Follow the arrow... 1938-39

[Espee]

On a 1939 Jack Benny show, in their dramma... I mean, drama... Jack is running a rooming house and asks a prospective client "Do you want a room with a bath, or do you want to follow the arrow?" The line gets a pretty long laugh.
I can imagine a sign in such an establishment, with an arrow pointing to shared facilities. And I see there was a Pete Smith short with that title, focusing on an expert archer, released in 1938. But it was quite a long laugh.... is there another reason for folks to find that line so funny?

 

[LizzieMaine]

No, that's just standard boardinghouse humor, which would have been instantly understood by anyone who'd ever lived in such a place. The length of the laugh comes from the fact that listeners could just imagine *Jack Benny* having such a sign in his house, the same way he had a hat-check girl in his closet and a cigarette vending machine in his living room.