What's My Line? Forums

Actually, I think what you're referring to is the same series. I've noticed print listings can differ in the title. The show was seen once a month, so I guess it could be classified as a "special". More famous of course, were his many comedy specials sponsored by Texaco over the years.
I loved Bob Hope, and anxiously awaited his next specials, but eventually, some time after the Viet Nam tours, he seemed to lose something. The gags and (rehearsed) ad libs were of the same calibre, but his delivery, or timing, if you will, evaporated. The public persona he tried to project, was an ever young, smart alecky guy who always seemed to have girls on his mind, though was more pussycat than tiger.
He maintained this aura of youthful vigor right into his 70's, which is a tribute to his acting talent, but he finally lost that gift and he became embarrassingly rather more like a dirty old man. Surrounding himself with talents like Brooke Shields, and playing parts in skits intended for a 25-year old only accentuated this unintended impression.

I agree. It seems like the only old comedian who kept it together far into his old age was George Burns. Even seeing him perform when he was in his early ninties he still remained funny.

Perhaps a little humilty could've helped Bob. In younger days, he's always a bit egotistical in his routines, and of course, half the fun is seeing him get embarrassed or somehow given comeuppance (for a while) because of it, but all in a good natured, lighthearted way.
But as a creaky old man, it's a different story. Burns and for the last 9 years of his life, Jack Benny would play their routines out AS old men, making fun of their obvious changed status. Why not? even Jack's famous decades-on running gag of being 39 forever was dumped by him after he lost his weekly series. He had outgrown it and would even say things like, "I'm so sick of that, you know I'm 75 years old last February."
Bob I guess didn't want to come to grips with his mortality, and wanted to be the evergreen man , I guess.

Just before he died, Jack Benny had done a pretty clever "farewell special" where he spent the whole show trying to tell people -- including Ronald Reagan -- that he really wasn't going away, that it was just his "first" farewell special. That, and the fact that he was getting ready to do "The Sunshine Boys" when he died suggests to me that he probably could have kept things going pretty well, the way his friend George Burns did. Could he have gone as long as Burns? Probably. Benny was the greater talent -- although Burns supposedly could crack him up in a second.

I believe Jack's second "Farewell Special" had already been scheduled by NBC when he passed away. He was also funny throughout his entire career. Had he been able to appear in the Sunshine Boys I wonder if he would have recieved an Oscar for his role like George Burns did?

My mistake. In fact I remember making an audio recording of that show.(No VCRs back then) I think that was the DeFranco Family's only hit recording. I believe there was a third "Farewell Special" in the works when Benny passed away.

That's true. It was going to become an annual tradition, to give Jack at least once-a-year exposure. Though he was in his 70's, he really didn't retire, and it seemed "suddenly" at least to me. At the time, his film TV series had just been dusted off earlier in 1974, and was available for syndication, so I was seeing a lot of them for the first time since they were first run, or on in CBS's morning reruns. My local paper ran the story with the heading "Death comes to Jack Benny, 39".

(THIS IS MY 1000th POSTING! Celebrate quietly, please.)

CBS actually played some of the filmed episodes in Prime Time as a tribute to Jack when he passed away.

They also did, strangely enough, run four episodes again in prime time during summer repeats season in 1977.
This I thought was rather like admitting there wasn't anything worthwhile putting on from any recent, or for that matter, LIVING stars.

Too bad CBS could not repeat Jack's live shows. They were always funnier than the filmed ones.

What I remember most is Reagan appearing on the first "farewell" special. He was governor of California at the time and he gave Jack all sorts of retirement gifts, and Jack was having a hard time trying to bring himself to say that he really wasn't going away for good, lest he have to give the gifts back.

Thankfuly because of home video and places like the Museum of Radio & TV its possible to see the great "Live" shows of the 1950's. I was too young to remember seeing those shows when they were originally broadcast. I do remember some of the "live" shows of the early 1960's.

The networks did used to show reruns -- of sitcoms, though -- during the day. "I Love Lucy" reruns were always on in the 1960s on CBS, and I remember that NBC was running a "Bachelor Father" rerun when the news broke of the JFK assassination.