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Private Notes
Jack's monologue includes a discussion of the premiere of A Star is Born. Then he falls asleep onstage. Don comes out and explains that Jack has been nervous all day about this first show of the new season. The sketch depicts Jack's day.
Jack delivers a monologue on critics. He is anxious to get home because at 8 p.m. some friends are coming over for their weekly jam session. At home, the guests arrive: Tony Martin with his clarinet, Fred MacMurray with his saxophone, Dick Powell with his trumpet, Dan Dailey with his drums, and Kirk Douglas with his banjo. Guests must purchase food, drink or smokes from vending machines in Jack's closet. They play 'Basin Street.' Jack holds a contest for the most popular guest.
Jack tells an interviewer how he met Mary Livingstone years before when she worked at The May Co. Rochester sings and dances with The Sportsmen Quartet.
The sketch is a take-off on the Caine Mutiny. Benny plays Alvin Dark, captain of the N.Y. Giants during the fourth game of the World Series. He rebels against Durocher's harsh tactics, and is court-martialled. His judges are managers Dressen and Haney, pitcher Lemon, and umpire Reardon. Durocher plays with two baseballs in imitation of Captain Queeg.
Jack is planning his life story for the next week's telecast, and the show opens with Rochester typing up the script. Mel Blanc plays the postman delivering a telegram. The Sportsmen Quartet sing 'You must have been a beautiful baby.' Benny auditions actors for the show; he casts a beautiful girl as his first love, and his real first love as his mother. Instead of casting the little boy trying out for the part of himself as a boy, he casts the tough, pushy little boy who is acting as his agent.
Jack looks for Christmas gifts in a department store, and encounters Nelson as the floor manager, Blanc and Pepper as salespeople, Rubin as a bandit. The Sportsmen Quartet sing the Lucky commercial in the elevator.
Jack comes home after a hard day at work and tries to wind down. Once in bed, he encounters a dripping faucet. Once asleep, 2 burglars try to rob Jack, but encounter numerous obstacles along the way.
Jack reads a public service announcement on behalf of the IRS, and jokes about the Band's deductions. Gisele MacKenzie comes out, and she and Jack talk about funny names: Snooky Lanson, Gisele, and Jack's middle name, Tecumseh. Gisele gives him a kiss from Dorothy Collins. Then Gisele sings a comic medley about Paris. Don, his wife Lois, and his son Harlow come out to beg for one more chance for Harlow as an announcer; Harlow attempts the Lucky Strike ad, but flubs it to the point that even his mother yells at him, and breaks Jack's violin over his head. Jack and Gisele play 'Getting to know you' as a violin duet.
Jack, awakened by a phone call at 4 a.m., cannot get back to sleep. After he decides to go for an early morning walk, he comes home exhausted, but Mary comes over and reminds him that they were to go shopping for a new suit for Jack.
George Raft Guest stars in "The Lunch Counter Morders" a spoof of the movie "The Killers". Later remade on 12-04-1960
Jack takes The Beverly Hills Beavers to the fair. The boys want balloons, so Jack buys some, but gets carried away, literally. After being shot down, Jack buys the boys hot dogs from Mr. Kitzel, and then tries to knock down milk bottles to win the boys prizes. But Jack does it the hard way. While playing ring the bell, Jack knocks the bell right off the pole. After coming face to face with Gorgo the gorilla, Jack finds out its only Mr. Kitzel in disguise. Later, they watch the Sportsmen sing, and Jack steps into a cage with a lion, thinking the lion is Mr. Kitzel, he's wrong. On the way out, they pass a dancing hula girl, the boys want to go in, but Jack says no. Until he learns the dancing girl is Mr. Kitzel.
With Gary Crosby as a guest, doing a duet with Mary Livingstone on his show, Jack is sure he'll have a good one, but always relies on Rochester's opinion rather than what the TV critics say, just as Mary depends on her mother's viewpoint. Unfortunately, both fell asleep and missed it.
Jack's in a terrible dilemma. He has to decide whether to go to a fancy-dress ball or try to appear on the Groucho Marx quiz show. He's heard that the jackpot is worth 3000 dollars. And who'll be there to give it out? None other than 'that's me ”Groucho Marx,' in person.
To meet his sponsor in New York, Jack and Rochester pack their bags and a parrot and head to the train station. Their taxi driver is a blubbering wreck who hates to see people leaving.At the station they encounter friends like Don and Mr. Kitzel, and pests like Frank Nelson.
While in New York, Jack wants to impress Jackie Gleason, so he and Rochester move into the penthouse suite of the luxurious St. Regis Hotel, and there's no length Jack won't go to, in order to avoid having to pay the $36 a night rental.
