How Jack joined the navy: Jack Benny (February 6, 1944)

Jack Benny, old-time radio on Stupid Potato

“How Jack joined the navy” is an episode of Jack Benny, the old-time radio show, first broadcast February 6, 1944. Listen free on Stupid Potato: no sign-up, no app.

Listen to The Jack Benny Program free, live around the clock: every episode, in the order it first aired. No sign-up.

What happens

Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone drive to the Navy Small Craft Training Center at Roosevelt Base on Terminal Island to put on a broadcast for the sailors. Their trip is slowed by a drawbridge, a missing pass and Rochester's confused directions, so they arrive late. Once inside, the cast entertains the crowd with songs and jokes, and Jack recalls how he joined the Navy in the last war. The episode is part of the Jack Benny series, first aired on February 6, 1944, with Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson and Phil Harris as the lead cast.

Roosevelt Base on Terminal Island, California, a Navy training base, and the drive there

Characters: Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Rochester, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Don Wilson

Listen for: Jack's account of the drive to the base and his memories of joining the Navy in the last war

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.