{"product_id":"jack-benny-and-the-golden-age-of-american-radio-comedy-9780520295056","title":"Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy","description":"The king of radio comedy from the Great Depression through the early 1950s, Jack Benny was one of the most influential entertainers in twentieth-century America. A master of comic timing and an innovative producer, Benny, with his radio writers, developed a weekly situation comedy to meet radio's endless need for new material, at the same time integrating advertising into the show's humor. Through the character of the vain, cheap everyman, Benny created a fall guy, whose frustrated struggles with his employees addressed midcentury America's concerns with race, gender, commercialism, and sexual identity. Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley contextualizes her analysis of Jack Benny and his entourage with thoughtful insight into the intersections of competing entertainment industries and provides plenty of evidence that transmedia stardom, branded entertainment, and virality are not new phenomena but current iterations of key aspects in American commercial cultural history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eKathryn H. Fuller-Seeley \u003c\/b\u003eis Professor in the Radio-Television-Film department at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of, among other books, \u003ci\u003eAt the Picture Show: Small Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture\u003c\/i\u003e and the editor of \u003ci\u003eHollywood in the Neighborhood: Historical Case Studies of Local Moviegoing\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of California Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50325026996498,"sku":"9780520295056","price":38.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_1b8e0038-51e9-4e1f-a2cb-85bc8a610f29.jpg?v=1727678773","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/jack-benny-and-the-golden-age-of-american-radio-comedy-9780520295056","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}