In 1952, Christine Jorgensen, a native of New York, had a sex change operation in Denmark (transitioning from male to female). Although it wasn’t the first sex change operation, it was the first that was widely publicized, and was the subject of many, many jokes at the time. Since Jack Benny’s “napoleons” have been converted to “josephines”, they are obviously Danish pastries.
Josephine was the wife of Napoleon I, and thus ‘Josephine’ is a good name for a pastry that isn’t a Napoleon, but is close.
I think the joke ends there, but you can stretch it a bit more, if you want to.
While Josephine was not Danish herself, she is an ancestor of the current Danish royal family, via her son from her first marriage, Eugene - Eugene’s daughter (also named Josephine) married the king of Sweden, and their granddaughter married the King of Denmark.
Edit - on the other hand, SpoilerVirgin’s explanation is funnier, and fairly topical at the time.
I think SpoilerVirgin’s explanation is probably the correct one. I don’t think that Jack Benny would have used a joke that depended on listeners knowing the royal lineage of Napoleon’s wife.
The joke, either way, is a play on Napoleon and Josephine. Either Danish was chosen as a random non-Napoleon pastry, or it was chosen specifically for the reasons SV outlined.
Although Jack Benny was before my time, I got the joke as soon as I read it. The only thing that confused me was the “Danish” reference, since in my experience, these types of sex change jokes usually refer to Sweden (a popular location for sex reassignment surgery in the early years of the procedure). A quick trip to Wiki confirmed that Jorgensen had her operation in Denmark (although she had originally intended to have it in Sweden).
Jorgensen was definitely major pop culture news at the time. The joke would have been similar to making a Kardashian joke today – something that almost everyone would recognize.
Here’s a short article discussing the popularity of Denmark jokes at the time.
OK thanks, that kind of makes ssnese, since the Wikipedia says:
Jack Benny made his TV debut in the 1949 season.[5] There is a kinescope of his later November 1949 TV appearance on the intermittent Jack Benny Program special appearances of the time. Benny ran shorter runs in his early seasons on TV into the early 1950s, as he was still firmly dedicated to radio. The regular and continuing Jack Benny Program was telecast on CBS from October 28, 1950, to September 15, 1964, and on NBC from September 25, 1964, to September 10, 1965. 343 episodes were produced
I keep seeing ‘Kardashian’ in thread titles and headlines, but never open the links. Are they really topical? Hasn’t Deep Space Nine been off the air a very long time?
I just had to explain to my father last week who the Kardashians are. Of course now he sees them everywhere. Not everyone may recognize them, but they certainly are ubiquitous in pop culture. Maybe in 2072 there will be an SDMB thread in which someone asks for an explanation of this bit from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:
To be honest, I know that “Kardashians” are a big deal in pop culture right now, and I’ve seen some photos, and I know that they have something to do with some reality show (at least I think so) but beyond that I haven’t a clue.
I’m old enough to remember both Jack Benny and Christine Jorgensen jokes, and I agree. Everyone back then knew who Josephine was, some might have even known she was Austrian, but no one knew any Danish connection.
Josephine was French (from Martinique), not Austrian. You’re thinking of Marie Antoinette.
And, again, nobody suggested that the joke was based on Josephine’s grandchildren, just that you could, if you wanted to, stretch it beyond a simple play on words.
