Gasoline Alley by Jim Scancarelli for June 30, 2012

SPLIT, Skeezix.

Will we ever see Lucky again?

Oh my God! Hal Pearry. I’m 1,000 years old.

Maybe I’m not so old after all. I’d thought that person on Jack Benny WAS Hal Peary. Reality has just shifted slightly for me.

Wasn’t there a similar character, also based on Frank Nelson but not looking that much like him when Skeezix was buying a washing machine in a story a few months ago?

That’s the same salesman that sold Skeezix the washer a few months ago.

Yes, that is the great Frank Nelson who played the foil on Jack Benny’s radio & TV show! Great bit of nostalgia – thanks Jim! (copy & paste if not clickable) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA_r1Ynl4Ls (Clip: Frank Nelson torments Jack Benny)

Well, then I’ll be sure I only kick YOUR rude a$$!

He used to mouth off to Jack Benny all the time. He was very funny, actually that whole show was.

“Don’t breathe on my carnation!”Nelson appeared a lot on Benny’s radio show but he was at his best as the Floorwalker character in the Christmas shopping episodes starting around 1939, and what I wrote above was one of his most famous lines. He predated Mel Blanc’s store clerk who was tormented by Jack’s changing his mind about a gift for Don Wilson by a number of years.

I wasn’t around in 1939 but I remember him wel. ffrom the Jack Benny show on TV.

This guy must work for HHGregg!

Actually, having a sales person in that kind of a retail setting with the demeanor of Frank Nelson would be a major upgrade in this day and age.

I believe Hal Peary was the Great Guildersleave, and was very heavy.

Skeezix is sleeping, while the Jack Benny movie is playing. This is all a dream.

Get one on Amazon, Skeezix. You won’t have to deal with this jerk and they’ll probably be cheaper there anyway. Free Super Saver shipping too.

Someone is a Jack Benny fan!!!

Harold Perry was indeed the Great Gildersleeve, first on Fibber McGee and Molly, and then in his own show. He jumped from NBC to CBS, but Kraft, his sponsor, wouldn’t sanction the move, so Willard Waterman took over as Gildy and Harold Perry had his own show on CBS that only ran for a year or so.

Frank Nelson (parodied in this strip) was a marvelous character actor who showed up everywhere Jack Benny did. He also was, as Susan Newman said, on several I Love Lucy episodes, particularly in the final season when he played their next-door neighbour after they moved to Connecticut.

If the owner of an electronics store were that rude to me, I’d take my business elsewhere.

Frank Nelson would be amused. So would Jack Benny. Both of them would have read Gasoline Alley in the papers.

Too young to remember Frank Nelson, but thanks to Radio Spirits, satellite radio and Antenna TV, I’m blessed to able to play catch-up! Jack Benny wss he best straight man!

Harold Peary played The Great Gildersleeve from about 1939 until 1950, first on the “Fibber McGee & Molly” show then on his own show. In 1950 he was tempted by an offer from CBS to take the show over there but NBC and (more importantly) the show’s sponsors refused. Peary had already signed a contract with CBS so he left the series to be replaced by Willard Waterman who bore a strong resemblance to Peary both physically and in his voice. Waterman played Gildy until the end of the radio run and also on the syndicated TV show that was made around 1956. As for Peary, he kind of went back to his roots; when they made a TV series out of Fibber McGee & Molly (without Jim or Marion Jordan who created the characters), Peary was hired to play Mayor LaTrivia, a role originally created by Gale Gordon. (Both TV series were awful.) You can find a few clips of Peary on YouTube including one of him doing a Charmin commercial from the 1970s.

I’ve also seen him on Sanford & Son