Comedian Jack Benny (1894-1974), whose real name was Benny Kubelsky, began his career in Vaudeville. He started his career playing the violin and wanted to be a professional violinist, but discovered that he was having more success with his jokes than with his violin playing. Jack became a comedian instead and decided to use the violin as a prop to get more laughs by playing the violin badly. Following his Vaudeville years, Jack Benny was on the radio in the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s he went on television with his own show called “The Jack Benny Show.” Jack had great comedic timing, and could get people to laugh by simply pausing for a long time or by using a single facial expression (something that many comedians could not do).

Liberace (1919-1987), whose real name was Władziu Valentino Liberace, was mainly known as a pianist, but could also sing and act. He was very entertaining, and he would often make fun of himself by wearing outlandish outfits. Old ladies loved watching Liberace’s tv show, “The Liberace Show” which first aired in the 1950s. He began his career as a pianist playing classical music but discovered that it was hard to make a good living at it, and that he could do extremely well playing popular music. Liberace made many recordings of popular music, and like Jack Benny, he also had a talent for comedy. He claimed once that he was probably the only pianist to perform the piano piece Chopsticks in Carnegie Hall.

Here is a video clip of Liberace and Jack Benny playing a popular song called “September Song.” I found this to be very funny, and I hope that you will enjoy it and get a good laugh watching it.