cast as Rochester, Benny's valet. In 1939, Baker chose to leave the show and was replaced by Dennis Day. In 1941, NBC celebrated Benny's 10th anniversary in radio in an unprecedented manner, broadcasting part of a banquet dedicated to him, in which the network conceded the Sunday 7:00 to 7:30 pm slot to Benny instead of the sponsor, as it was the custom during the Golden Age of Radio. In 1942, General Foods switched the sponsor product from Jell-O to Grape-Nuts. World War II affected the show as Harris joined the Merchant Marines, being absent from the program from December 1942 until March 1943. That fall, Morrow joined the Army and Beloin left the show; they were replaced by Milt Josefsberg, John Tackaberry, George Balzer, and Cy Howard, the latter of whom was soon replaced by Sam Perrin. Day enlisted in the Navy in early 1944, not returning until 1946. The new writers emphasized sitcom situations instead of the film parodies prevalent in earlier years. After 10 years with General Foods, American Tobacco's Lucky Strike became Benny's sponsor from October 1944, an association that lasted until 1959. The show switched networks to CBS on January 2, 1949, as part of CBS president William S. Paley's notorious "raid" on NBC talent in 1948–49. It stayed there for the remainder of its radio run, ending on May 22, 1955. In 1952, Harris was replaced by Bob Crosby. CBS aired repeat episodes from 1956 to 1958 as The Best of Benny. Sponsors In the early days of radio and in the early television era, airtime was owned by the sponsor, and Benny incorporated the commercials into the body of the show. Sometimes, the sponsors were the butt of jokes, though Benny did not use this device as frequently as his friend and "rival" Fred Allen did then, or as cast member Phil Harris later did on his successful radio sitcom. Nevertheless, for years, Benny insisted in contract negotiations that his writers pen the sponsor's commercial in the middle of the program (leaving the sponsor to provide the opening and closing spots) and the resulting ads were cleverly and wittily worked into the storyline of the show. For example, on one program, Don Wilson accidentally misread Lucky Strike's slogan ("Be happy, go Lucky") as "Be Lucky, go happy", prompting a story arc over several weeks that had Wilson unable to appear on the show