Happy Holidays from The Third Banana!

Santa Clark and all of us here at The Third Banana wish you and yours the happiest of holidays and a wonderful new year. In honor of the season, please enjoy this trove of Jack Benny holiday goodness culled from around the net.. all free, as Mr. Benny would no doubt appreciate.

First, courtesy Ernie (Not Bert), is this Dennis Day Christmas album from 196?, Christmas is for the Family. A very nice album, but the cover, featuring Dennis and his family with Jack as Santa, is a little worrying. Jack, as it states in the liner notes, was sick when this photo was taken, and check out the shiner on the boy in the middle! You'd think someone would have put some makeup on that eye or at least have done a bit of retouching on the photo itself before having the covers printed. But, hey, this was released on budget label Pickwick, so that's what you get; Jack Benny on the brink of puking and a kid with a swollen black eye.

And here, thanks to the wonder that is archive.org, are fifty holiday episodes of The Jack Benny Program. That includes Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Years shows as well as Christmas. Enjoy!

1938-10-30 Halloween Party
1938-12-11 Christmas Shopping
1938-12-25 Jack's Christmas Open House
1939-01-01 Goodbye 1938, Hello 1939
1939-10-29 The Halloween Masquerade Party
1939-11-19 Mary's Thanksgiving Poem
1939-12-17 Christmas Shopping- East Coast Version
1939-12-24 Christmas Shopping for Perfume Necktie
1939-12-31 No New Years Eve Date For Jack
1940-12-22 Christmas Shopping
1941-01-05 Christmas Gift Exchange
1941-11-02 Halloween
1941-12-21 The Christmas Tree
1941-12-28 Jack Talks About A Christmas Party He Gave
1942-01-04 New Years Eve Party
1942-12-20 From Fort Devon Boston
1943-11-21 The Awful Turkey Dream
1943-12-26 Christmas at Jack' s House
1944-01-02 Annual New Years Eve Show
1944-11-26 How Jack and the Gang Spent Thanksgiving Day
1944-12-24 Trimming A Tree
1944-12-31 Jack Resolves To Be Friends with Fred Allen
1945-12-30 Christmas Presents on New Year
1946-12-22 Christmas Party At Birmingham General Hospital
1946-12-29 Jack, Mary, Gladys, and Dennis
1947-11-23 Movie Of Jack's Life- Thanksgiving Show
1947-11-30 Turkey Dream
1947-12-21 Last Moment Christmas Shopping
1947-12-28 New Tenant
1948-10-31 Jack Goes Trick or Treating
1948-11-28 How Jack and the Gang Spent Thanksgiving
1948-12-19 Jack Buys a Wallet for Don as a Christmas Gift
1949-12-18 Mary Buys Jack a Pencil Sharpener for Christmas
1950-01-01 Jack Can't Make Mary's Party and is Stood Up by his Date
1950-12-17 Jack Buys Don Golf Tees for Christmas
1950-12-24 Beavers Come Over To Jack's for Christmas
1950-12-31 A New Year's Fantasy
1951-12-02 Jack Buys Don Cuff Links For Christmas
1951-12-23 Christmas Tree Decoration
1951-12-30 New Year's Eve Date with a French Girl
1952-11-09 Jack Goes to the Doctor for a Vitamin Shot
1952-12-14 Jack Buys a Gopher Trap for Don
1952-12-21 Setting Up a Christmas Tree
1953-11-29 Thanksgiving Dinner
1953-12-13 Christmas Show from Palm Springs
1953-12-20 Cactus Christmas Tree
1954-12-05 Christmas Shopping
1954-12-12 In Palm Springs
1954-12-19 Christmas at Palm Springs
1954-12-26 Day After Christmas- Dennis Cold

And to download all fifty shows as a zip file, click here.