Evening star., 1935-07-14

sign off after their July IA broadcaStS
for their Summer leave, the popular
comedian will undoubtedly pay trib-
ute once more to Conn. For Benny,
unlike many other radio and stage
comics, makes no bones about
his Indebtedness to the man who
writes his stuff. They have teamed
together for about 200 radio shows
over the last three years, and the
usual petty jealousies of show busi-
ness have always been absent from
their relationship.
Conn, of course, gets big chunk
of Benny's our-fgure salary for his
weekly broadcasts, and Jack will be
the first one to tell you he deserves
it. Jack will tell you that it is
Harrys scripts that make his shows
the success they are. Harry will tell
you that Jack is great wit in his
own right, that ''it isn't so much
what write for Jack, but the way
he delivers it,
How does he turn out such steady
grist of top-notch material?
Well, Conn attributes his "feel' for
the right thing to write at the right
time to the IL years of trouping he
did on the vaudeville stage before he
went with Paramount to write scena-
rios for its two-reel comedies.
He was engaged with the notion
picture concerns studios in New York,
writing a series of pictures for Burns
and Allen, later to become famous on
the air themselves, when Benny was
employed for his first network COM
mercial. Benny and George Burns
are staunch friends, and when Benny
was casting about for material, Burns
recommended Conn. Every Benny
script since then has been written by
Conn.
Usually, as Benny explains, they
get together day of two after each
broadcast and decide generally what
next weeks broadcast shall be about.
Conn retires to his sanctum and does
the writing. Jack visits him after the
script is done, and they go over it to-
gether. They next meet at rehearsals
which are held the morning of the
day the show goes on-rehearSalS
from which all outsiders and even
the orchestra members are barred so
that the audience laughs shall come
naturally during the performance.
When Conn was in vaudeville, long
before radio grew to be what it is,
pretty fair tap dancing team" he says.
until my legs began to give out. To
cover my weakening pins, I started
using some lines in my act. AS the
legs grew weaker, the lines became
more important and finally gave
up stepping for writing"
WRITING comedy material, Conn
Nv believes, consists largely in be-
ing able to see the humor in any
situation. Every event, he will tell
you, has a comic twist in it some
where. He doesn't use the ordinary
gag mans routine-that of digging
old Jokes out of files and finding new
twists for them. He makes his gags
come as natural part Of humor-
Gus situation.
conn mas developed an entlrely new
formula for radio comedy. He mixes
topical situations, parodies of movies
and plays and newsreels, travelogues,
books with comedy dialects and un-
expected lines for stooges. The latter
are drawn from the ranks of Benny's
supporting cast. Conn points out that
the reason many things which Frank
Parker and Don Bestor say seem so
funny is that no one expects tenor
or an orchestra leader to know any
thing except music.
Conn does not believe in infusing
too much subtlety into radio scripts,
not because of any lack of faith in
the audiences intelligence, but because
he believes listeners are impatient.
sThev want tO know Immediately what