One Man Show Brings Jack Benny To Tulsa

Rick Wells, News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma -- If we told you a one man show about Jack Benny was opening in Tulsa this weekend, many of you would ask… Jack who?

Well, he was a comedian and an actor on radio and television from the 1920s through the early 70s.

A Tulsa man has written and performs this one man show because he thinks the world needs a good dose of Jack Benny right now.

"Tulsa needs Jack Benny! The whole USA needs more Jack Benny, don't you agree?" asked Darin Farr, who pitched a little of his Jack Benny one man show to News On 6 intern Andy Fusco.

Andy's polite. but honestly has no idea who Jack Benny was. Why would he? Jack Benny had been dead more than 15 years when he was born.

That's why Darin Farr wrote the show. "I enjoy watching people who don't know who he was," he said.

Jack Benny was this iconic figure in American comedy from the 1920's through the early TV sitcoms of the 1960's.

"It's education as much as it is entertainment," he said.

It took him more than two years of research and writing to finish it. He listened to thousands of hours of old Benny radio shows, film and television.

Documentary films of the times in which he lived is also part of the show.

He's fallen in love with Jack Benny's family-friendly humor.

"I had a dream last night. I dreamed I was eating life savors all night long. That's awful, I know, when I woke up I had no buttons on my pajamas," he said.

That's vintage Jack Benny and the show is full of it, an opportunity for Andy and the rest of us to get acquainted--or re-acquainted--with an American Comedy icon.

The performances of Jack Benny Comedian in Bloom are this week beginning Thursday evening at the Tulsa Little Theater.