The Jack Benny Program

Jack sups at a chichi nightclub where heartthrob crooner Robert Goulet is dining. Will Goulet pilfer Jack's drop-dead gorgeous date or will the sex symbol comic pull women away from Goulet? Two versions are presented. Which one is true?

Ed Sullivan is nervous about doing "his first dramatic part" but embraces it, playing an attorney defending a French girl accused of murder. The case seems to be stacked against DA Jack when the entire jury are baguette-wielding Frenchmen.

Jack's announcer, Don Wilson, fakes a broken leg in order to give his son, Harlow, an opportunity to substitute announce for him on the show.

After Jack learns that Jimmy and Gloria Stewart are making a film together, he decides to horn in on the act.

After the opening act goes missing, Jack fills in for Shandu the Magician.

Jack answers an interviewer's questions in his dressing room with Rochester making snarky comments. In a flashback to Jack's childhood in the family's Victorian home, Jack is shown as a money-hungry brat with a music-loving father.

An important sponsor will soon be coming to visit, and it's up to Jack to supply a date for his daughter. He turns to Don to let his son take her out, but Harlow's never had a date before so they get a young lady teach to him how to behave with girls.

Auditioning actors for a 1 hour show recounting his thrilling life provokes many emotions in Jack: lust for a young actress, vanity when an elderly woman from his hometown shows up, and especially greed. A young actor is perfect for Jack as a child, which the actor's 10 year old agent takes every advantage of.

Jack Benny's guests, the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary, illustrate how folk songs develop with a tune about Jack, whose lyrics include "A silver dollar was his teething ring." Jack insists that the group cancel their flight out of town to come to his house, to discuss an important matter, at length.

Jack and his long-time best friend George Burns play golf, but Jack quickly storms back to his office, crying foul to his secretary. George strolls in next, smoking a victory cigar, causing Jack to flee again. So, George makes himself at home at Jack's desk, and relates to Jack's secretary Ms. Gordon, how he met Jack 40 years before, in a cheap Chicago rooming house.

On the anniversary of Don Wilson's 27 years of service with Jack, he and Jack recall the first day they met, when Don showed up for an audition and Jack put him through dance and elocution classes to "whip him into shape".

Rochester imagines what kind of surgeon Jack would have been, if he had gone to medical school as he planned during his youth.

Jack wants to play himself in an autobiographical movie, but the studio prefers younger star Bobby Darin for the role. Darin displays his many talents as he and Jack contend over the role.

Jack intros guest Nat 'King' Cole as the best friend a song ever had, in Nat's final TV performance before his death. Nat banters with Jack, plus croons "When I Fall in Love" and "Day In, Day Out." Nat reluctantly consents to sit in on piano for Jack on "Sweet Sue." At their rehearsal Jack's sax player injures his drummer's arm in a fight, so always-cool Nat calls in a 5 year old (James Bradley Jr., later played with Anita Baker and Chuck Mangione) on the skins.

Jack refuses to leave a homeless shelter until they give him back an ancient jacket Rochester donated, which had $200 sewed in the lining. Jack's just returned from a desert hike with the Beverly Hills Beavers, so due to his dirty clothes & 3 day beard, everyone at the shelter believes he's an extraordinarily picky homeless person, not the most generous man in show business.

Tennessee Ernie Ford appears from a remote location via split screen television.

Jack's guest is Connie Francis, who sings "I Was Born Too Late" and a medley of songs associated with Al Jolson ("Swanee," "Mammy," "April Showers"). In a sketch, Jack does a musical TV show about Ozark hillbillies.

Jack plans to throw a surprise birthday masquerade party for Dennis Day.

Jack goes on trial for murder, defended by superstar lawyer Perry Mason (Raymond Burr). The women in the courtroom swoon over Perry, but his defense of Jack is feeble. When Jack asks how Perry always wins on his own show, Perry Mason sneers "because my writers are better than yours !"

Inside the studio, Bobby Rydell sings two songs. Outside the studio, Jack is haunted by a mysterious stalker.

Jack demonstrates why he's an insufferable golf partner.

Since Jack Benny and U. S. Steel are the IRS' best customers, they want to help Jack take his full deductions.

Jack has written a song, and he asks composer Dimitri Tiomkin to write an arrangement for it.

Jack and Gisele are returning from a show in Phoenix and get lost. They stumble into a café in what appears to be a Western ghost town and ask directions. While they sup on peanut butter sandwiches, the owner spins a story from the town's history, where a black-hearted villain called Tombstone Harry tries to force a beautiful saloon girl to marry him, or he'll foreclose on her mortgage. A black-garbed hero, the Cactus Kid, attempts to stop the villain.

Jack imagines himself as Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.