My Favorite Year
Picture Page 1
As the newest staff writer, it was Benjy's job to bring the morning coffee every day. Alice and Benjy drank coffee, Herb drank tea, and Sy got "extra large coffee with six sugars, lightly toasted bagel, heavy "B" {butter}, schmear cream cheese, grape jelly, half a pound of brisket and a pint of German potato salad." Unfortunately for Sy, King Kaiser considered it bad luck to eat anything toasted in the office. 
But King hadn't ventured into the writers' office just to patrol for contraband...he came to tell them that their guest star for the week, Martha Raye, had backed out, so they needed to write a new sketch for her replacement: swashbuckling (if a bit faded) movie star Alan Swann.
Each writer reacts to the news differently. Sy Benson is horrified. "That has-been?" Alice Miller reacts like a stage-stuck teenager, and Benjy can't believe his luck. "The universe put me on this show to write for Alan Swann. You gotta understand. This wasn't just any movie star." He launches into a song about how his father abandoned him and his mother when he was a boy, and he took refuge in the movies. He hero-worshiped the actor, who always played the daring, loyal, kind but corageous hero. Benjy had even fantasized that Alan Swann might be his real father. Swann, my hero, and possible father/he stood and he fought and he never ran...oh, no.
Benjy launches into a sketch idea for Alan Swann to parody one of his most famous roles and play a Musketeer. I am brave and true, and my horse is, too/I'm a Musketeer.
His idea catches on with the other writers and King Kaiser, as they all join in on creating the sketch.
Alan Swann finally stumbles in, late and drunk, and passes out. King is furious and wants to fire him, but Benjy begs him to reconsider. King agrees, on the condition that Benjy babysit Alan, making sure that he shows up, sober, to every rehearsal. King makes it clear that Benjy's job is dependant on keeping Alan in line.
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