[Ads-l] just "just a cigar, kiddo" 1946

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

 Stephen Goranson wrote:
> It is widely agreed that Freud did not write "sometimes a cigar is just
> a cigar," even though the psychoanalyst and writer Allen Wheelis in
> 1950 wrote that Freud had done. But Freud did influence comedians,
> some of them Jewish--Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, maybe George
> Burns and others--who did joke about cigars, sometimes in a
> Freudian-aware manner.
> Maybe (or maybe not) Wheelis was aware of such jokes and
> presumed an explicit source for them.
>
> On 1 February 1946, the Desert Sun [CA; Elephind] p. 1 col. a:
>
> On the radio he [Jack Benny, and his writers are also mentioned]
> says L.S.M.F.T., but off the air he says J.A.C.K. And that doesn't
> mean his first name. It stands for "Just a Cigar, Kiddo."

Apparently, an advertisement campaign taught consumers that L.S.M.F.T.
stood for Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco. So J.A.C.K. might be a
sardonic response to the advertisement.
Garson

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