one guested on the other's shows, the host would tend to hand the guest the best lines of the night. (Both Benny and Allen revealed later that each man's writers consulted with each other on routines involving the feud.) They toned the gag down after 1941, though they kept it going often enough as the years continued, climaxing on Allen's May 26, 1946 show, in which a sketch called "King for a Day," satirizing big-money game shows, featured Benny pretending to be a contestant named Myron Proudfoot on Allen's new quiz show. ALLEN: Tomorrow night, in your ermine robe, you will be whisked by bicycle to Orange, New Jersey, where you will be the judge in a chicken-cleaning contest. BENNY (rapturously): I'm King for a Day! [Allen proceeds to have Benny's clothes pressed:] ALLEN: And that's not all! BENNY: There's more? ALLEN: Yes! Upon our stage we have a Hoffman pressing machine. BENNY: Now wait a minute! Wait a minute! ALLEN: An expert operating the Hoffman pressing machine will press your trousers in seconds. BENNY: Now wait a minute! (total audience hysteria and laughter, as Benny's pants are literally removed) ALLEN: Quiet, King! BENNY: Come on, Allen, gimme my pants! ALLEN: Keep your shirt on, King. BENNY: You bet I'll keep my shirt on! ALLEN: We're a little late, folks! Tune in next week – BENNY: Allen, this is a frame... (starts laughing himself) Where are my pants? ALLEN: Benny, for 15 years I've been waiting to catch you like this! BENNY: Allen, you haven't seen the end of me! ALLEN: It won't be long now! BENNY: I want my pants! Allen and Benny couldn't resist one more play on the feud on Allen's final show. Benny appeared as a skinflint bank manager and mortgage company owner bedeviling Henry Morgan. Typically, Allen handed Benny the show's best crack: "Nobody ever made me this cheap on my own program!" Benny even used the feud on his TV show, when Fred Allen appeared as a special guest in 1953. The program depicted Benny and Allen as rivals for the sponsor's favors. When the sponsor pointed out that Benny was also a musician, Allen countered with a passage on his clarinet. As Benny said in his co-memoir, Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story, "[T]he sky was the limit. Or rather, the mud was the limit." Benny was profoundly shaken by Allen's