Way back in this message in 2001 — my, I've been blogging a long time — I wrote about a televised "roast" of Jack Benny that was done on NBC for the Kraft Music Hall TV program. I guessed it was from 1970 and it turns out, I was right. It aired January 21 of that year.
The show featured Johnny Carson as Roastmaster, Mr. Benny as Roastee and the Roasters were Milton Berle, George Burns, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Alan King and Ed Sullivan. And if you click on the above link, you can read a story I told about how while Mr. Carson was in one part of Rockefeller Center taping this special, comedian David Steinberg was filling in as host of a Tonight Show being taped at the same time. During a break, Berle, Benny and Carson ran down and did genuine surprise walk-on appearances on that show.
A few years ago, before my pal Paul Harris retired from the Talk Radio business, he had David Steinberg on a show and he read him my blog post and asked if it had really happened. Mr. Steinberg was startled that anyone remembered it. It was a very memorable moment in his career but the videotape of that Tonight Show is long lost and it was pretty much forgotten…though not by him.
Anyway, this post is not about that. It's about that Friar's Club special. That tape is not lost, though I believe it has received a makeover. Some company did some re-editing and took out all mention of the Kraft Music Hall and Kraft products and here it is. How often do you get to see a lineup like that on one show?
