to Buddy Rogers in Columbus, Ohio. This led to a hiatus until the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he engaged in several wrestling matches. His last match was in 1973 but he continued as a referee.

One of Louis' other passions was the game of golf, in which he also played a historic role. He was a long-time devotee of the sport since being introduced to the game before the first Schmeling fight in 1936. In 1952, Louis was invited to play as an amateur in the San Diego Open on a sponsor's exemption, which was announced at the time as the first instance of an African-American to play in a PGA Tour event (in fact, professional Howard Wheeler was one of seven African-Americans to compete in the Tam O'Shanter Open in Niles, Illinois in 1942, and Wheeler appeared in subsequent PGA-sanctioned events in Philadelphia in the 1940s, qualifying for the 1950 and 1951 U.S. Open).

Initially, the PGA of America was reluctant to allow Louis to enter the event, having a bylaw at the time limiting PGA membership to white Americans. Louis's celebrity status eventually pushed the PGA toward removing the bylaw, although the "Caucasian only" clause in the PGA of America's constitution was not formally amended until November 1961. The change, however, paved the way for the first generation of African-American professional golfers such as Calvin Peete.

Louis himself financially supported the careers of several other early black professional golfers, such as Bill Spiller, Ted Rhodes, Howard Wheeler, James Black, Clyde Martin and Charlie Sifford. He was also instrumental in founding The First Tee, a charity helping underprivileged children become acquainted with the game of golf. His son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., served as CEO of the organization until 2017.

In 2009, the PGA of America granted posthumous membership to Ted Rhodes, John Shippen and Bill Spiller, who were denied the opportunity to become PGA members during their professional careers. The PGA also has granted posthumous honorary membership to Louis.

"I did the best I could with what I had".

Joe Louis with Jean Anderson, Chicago, 1947

Louis had two children by wife Marva Trotter (daughter Jacqueline in 1943 and son Joseph Louis Barrow Jr. in 1947). They divorced in March 1945 only to remarry a year later, but were again divorced in February 1949. Marva moved on to an acting and modeling career. On Christmas Day 1955, Louis married Rose Morgan, a successful Harlem businesswoman; their marriage was annulled in 1958. Louis's final marriage-to Martha Jefferson, a lawyer from Los Angeles, on St. Patrick's Day 1959-lasted until his death. They had four children: another son named Joseph Louis Barrow Jr, John Louis Barrow, Joyce Louis Barrow, and Janet Louis Barrow. The younger Joe Louis Barrow Jr. lives in New York City and is involved in boxing. Though married four times, Louis discreetly enjoyed the company of other women like Lena Horne and Edna Mae Harris.

Louis showing Illinois governor and Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson how to throw a right hook punch, October 22, 1952.

Joe and Marva Louis endorsed and campaigned for liberal, anti-segregation Republican candidate Wendell Willkie in the 1940 United States presidential election. Louis said:

This country has been good to me. It gave me everything I have. I have never come out for any candidate before but I think Wendell L. Willkie will give us a square deal. So I am for Willkie because I think he will help my people, and I figure my people should be for him, too.

Drugs took a toll on Louis in his later years. In 1969, he was hospitalized after collapsing on a New York City street. While the incident was at first credited to "physical breakdown," underlying problems would soon surface. In 1970, he spent five months at the Colorado Psychiatric Hospital and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Denver, hospitalized by his wife, Martha, and his son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., for paranoia. In a 1971 book, Brown Bomber, by Barney Nagler, Louis disclosed the truth about these incidents, stating that his collapse in 1969 had been caused by cocaine, and that his subsequent hospitalization had been prompted by his fear of a plot to destroy him. Strokes and heart ailments caused Louis's condition to deteriorate further later in the decade. He had surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm in 1977 and thereafter used a POV/scooter for a mobility aid.

Joe Louis' headstone in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia

Louis died of cardiac arrest in Desert Springs Hospital near Las Vegas on April 12, 1981, just hours after his last public appearance viewing the Larry Holmes- Trevor Berbick heavyweight championship fight. Ronald Reagan waived the eligibility rules for burial at Arlington National Cemetery and Louis was buried there with full military honors on April 21, 1981. His funeral was paid for in part by former competitor and friend, Max Schmeling, who also acted as a pallbearer.

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Louis appeared in six full-length films and two short films.

Louis had a starring role in the 1938 race film Spirit of Youth, in which he played a boxer with many similarities to himself.

In 1943, he was featured in the full-length movie This is the Army, which starred Ronald Reagan, with appearances by Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" and Irving Berlin, and which was directed by Michael Curtiz.

In 1946 he played himself in Joe Palooka, Champ, a movie based on the comic strip Joe Palooka created by Ham Fisher.

Louis once again played himself in the short film Johnny At The Fair in 1947. The short film takes place at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) where a boy becomes separated from his parents and meets a host of celebrities including former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King and champion figure skater Barbara Ann Scott.

In 1948 Louis stars as himself in Joseph Lerner's The Fight Never Ends.

In 1955 Louis is once again cast as himself in a small role in The Square Jungle written by George Zuckerman and starring Tony Curtis.

Louis's last feature-length movie role took place in the 1970 comedy The Phynx in which a rock band goes on tour in Albania in order to save Americans being held hostage.

He was a guest on the television show You Bet Your Life in 1955.

In 1953, Robert Gordon directed a movie about Louis's life, The Joe Louis Story. Filmed in Hollywood, it starred Golden Gloves fighter and Louis lookalike Coley Wallace in the title role. The film suffered from low budget and production values, sluggishly intercutting clips from Louis's actual bouts with indifferent audio sync.

Congressional Gold Medal in 1982

Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, during which he participated in 26 championship fights, defeated 21 fighters, made 25 defenses and was a world champion for 11 years and 10 months. The latter two are still records in the heavyweight division, the former in any division. Louis has won the most world heavyweight title fights in history, at 26. In addition to his accomplishments inside the ring, Louis uttered two of boxing's most famous observations: "He can run, but he can't hide" and "Everyone has a plan until they've been hit".

Louis was named fighter of the year four times by magazine in 1936, 1938, 1939, and 1941. His fights with Max Baer, Max Schmeling, Tommy Farr, Bob Pastor and Billy Conn were named fight of the year by that same magazine. Louis won the Sugar Ray Robinson Award in 1941. In 2005, Louis was ranked as the best heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization, and was ranked number one on magazine's list of the "100 greatest punchers of all time". In a 1978 poll conducted by HBO, the Boxing Writers of America voted Louis the greatest heavyweight of all time. Hank Kaplan, Bert Sugar, Teddy Atlas, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, and Sugar Ray Robinson named Louis as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time.

Louis is also remembered in sports outside of boxing. A former indoor sports venue was named after him in Detroit, the Joe Louis Arena, where the Detroit Red Wings played their NHL games from 1979 to 2017. In 1936, Vince Leah, then a writer for The Winnipeg Tribune used Joe Louis's nickname to refer to the Winnipeg Football Club after a game. From that point, the team became known popularly as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

His recognition also transcends the sporting world. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Joe Louis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. On August 26, 1982, Louis was posthumously approved for the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award given to civilians by the U.S. legislative branch. Congress stated that he "did so much to bolster the spirit of the American people during one of the most crucial times in American history and which have endured throughout the years as a symbol of strength for the nation". Following Louis's death, President Ronald Reagan said, "Joe Louis was more than a sports legend-his career was an indictment of racial bigotry and a source of pride and inspiration to millions of white and black people around the world".

A memorial to Louis was dedicated in Detroit (at Jefferson Avenue and Woodward) on October 16, 1986. The sculpture, commissioned by Time, Inc. and executed by Robert Graham, is a 24-foot-long (7.3 m) arm with a fisted hand suspended by a 24-foot-high (7.3 m) pyramidal framework. It represents the power of his punch both inside and outside the ring.

In an interview with Arsenio Hall in the late 1980s, former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali stated that his two biggest influences in boxing were Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis. After Joe Louis died, Ali stated, "Whatever I said before, I don't mean it, 'cause Joe Louis was the greatest." Ali then told the Washington Post:

Look at Joe's life. Everybody loved Joe. He would have been marked as evil if he was evil, but everybody loved Joe. From black folks to red-neck Mississippi crackers, they loved him. They're all crying. That shows you. Howard Hughes dies, with all his billions, not a tear. Joe Louis, everybody cried.

On February 27, 2010, an 8-foot (2.4 m) bronze statue of Louis was unveiled in his Alabama hometown. The statue, by sculptor Casey Downing Jr., sits on a base of red granite outside the Chambers County Courthouse.

In 1993, he became the first boxer to be honored on a postage stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

Various other facilities have been named after Joe Louis. In 1984, the four streets surrounding Madison Square Garden were named Joe Louis Plaza in his honor. The former Pipe O' Peace Golf Course in Riverdale, Illinois (a Chicago suburb), was in 1986 renamed "Joe Louis The Champ Golf Course". American Legion Post 375 in Detroit is also named after Joe Louis. Completed in 1979 at a cost of $4 million, Joe Louis Arena, nicknamed The Joe, was a hockey arena located in downtown Detroit. It was the home of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League from 1979 until 2017. The planned demolition of the Arena prompted the City of Detroit in 2017 to rename the Inner Circle Greenway as the Joe Louis Greenway. The 39-mile (63 km) biking and walking trail passes through the cities of Detroit, Hamtramck, Highland Park, and Dearborn.

In one of the most widely quoted tributes to Louis, New York Post sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, when responding to another person's characterization of Louis as "a credit to his race", stated, "Yes, Joe Louis is a credit to his race-the human race".

Joe Louis trained at the site of the Pompton Lakes (NJ) Elks Club. When he won one of his fights, he donated the first ambulance to the Pompton Lakes First Aid Squad.

In his heyday, Louis was the subject of many musical tributes, including a number of blues songs.

Louis was portrayed by actor Bari K. Willerford in the film American Gangster.

In 2009, the Brooklyn band Yeasayer debuted the single "Ambling Alp" from their forthcoming album Odd Blood, which imagines what advice Joe Louis's father might have given him prior to becoming a prizefighter. The song makes reference to Louis's boxing career and his famous rivalry with Schmeling in the first person, with the lyrics such as "Oh, Max Schmeling was a formidable foe / The Ambling Alp was too, at least that's what I'm told / But if you learn one thing, you've learned it well / In June, you must give fascists hell".

The aforementioned sculpture of Louis's fist (see Legacy above) was one of several Detroit landmarks depicted in 'Imported from Detroit', a two-minute commercial for the Chrysler 200 featuring Eminem that aired during Super Bowl XLV in 2011.

1. According to ^ BoxRec and IBHOF, Louis's fight against Johnny Davis in 1944, viewed by many as an exhibition fight, was for the NYSAC heavyweight title, which would lift Louis's title defenses to 26, overall title fight wins to 27, beaten opponents to 22 and title fights to 28.

2. ^ BoxRec lists Louis's amateur record as 53 wins in 56 bouts; various sources disagree as to his amateur record.

1. ^

2. ^

3. Schwartz, Larry. "'Brown Bomber' was a hero to all".

4. ^ [permanent dead link ]

5. , which is variously attributed to either Detroit boxing manager Scotty Monteith or to ^ Detroit Free Press writer Charles Ward. Bak, pp. 81-82.

6. ^ MacIntosh, Stoker. "Joe Louis Barrow: Boxing Day Tribute". Bleacher Report. Archived from the original on June 12, 2009.

7. Schaap, p. 271.

8. ^ Donovan's Worst Mistake As a Referee The Mail, Adelaide, at Trove digitised newspapers, National Library of Australia.

9. (^ registration required)

10. Beck, Daniel and Louis Bosshart (^ University of Fribourg, Freiburg, Switzerland): "Sports and Media,"- chapter 4. "Sports and Radio," in Communication Research Trends Vol.22 (2003) No.4, ISSN 0144-4646, retrieved November 22, 2020

11. Rosenthal, Michael: ^ "Photos: A look back at the historic Joe Louis-Max Schmeling rematch," June 22, 2020 "Boxing Junkie," USA Today retrieved November 22, 2020: ("The second fight between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling arguably was the most important in boxing history".)

12. ^ Foreman, George, quoted: "Foreman Ranks Wilder-Fury in Top Three Rematches of All Time," February 15, 2020, Boxing Scene, retrieved November 22, 2020: "'There were three important rematches in boxing history,' Foreman told BoxingScene ... of the heavyweight division. 'The most important was Max Schmeling and Joe Louis when the whole world was watching. That was the most important rematch of all time.'"

13. Erenberg, Lewis A.: The greatest fight of our generation: Louis vs. Schmeling, 2005-2008, as summarized at Oxford University Press [1], with online copy (subscription required): "... the second Louis-Schmeling fight sparked excitement around the globe. For all its length-the fight lasted but two minutes-it remains one of the most memorable events in boxing history and, indeed, one of the most significant sporting events ever".

14. Gitlin, Martin: ^ Powerful Moments in Sports: The Most Significant Events in American History. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017

15. Iber, Jorge: ^ "Review of Powerful Moments in Sports," August 10, 2019, Sport in American History, retrieved November 22, 2020

16. Tack, Travis, ^ "10 Most Important Moments in Sports History," Archived September 23, 2021, at the Wayback Machine "#1 - Joe Louis versus Max Schmeling"; September 4, 2015, Politicus Sports, retrieved November 22, 2020

17. Aguilar, Matthew: ^ "Matthew Aguilar: One guy's top 10 heavyweights of all time,", May 16, 2020, El Paso Times, retrieved November 22, 2020

18. See BoxRec.com's record of ^ The Ring magazine's ratings for 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943.

19. ^ Ayto, John; Ian Crofton (2006). Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable.

20. ^

21. "Black History Biographies Jackie Robinson". Gale Cengage Learning. Archived from the original on January 15, 2009.

22. ^ Patrick, Denise L. (2005). Jackie Robinson: Strong Inside and Out. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0060576014.

23. ^ Rollin, Jack (2005). Soccer At War: 1935-45. London: Headline. p. 184. ISBN 075531431X.

24. Cab Calloway in Chronology, ^ Ol' Joe Louis (08-18-49).

25. ^ Gibson, p. 243.

26. ^ [2] Archived August 9, 2012, at the Wayback Machine

27. ^ "Jack Dempsey (1895-1983)". The American Experience The Fight. Public Broadcasting System. September 22, 2004.

28. ^ "PGA group abolishes 'Caucasian'". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Florida. Associated Press. November 10, 1961. p. 22.[permanent dead link ]

29. ^ "PGA of America bestows membership upon late African-American pioneers". Archived from the original on September 7, 2009.

30. ^ Remnick, David (November 9, 2012). "Philip Roth Says Enough". The New Yorker.

31. ^ "The Fresno Bee 11 May 1978, page 54". Newspapers.com. On Tuesday, the Boxing Writers of America voted Sugar Ray not only the best boxer of all time, but also the best middleweight and best welterweight. Joe Louis beat out Muhammad Ali as the best heavyweight, Archie Moore was named the best light heavyweight and Roberto Duran, the current champ, was voted the best lightweight in the balloting, conducted by Home Box Office.

32. ^ "Joe Frazier Quote: "Joe Louis is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Rocky Marciano is second only to Louis. Where do I rate Ali?..."". quotefancy.com.

33. ^ "Bright Lights Gone for Boxing's 'Sugar Man'. The Fresno Bee 11 May 1978, page 54". Newspapers.com. ...if you ask me who I think was the greatest ever, two fellows come to my mind - Henry Armstrong and Joe Louis. What a little fighting guy Henry was! And Joe had the fastest hands I ever saw!

34. ^ "Who is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time?". Ebony Magazine.: 132. March 1978 - via Google books. Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight I ever seen!" Robinson says. "Everybody knows he could hit, but, in my opinion, he had the fastest hands of anyone-including Ali!

35. ^ Coleman, Jim (May 9, 1980). "Jim Coleman". Edmonton Journal. Edmonton, Alberta. p. 34.

36. ^ Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York: Prometheus. pp. 207-209. ISBN 978-1573929639.

37. Kindred, Dave (April 18, 1981). "A Sad Funeral for 'Poor Joe' Ends as Celebration of a Hero". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286.

38. ^ Weiner, Jonah (November 5, 2009). "Track of the Week: Yeasayer's "Ambling Alp"". Slate.com. Archived from the original on January 20, 2011.

39. Midegette, Anne, ^ "Inspired by Joe Louis, opera 'Shadowboxer' scores one for reality", Washington Post, April 17, 2010.

40. "^ Little David", written by Richard Durham.

Drake, Robert, "Joe Louis, the Southern Press, and the 'Fight of the Century,'" Sport History Review, 43 (May 2012), 1-17.

Louis, Joe (1978). My Life. Brighton: Angus & Robertson. ISBN 978-0207958342.

Margolick, David (2005). Beyond Glory: Joe Louis Vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0375726194.

Schaap, Jeremy (2005). Cinderella Man. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0618551170.

This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article "Joe Louis", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL.

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Joseph Louis Barrow (May 13, 1914 - April 12, 1981) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. Nicknamed " the Brown Bomber", Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential boxers of all time. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 until his temporary retirement in 1949.

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Pinocchio
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Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on Carlo Collodi's 1883 Italian children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, it is the second Disney animated feature film, and the third animated film overall produced by an American film studio, after Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fleischer Studios' Gulliver's Travels. With the voices of Cliff Edwards, Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Walter Catlett, Charles Judels, Evelyn Venable, and Frankie Darro, the film follows a wooden puppet Pinocchio, who is created by an old woodcarver Geppetto and brought to life by a blue fairy. Wishing to become a real boy, Pinocchio must prove himself to be "brave, truthful, and unselfish." Along his journey, Pinocchio encounters several characters representing the temptations and consequences of wrongdoing, as Jiminy Cricket, who takes the role of Pinocchio's conscience, attempts to guide him in matters of right and wrong.

The film was adapted by several storyboard artists from Collodi's book. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske, and the film's sequences were directed by Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, and Bill Roberts. Pinocchio was a groundbreaking achievement in the area of effects animation, giving realistic movement to vehicles and machinery as well as natural elements such as rain, water, lightning, smoke, and shadow. After premiering at the Center Theatre in New York City on February 7, 1940, Pinocchio was released in theatres on February 23, 1940.

Although it received critical acclaim and became the first animated feature to win a competitive Academy Award - winning two for Best Music, Original Score and for Best Music, Original Song for " When You Wish Upon a Star" - it was initially a commercial failure, mainly due to World War II cutting off the European and Asian markets. It eventually made a profit after its 1945 rerelease, and is considered one of the greatest animated films ever made, with a 100% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. The film and characters are still prevalent in popular culture, featuring at various Disney parks and other forms of entertainment. In 1994, Pinocchio was added to the United States National Film Registry for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

In 2000, a live-action made-for-television film titled , told from Geppetto's perspective, was released via ABC. A live-action remake of the same title directed by Robert Zemeckis was released in 2022 on Disney+.

Jiminy Cricket addresses the audience as the narrator and begins telling a story.

Jiminy came to a village in Italy sometime in the late 19th century, where he arrived at the shop of a woodworker and toymaker named Geppetto, who creates a puppet he names Pinocchio. As he falls asleep, Geppetto wishes upon a star for Pinocchio to be a real boy. Late that night, the Blue Fairy visits the workshop and brings Pinocchio to life, although he remains a puppet. She informs him that if he proves himself to be brave, truthful, and unselfish, he will become a real boy. When Jiminy reveals himself, the Blue Fairy assigns him to be Pinocchio's conscience. Geppetto awakens upon hearing the commotion from Pinocchio falling, and is overjoyed to discover that he is alive and will become a real boy.

The next morning, while walking to school, Pinocchio is led astray by con artist fox Honest John and his sidekick Gideon the Cat. Honest John convinces him to join Stromboli's puppet show, despite Jiminy's objections. Pinocchio becomes Stromboli's star attraction, but when he tries to go home, Stromboli locks him in a bird cage and leaves to tour the world with Pinocchio. After Jiminy unsuccessfully tries to free his friend, the Blue Fairy appears, and an anxious Pinocchio lies about what happened, causing his nose to grow. The Blue Fairy restores his nose and frees Pinocchio when he promises to make amends, but warns him that she can offer no further help.

Meanwhile, a mysterious Coachman hires Honest John to find disobedient boys for him to take to Pleasure Island. Though the Coachman's implication of what happens to the boys frightens Honest John and Gideon, the former reluctantly accepts the job and finds Pinocchio, convincing him to take a vacation on Pleasure Island. On the way to the island, Pinocchio befriends Lampwick, a delinquent boy. At Pleasure Island, without rules or authority to enforce their activity, Pinocchio, Lampwick, and many other boys soon engage in vices such as vandalism, fighting, smoking and drinking. Jiminy eventually finds Pinocchio in a billiard hall smoking and playing pool with Lampwick, and the two have a falling out after Pinocchio defends Lampwick for his actions. As Jiminy tries to leave Pleasure Island, he discovers that the island hides a horrible curse that turns the boys into donkeys after making "jackasses" of themselves, and they are sold by the Coachman into slave labor. Pinocchio witnesses Lampwick transform into a donkey, and with Jiminy's help, he escapes before he can be fully transformed, though he still has a donkey's ears and tail.

Upon returning home, Pinocchio and Jiminy find Geppetto's workshop deserted and get a letter from the Blue Fairy in the form of a dove, stating that Geppetto had gone out looking for Pinocchio and sailed to Pleasure Island. However, he was swallowed by a gigantic and vicious whale called Monstro and is now trapped in its belly. Determined to rescue his father, Pinocchio jumps into the Mediterranean Sea with Jiminy and is soon swallowed by Monstro, where he reunites with Geppetto. Pinocchio devises a scheme to make Monstro sneeze and allow them to escape, but the whale chases them and smashes their raft with his tail. Pinocchio selflessly pulls Geppetto to safety in a cove just as Monstro crashes into it and Pinocchio is seemingly killed.

Back at home, Geppetto, Jiminy, Figaro, and Cleo mourn Pinocchio. However, having succeeded in proving himself brave, truthful, and unselfish, Pinocchio is revived and turned into a real human boy by the Blue Fairy, much to everyone's joy. As the group celebrates, Jiminy steps outside to thank the Fairy and is rewarded with a solid gold badge that certifies him as an official conscience.

Dick Jones as Pinocchio, an exuberant and endearing wooden puppet carved by Geppetto and brought to life by the Blue Fairy.
Jones also voiced Alexander, a disobedient boy who is turned into a donkey at Pleasure Island, but still talks.

Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket, a cheerful, optimistic, intelligent, and wisecracking cricket, who acts as Pinocchio's "conscience" and is the partial narrator of the story.

Christian Rub as Geppetto, a kind and elderly wood-carver and Pinocchio's creator, who wishes for him to become a real boy. He speaks with an Austrian accent.

Clarence Nash as Figaro, Geppetto's spoiled pet cat who is prone to sulk. Cleo, Geppetto's flirty pet goldfish with a habit of being Figaro's counselor, is unvoiced. Figaro and Cleo were original characters not present in the original story, and were added to the script by the Disney team. Nash also voices the rough house statue and makes the braying sounds for the donkeys on Pleasure Island, after the boys have been transformed into them.

Walter Catlett as "Honest" John Worthington Foulfellow, an anthropomorphic red fox con artist who swindles Pinocchio.
Gideon the Cat, Honest John's mute, dimwitted, and bumbling anthropomorphic feline partner and sidekick who serves as comic relief. He was originally intended to be voiced by Mel Blanc, in his second work for Disney until his final work in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but the filmmakers instead went with a mute performance for the character. However, Gideon's hiccups were provided by Blanc.

Charles Judels as Stromboli, a greedy, sadistic, and abusive puppeteer who intends to force Pinocchio to perform onstage to make money and use as "firewood" once he gets "too old" to perform. He speaks English with an Italian accent, and curses in Italian gibberish when angry. He is called "Gypsy" by Honest John, likely due to his theatre and caravan always travelling, as well as other names like "rascal" and "faker".
Judels also voiced the nefarious and cunning Coachman, the owner and operator of Pleasure Island.

Evelyn Venable as the Blue Fairy, who brings Pinocchio to life and promises to turn him into a real boy if he proves himself brave, truthful, and selfless. Live-action references for the Blue Fairy were provided by Marge Champion, who served as the live-action reference for the titular heroine in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Frankie Darro as Lampwick, a naughty and spoiled boy who Pinocchio befriends on his way to Pleasure Island and is turned into a donkey for his mischief.

Stuart Buchanan as the Carnival Barker, the announcer at Pleasure Island. In a book adaptation of the film, "Barker" is the Coachman's name.

Thurl Ravenscroft as Monstro, the sperm whale. He swallows Pinocchio, Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo, then tries to kill them after they escape from his belly by making him sneeze.

The voice cast was all uncredited, as was the practice at the time for many animated films.

In September 1937, during the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, animator Norman Ferguson brought a translated version of Carlo Collodi's 1883 Italian children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio to the attention of Walt Disney. After reading the book, "Walt was busting his guts with enthusiasm," as Ferguson later recalled. Disney then commissioned storyboard artist Bianca Majolie to write a new story outline for the book, but after reading it, he felt her outline was too faithful. Pinocchio was intended to be the studio's third feature, after (1942). However, due to difficulties with Bambi (adapting the story and animating the animals realistically), Disney announced that Bambi would be postponed while Pinocchio would move ahead in production. Ben Sharpsteen was then re-assigned to supervise the production while Jack Kinney was given directional reins.

Unlike Snow White, which was a short story that the writers could expand and experiment with, Pinocchio was based on a novel with a very fixed, although episodic, story. Therefore, the story went through drastic changes before reaching its final incarnation. In the original novel, Pinocchio is a cold, rude, ungrateful, inhuman brat that often repels sympathy and only learns his lessons the hard way. The writers decided to modernize the character and depict him similar to Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy, but equally as rambunctious as the puppet in the book. The story was still being developed in the early stages of animation.

Early scenes animated by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston show that Pinocchio's design was exactly like a real wooden puppet with a long pointed nose, a peaked cap, and bare wooden hands. Disney, however, was not impressed with the work that was being done on the film. He felt that no one could really sympathize with such a character and called for an immediate halt in production. Fred Moore redesigned the character slightly to make him more appealing, but the design still retained a wooden feel.

Young and upcoming animator Milt Kahl felt that Thomas, Johnston, and Moore were "rather obsessed with the idea of this boy being a wooden puppet" and felt that they should "forget that he was a puppet and get a cute little boy; you can always draw the wooden joints and make him a wooden puppet afterwards." Co-supervising director Hamilton Luske suggested to Kahl that he should demonstrate his beliefs by animating a test sequence.

Kahl then showed Disney an animation test scene in which Pinocchio is underwater looking for his father. From this scene, Kahl re-envisioned the character by making him look more like a real boy, with a child's Tyrolean hat and standard cartoon character four-fingered (or three and a thumb) hands with Mickey Mouse-type gloves. The only parts of Pinocchio that still looked more or less like a puppet were his arms, legs, and little button wooden nose. Disney embraced Kahl's scene and immediately urged the writers to evolve Pinocchio into a more innocent, naïve, somewhat coy personality reflecting Kahl's design.

However, Disney discovered that the new Pinocchio was too helpless and was far too often led astray by deceiving characters. Therefore, in the summer of 1938, Disney and his story team established the character of the cricket. Originally, the talking cricket was only a minor character whom Pinocchio abruptly killed by squashing with a mallet and who later returned as a ghost. Disney dubbed the cricket "Jiminy", and made him a character who would try to guide Pinocchio into the right decisions. Once the character was expanded, he was depicted as a realistic cricket with toothed legs and waving antennae, but Disney wanted something more likable. Ward Kimball had spent several months animating two sequences-a soup-eating musical number and a bed-building sequence-in Snow White, which was cut from the film due to pacing reasons. Kimball was about to quit when Disney rewarded him for his work by promoting him to the supervising animator of Jiminy Cricket. Kimball then conjured up the design for Jiminy Cricket, whom he described as a little man with an egg head and no ears. Jiminy "was a cricket because we called him a cricket," Kimball later joked.

Dickie Jones (right, as an adult) voices Pinocchio in the film.

Due to the huge success of Snow White, Walt Disney wanted more famous voices for Pinocchio, which marked the first time an animated film had used celebrities as voice actors. He cast popular singer Cliff Edwards, also known as "Ukulele Ike", as Jiminy Cricket. Disney rejected the idea of having an adult play Pinocchio and insisted that the character be voiced by a real child. He cast 11-year-old child actor Dickie Jones, who had previously been in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). He also cast Frankie Darro as Lampwick, Walter Catlett as "Honest" John Foulfellow the Fox, Evelyn Venable as the Blue Fairy, Charles Judels as both the villainous Stromboli and the Coachman, and Christian Rub as Geppetto, whose design was even a caricature of Rub. Another actor voiced Geppetto originally, but Disney recast him with Rub after feeling that his voice was "too harsh".

Another voice actor recruited was Mel Blanc, best remembered for voicing many of the characters in Warner Bros. cartoon shorts, including Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Blanc recorded the voice of Gideon the Cat in sixteen days. However, it was eventually decided that Gideon would be mute, so all of Blanc's recorded dialogue was subsequently deleted except for a solitary hiccup, which was heard three times in the finished film.

Animation on the film began in January 1938, but work on Pinocchio's animation was discontinued as the writers sought to re-work his characterization and the film's narrative structure. However, animation on the film's supporting characters started in April 1938. Animation would not resume again with the revised story until September.

During the production of the film, story artist Joe Grant formed a character model department, which would be responsible for building three-dimensional clay models of the characters in the film, known as maquettes. These models were then given to the staff to observe how a character should be drawn from any given angle desired by the artists. The model makers also built working models of Geppetto's elaborate cuckoo clocks designed by Albert Hurter, as well as Stromboli's gypsy wagon and wooden cage, and the Coachman's carriage. However, owing to the difficulty of animating a realistic moving vehicle, the artists filmed the carriage maquettes on a miniature set using stop motion animation. Then, each frame of the animation was transferred onto animation cels using an early version of a Xerox. The cels were then painted on the back and overlaid on top of background images with the cels of the characters to create the completed shot on the rostrum camera. Like Snow White, live-action footage was shot for Pinocchio with the actors playing the scenes in pantomime, supervised by Luske. Rather than tracing, which would result in stiff unnatural movement, the animators used the footage as a guide for animation by studying human movement and then incorporating some poses into the animation (though slightly exaggerated).

Pinocchio was a groundbreaking achievement in the area of effects animation, led by Joshua Meador. In contrast to the character animators who concentrate on the acting of the characters, effects animators create everything that moves other than the characters---vehicles, machinery, and natural effects such as rain, lightning, snow, smoke, shadows and water, as well as the fantasy or science-fiction type effects like the pixie dust of (1953). The influential abstract animator Oskar Fischinger, who mainly worked on (1940), contributed to the effects animation of the Blue Fairy's wand. Effects animator Sandy Strother kept a diary about his year-long animation of the water effects, which included splashes, ripples, bubbles, waves, and the illusion of being underwater. To help give depth to the ocean, the animators put more detail into the waves on the water surface in the foreground, and put in less detail as the surface moved further back. After the animation was traced onto cels, the assistant animators would trace it once more with blue and black pencil leads to give the waves a sculptured look. To save time and money, the splashes were kept impressionistic. These techniques enabled Pinocchio to be one of the first animated films to have highly realistic effects animation. Ollie Johnston called it "one of the finest things the studio's ever done, as Frank Thomas said, 'The water looks so real a person can drown in it, and they do.'"

The songs in Pinocchio were composed by Leigh Harline with lyrics by Ned Washington. Harline and Paul J. Smith composed the incidental music score. The climactic Whale Chase was co-composed by Edward H. Plumb. The soundtrack was first released on February 9, 1940. Jiminy Cricket's song, " When You Wish Upon A Star", became a major hit and is still identified with the film, and later as the theme song of The Walt Disney Company itself. The soundtrack won an Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Commentator Nicholas Sammond considers Pinocchio to be a metaphor for American child rearing in the mid-20th century.

M. Keith Booker considers the film to be the most down-to-earth of the Disney animated films despite its theme song and magic, and notes that the film's protagonist has to work to prove his worth, which he remarked seemed "more in line with the ethos of capitalism" than most of the Disney films. Claudia Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh believe that the male protagonists of films like Pinocchio and Bambi (1942) were purposefully constructed by Disney to appeal to both boys and girls. Mark I. Pinsky said that it is "a simple morality tale-cautionary and schematic-ideal for moral instruction, save for some of its darker moments", and noted that the film is a favorite of parents of young children.

Nicolas Sammond argues that the film is "an apt metaphor for the metaphysics of midcentury American child-rearing" and that the film is "ultimately an assimilationist fable". He considered it to be the central Disney film and the most strongly middle class, intended to relay the message that indulging in "the pleasures of the working class, of vaudeville, or of pool halls and amusement parks, led to a life as a beast of burden". For Sammond, the purpose of Pinocchio is to help convey to children the "middle-class virtues of deferred gratification, self-denial, thrift, and perseverance, naturalized as the experience of the most average American".

Author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, who saw the film in theaters in 1940, called the film superior to Collodi's novel in its depiction of children and growing up. "The Pinocchio in the film is not the unruly, sulking, vicious, devious (albeit still charming) marionette that Collodi created. Neither is he an innately evil, doomed-to-calamity child of sin. He is, rather, both lovable and loved. Therein lies Disney's triumph. His Pinocchio is a mischievous, innocent and very naive little wooden boy. What makes our anxiety over his fate endurable is a reassuring sense that Pinocchio is loved for himself -- and not for what he should or shouldn't be. Disney has corrected a terrible wrong. Pinocchio, he says, is good; his "badness" is only a matter of inexperience," and also that "Pinocchio's wish to be a real boy remains the film's underlying theme, but "becoming a real boy" now signifies the wish to grow up, not the wish to be good."

On July 16, 1985, it was released on VHS, Betamax, CED, and LaserDisc in North America for the first time as part of the Walt Disney Classics label, the second title with the Classics label after (1973) which was released the previous December. It would become the best-selling home video title of the year selling 130-150,000 units at $80 each. It was re-issued on October 14, 1986 to advertise the home video debut of Sleeping Beauty (1959), this release also helped leave out the preview of The Black Cauldron from the original 1985 VHS release due to the preview being too dark and scary for kids. Then, for the first time, it was released on VHS in the US in 1988, 1995, and 2000. The digital restoration that was completed for the 1992 cinema re-issue was released on VHS and Laserdisc on March 26, 1993 and sold 13.5 million copies. Its fourth VHS release and first release on Disney DVD was the 60th Anniversary Edition on October 25, 1999.

The film was re-issued on DVD and one final time on VHS as part of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection release on March 7, 2000. Along the film, the VHS edition also contained a making-of documentary while the DVD had the film's original theatrical trailer as supplemental features. The Gold Classic Collection release was returned to the Disney Vault on January 31, 2002.

A special edition VHS and DVD of the film was released in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2003. The fourth DVD release and first Blu-ray Disc release (the second Blu-ray in the Walt Disney Platinum Editions series) was released on March 10, 2009. Like the 2008 Sleeping Beauty Blu-ray release, the Pinocchio Blu-ray package featured a new restoration by Lowry Digital in a two-disc Blu-ray set, with a bonus DVD version of the film also included. This set returned to the Disney Vault on April 30, 2011. A Signature Edition was released on Digital HD on January 10, 2017 and was followed by a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack on January 31, 2017.

Pinocchio title card

Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times gave the film five out of five stars, saying " Pinocchio is here at last, is every bit as fine as we had prayed it would be-if not finer-and that it is as gay and clever and delightful a fantasy as any well-behaved youngster or jaded oldster could hope to see." magazine gave the film a positive review, stating "In craftsmanship and delicacy of drawing and coloring, in the articulation of its dozens of characters, in the greater variety and depth of its photographic effects, it tops the high standard Snow White set. The charm, humor and loving care with which it treats its inanimate characters puts it in a class by itself."

praised the animation as superior to Snow White's writing the "[a]nimation is so smooth that cartoon figures carry impression of real persons and settings rather than drawings to onlooker." In summary, they felt Pinocchio "will stand on [its] own as a substantial piece of entertainment for young and old, providing attention through its perfection in animation and photographic effects. The Hollywood Reporter wrote " Pinocchio is entertainment for every one of every age, so completely charming and delightful that there is profound regret when it reaches the final fade-out. Since comparisons will be inevitable, it may as well be said at once that, from a technical standpoint, conception and production, this picture is infinitely superior to Snow White."

Initially, Pinocchio was not a box-office success. The box office returns from the film's initial release were both below Snow White's unprecedented success and below studio expectations. Of the film's $2.6 million negative cost-twice the cost of Snow White-Disney only recouped $1 million by late 1940, with studio reports of the film's final original box office take varying between $1.4 million and $1.9 million. Animation historian Michael Barrier notes that Pinocchio returned rentals of less than one million by September 1940, and in its first public annual report, Walt Disney Productions charged off a $1 million loss to the film. Barrier relays that a 1947 Pinocchio balance sheet listed total receipts to the studio of $1.4 million. This was primarily due to the fact that World War II and its aftermath had cut off the European and Asian markets overseas, and hindered the international success of Pinocchio and other Disney releases during the early and mid-1940s. Joe Grant recalled Walt Disney being "very, very depressed" about Pinocchio's initial returns at the box office. The distributor RKO recorded a loss of $94,000 for the film from worldwide rentals of $3,238,000.

The film was nominated and won two Academy Awards in 1941 for Best Original Score and Best Original Song (for " When You Wish Upon a Star"), the first Disney film to win either category.
To date, only six other Disney films have made this achievement: Mary Poppins ( 1964), The Little Mermaid ( 1989), Beauty and the Beast ( 1991), ( 1992), The Lion King ( 1994), and Pocahontas ( 1995).

With the re-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1944 came the tradition of re-releasing Disney films every seven to ten years. Pinocchio was theatrically re-released in 1945, 1954, 1962, 1971, 1978, 1984, and 1992. RKO handled the first two reissues in 1945 and 1954, while Disney itself reissued the film from 1962 on through its Buena Vista Distribution division. The 1992 re-issue was digitally restored by cleaning and removing scratches from the original negatives one frame at a time, eliminating soundtrack distortions, and revitalizing the color.

Despite its initial struggles at the box office, a series of reissues in the years after World War II proved more successful and allowed the film to turn a profit. By 1973, the film had earned rentals of $13 million in the United States and Canada from the initial 1940 release and four reissues. After the 1978 reissue, the rentals had increased to $19.9 million from a total gross of $39 million. The 1984 reissue grossed $26.4 million in the U.S. and Canada, bringing its total gross there to $65.4 million and $145 million worldwide. The 1992 reissue grossed $18.9 million in the U.S. and Canada bringing Pinocchio' s lifetime gross to $84.3 million at the U.S. and Canadian box office.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 100%, with an average rating of 9.1/10. The general consensus of the film on the site is "Ambitious, adventurous, and sometimes frightening, Pinocchio arguably represents the pinnacle of Disney's collected works - it's beautifully crafted and emotionally resonant.". On Metacritic, Pinocchio has a weighted score of 99 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It is currently the highest-rated animated film on the site, as well as the highest-rated Disney animated film.

Many film historians consider this to be the film that most closely approaches technical perfection of all the Disney animated features. Film critic Leonard Maltin said, "with Pinocchio, Disney reached not only the height of his powers, but the apex of what many critics consider to be the realm of the animated cartoon."

In 1994, Pinocchio was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Filmmaker Terry Gilliam selected it as one of the ten best animated films of all time in a 2001 article written for The Guardian and in 2005, magazine named it one of the 100 best films of the last 80 years, and then in June 2011 named it the best animated movie of "The 25 All-TIME Best Animated Films".

In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten"-the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres-after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Pinocchio was acknowledged as the second best film in the medium of animation, after Snow White. It was nominated for the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, and received further nominations for their Thrills and Heroes and Villains (Stromboli in the villains category) lists. The song " When You Wish Upon A Star" ranked number 7 on their 100 Songs list, and the film ranked 38th in the 100 Cheers list. The quote "A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face" was nominated for the Movie Quotes list, and the film received further nomination in the AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals list.

On June 29, 2018, Pinocchio was named the 13th best Disney animated film by IGN. Film critic Roger Ebert, adding it to his list of "Great Movies", wrote that the movie "isn't just a concocted fable or a silly fairy tale, but a narrative with deep archetypal reverberations."

Geppetto and Pinocchio at Magic Kingdom

Pinocchio's village, Disneyland, inspired by Gustaf Tenggren paintings

After the film, Jiminy Cricket became an iconic Disney character, making numerous other appearances in a major role, including the film Fun and Fancy Free (1947), educational serials from The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-1977), the featurette Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), and the video game Disney's Villains' Revenge (1999).

Figaro, Geppetto's kitten, primarily animated by Eric Larson, has been described as a "hit with the audiences", which resulted in him making appearances in several subsequent Disney short films in the 1940s.

Many of Pinocchio's characters are costumed characters at Disney parks. Pinocchio's Daring Journey is a popular ride at the original Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Park in Paris. Pinocchio Village Haus is a quick service restaurant at Walt Disney World that serves pizza and macaroni and cheese. There are similar quick-service restaurants at the Disneyland parks in Anaheim and Paris as well, with almost identical names.

Disney on Ice starring Pinocchio, toured internationally from 1987 to 1992. A shorter version of the story is also presented in the current Disney on Ice production "One Hundred Years of Magic".

Like other Walt Disney Animation Studios characters, the characters from Pinocchio have cameo appearances in the short film Once Upon a Studio (2023).

In the mid-2000s, Disneytoon Studios began development on a direct-to-video sequel to Pinocchio. Robert Reece co-wrote the film's screenplay, which saw Pinocchio on a "strange journey" for the sake of something dear to him. "It's a story that leads Pinocchio to question why life appears unfair sometimes," said Reece. John Lasseter cancelled Pinocchio II soon after being named Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2006.

A Disney's made-for-television movie titled was released in 2000. It was based on a book by David Stern, which was a re-telling of the original 1883 original Pinocchio book but told from Geppetto's perspective. While not a direct adaptation of the 1940 animated film, it features few commons elements such as the character of Figaro, the song " I've Got No Strings", and Pleasure Island. It stars Drew Carey as Geppetto and Seth Adkins as Pinocchio, and features music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.

The movie was in turn adapted into a musical, Disney's My Son Pinocchio: Geppetto's Musical Tale, which premiered at The Coterie Theatre, Kansas City, Missouri in 2006.

2022 remake

A live-action adaptation directed by Robert Zemeckis who also co-produced and co-written with Chris Weitz, and stars Tom Hanks as Geppetto, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Pinocchio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket, Cynthia Erivo as the Blue Fairy, Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John, Luke Evans as the Coachman and Lorraine Bracco as a new character named Sofia the Seagull. The film was released to the streaming service Disney+ on September 8, 2022.

The Silly Symphony Sunday comic strip published an adaptation of Pinocchio from December 24, 1939 to April 7, 1940. The sequences were scripted by Merrill De Maris and drawn by Hank Porter.

Video games

Aside from the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Boy, and SNES games based on the animated film, the characters appear in several Disney video games.

Jiminy Cricket appears as a main character in Disney's Villains' Revenge, being player's guide during the progress of the game.

In the Kingdom Hearts series, Jiminy Cricket appears acting as a recorder, keeping a journal of the game's progress in Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II, and Kingdom Hearts III. Pinocchio, Geppetto and Cleo also appear as characters in Kingdom Hearts. and the inside of Monstro is also featured as one of the worlds. Pinocchio's home world was slated to appear in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, but was omitted due to time restrictions, although talk-sprites of Pinocchio, Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon have been revealed. As compensation, this world appears in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, under the name "Prankster's Paradise", with Dream world versions of Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, Geppetto, Monstro and the Blue Fairy appearing.

Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, Geppetto, Figaro, the Blue Fairy, Honest John and Stromboli appear as playable characters in the video game Disney Magic Kingdoms, along with some attractions based on locations of the film. Monstro also appeared temporarily as a non-player character for a Boss Battle during the limited time " Pinocchio Event" in which the characters and material related to the film were included. In the game, the characters are involved in new storylines that serve as a continuation of the film.

1. ^ "Pinocchio (1940)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 4, 2023.

2. ^ Cryer, Max (February 1, 2015). The Cat's Out of the Bag: Truth and lies about cats. Exisle Publishing. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-77559-207-5.

3. ^ No Strings Attached: The Making of Pinocchio (DVD, Blu-Ray). Pinocchio Platinum Edition: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. 2009. Archived from the original on October 17, 2020.

4. ^ Beck, Jerry (October 28, 2005). The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago Review Press. p. 198. ISBN 978-1-56976-222-6.

5. ^ Blanc, Mel; Bashe, Philip (1988). That's Not All Folks: My Life in the Golden Age of Cartoons and Radio. New York: Warner Books. p. 60. ISBN 0446512443 - via Internet Archive.

6. ^

7. ^ Sendak, Maurice (October 7, 1988). "Walt Disney's Triumph - The Art of Pinocchio". The Washington Post.

8. Bierbaum, Tom (May 9, 1985). "Disney Goes To Vault For Its 'Pinocchio' HV". Variety. p. 1.

9. ^ "Disney Vid Points 'Sword' At March Release Schedule". Variety. January 29, 1986. p. 10.

10. ^ "International pace-setter". Screen International. October 22, 1993. p. 16.

11. ^ "Time Is Running Out ... Four of Disney's Greatest Animated Classics Are Disappearing into the Vault" (Press release). Walt Disney Press Release. PR Newswire. January 23, 2002. Archived from the original on March 15, 2016 - via TheFreeLibrary.com.

12. ^ Sharpsteen, Ben; Luske, Hamilton (supervising directors) (March 3, 2003). Pinocchio Special Edition (Animated film). Lebanon: Disney.

13. ^ Sedgwick, John (1994). "Richard B. Jewell's RKO film grosses, 1929-51: The C. J. Trevlin Ledger: A comment". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 14 (1): 51-58. doi:10.1080/01439689400260041 - via Taylor & Francis.

14. ^ "Updated All-Time Film Rental Champs". Variety. January 9, 1974. p. 23.

15. ^ "All-Time Film Rental Champs". Variety. January 11, 1983. p. 16.

16. ^

17. "Pinocchio (1940)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. February 9, 1940.

18. ^ "Pinocchio - Disney Movies History". Disney.go.com. August 4, 2003. Archived from the original on August 4, 2003.

19. ^ Maltin, Leonard (1973). "Pinocchio". The Disney Films. New York: Crown Publishers. p. 37. ISBN 978-0517177419.

20. ^ Corliss, Richard (June 21, 2011). "Pinocchio | The 25 All-TIME Best Animated Films". Time. Archived from the original on October 22, 2011.

21. ^ Ebert, Roger (November 22, 1998). "Pinocchio movie review". RogerEbert.com.

22. ^ Max Cryer (February 1, 2015). The Cat's Out of the Bag: Truth and lies about cats. Exisle Publishing. pp. 134-. ISBN 978-1-77559-207-5.

23. ^ Armstrong, Josh (April 22, 2013). "From Snow Queen to Pinocchio II: Robert Reece's animated adventures in screenwriting". Animated Views.

24. ^ "Disney's My Son Pinocchio: Geppetto's Musical Tale - Share Photos, Videos, Costume, and Sets, Theatrical Advice". MTIShowspace.

25. "Disney's My Son Pinocchio: Geppetto's Musical Tale". www.musicalschwartz.com.

26. ^ "Home Coterie Theatre".

27. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (April 8, 2015). "'Pinocchio'-Inspired Live-Action Pic in the Works at Disney". Deadline Hollywood.

28. ^ "Robert Zemeckis in Talks to Direct Live-Action 'Pinocchio' for Disney (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. October 18, 2019.

29. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (January 24, 2020). "Robert Zemeckis Closes Deal To Direct & Co-Write Disney's Live-Action 'Pinocchio'". Deadline Hollywood.

30. ^ Karp, Hubie; Grant, Bob; De Maris, Merrill; Taliaferro, Al; Porter, Hank (2018). Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics, vol 3. San Diego: IDW Publishing. ISBN 978-1631409882.

31. ^ "Update 55: Pinocchio | Livestream". YouTube. December 10, 2021.

"Threads of Melody: Evolution of a Major Film Score" by Ross B. Care in the Library of Congress book, Wonderful Inventions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on Carlo Collodi's 1883 Italian children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio , it is the second Disney animated feature film, and the third animated film overall produced by an American film studio, after Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fleischer Studios' Gulliver's Travels .

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Railroads 1940s
1. Delahaye 135 convertible whose top speeds reached 95 mph or 153kph

2. lower, longer, broader, and more massive look. Hudson offered a combination

3. Antique car definition: Antique cars are more loosely defined as being at least 25

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I still remember riding trains in the 1940s.

During my pre-school and primary school days we lived on the South side of Chicago near 76 th and Coles Avenue. My father worked at the Wisconsin Steel Division of the International Harvester Co. making steel for the war effort and for civilian use following the completion of the war.

My fascination with trains resulted from a number experiences in those years. My brother and I spent hours viewing the beautiful O scale layout that had been donated to the Museum of Science & Industry by the Santa Fe Railway. I also remember the Railroad Fair that was held in Chicago following WWII and our annual trips to downtown Chicago to visit toy lands at the department stores, which featured display layouts designed to sell Lionel and American Flyer train sets for Christmas.

And there were the numerous train trips we took during the time we lived in Chicago. My parents grew up in the Horicon-Mayville, Wis., area. My grandfather had been and engineer for the Milwaukee Road and I had an uncle that fired for the Soo Line out of Ashland and North Fond du Lac at various times during his career. Because of gas rationing and other considerations, we always took the train to visit relatives in Wisconsin.

Most trips were on the Milwaukee Road: a Hiawatha to Milwaukee and then a local to Horicon. The local usually consisted of an Atlantic pulling three cars, a combined RPO-baggage car and two coaches. One highlight of these trips were the sweeping curves into Chicago's Union Station and the Milwaukee Road depot in Milwaukee. If you were sitting on the right (or left) side of a coach you would get a spectacular view of the engines and cars that formed the consist of the train you were riding in the 1940s.

Traveling at night during the war was particularly interesting. Because of the blackouts in effect you would step off the train onto a dark platform. One trip to visit relatives in Horicon during the holidays found us taking the Chicago & North Western 400 from Chicago to South Beaver Dam, Wis. Because it was the holiday season the train was crowded. I still have a vivid memory of stepping onto a dark platform and wondering if we would ever find our suitcases in the dark. (We did.)

In August 1945 we traveled by Soo Line to visit my uncle in Ashland, Wis. By this time the war had concluded in Europe but peace had not come to the Pacific. As a result, blackout regulations were still in effect. We left Chicago on train 17 at 5:50 p.m. and arrived in Spencer, Wis., at 2:31 a.m. I still have a memory of a bright light coming down the tracks as we stood on the platform waiting for our connecting train 117, scheduled for an 8:15 a.m. arrival in Ashland. I thought the train was going to run us over as it approached.

V-J Day occurred while we were in Ashland. The return trip to Chicago was not as dramatic as the trip to Ashland. I am not able to know exactly which trip this event occurred on, but I do remember a kind service man giving up a seat so my mother, brother, and I would have seats together.

We continued to ride trains to visit relatives in Horicon. Each return trip proved more difficult as tears were shed when we had to board the train to return to Chicago. Finally, In December 1948, we moved back to Horicon. My mother, brother, and I proceeded my father by a few days. That was my last trip on the Milwaukee Road. I remember waiting for my father to arrive in Horicon after his last trip on the Milwaukee Road. A gentle snow was falling as I waited by the living room window for his arrival.

Since these early times of riding trains in the 1940s, I have been on excursion railroads, but that is for a later reflection.

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I still remember riding trains in the 1940s. During my pre-school and primary school days we lived on the South side of Chicago near 76th and Coles Avenue. My father worked at the Wisconsin Steel Division of the International Harvester Co. making steel for the war effort and for civilian use following the completion of the war.