Fibber McGee and Molly (1935–1959) was a longtime American husband-and-wife team radio comedy program.

The situation comedy was a staple of the NBC Red Network from 1936 on, after originating on NBC Blue in 1935. One of the most popular and enduring radio series of its time, it ran as a stand-alone series from 1935 to 1956, and then continued as a short-form series as part of the weekend Monitor from 1957 to 1959. The title characters were created and portrayed by Jim and Marian Jordan, a husband-and-wife team that had been working in radio since the 1920s.

Fibber McGee and Molly followed up the Jordans' previous radio sitcom Smackout. who were natives of Peoria, Illinois.

Jordan was the seventh of eight children born to James Edward Jordan, a farmer, and Mary (née Tighe) Jordan, while Driscoll was the twelfth of thirteen children born to Daniel P., a coalminer, and wife Anna (née Carroll) Driscoll.

Five days after the wedding, Jim received his draft notice. He was sent to France, and became part of a military touring group which entertained the armed forces after World War I. They had 2 children, Kathryn Therese Jordan (1920–2007) and James Carroll Jordan (1923–1998). Marian returned home for the birth of Kathryn, but went back to performing with Jim, leaving her with Jim's parents. After Jim Jr. was born, Marian stayed with the children for a time, while Jim performed a solo act. Marian and the children joined him on the road for a short time, but the couple had to admit defeat when they found themselves in Lincoln, Illinois in 1923 with 2 small children and no funds. The couple's parents had to wire them money for their return to Peoria. Jim went to work at a local department store, but still felt an attraction of being in show business. He and Marian went back into vaudeville. It was also at WENR where the Jordans met Donald Quinn, a cartoonist who was then working in radio, and the couple hired him as their writer in 1931. They regarded Quinn's contribution as important and included him as a full partner; the salary for Smackout and Fibber McGee and Molly was split between the Jordans and Quinn. The story reached the halls of nearby Columbia College, and the students began visiting the store, which they called "Smackout", to hear the owner's incredible stories. Marian Jordan portrayed both a lady named Marian and a little girl named Teeny, as well as accompanying the program on piano. During the show's run, Marian Jordan voiced a total of 69 different characters.

One of the S. C. Johnson company's owners, Henrietta Johnson Lewis, recommended that her husband, John, Johnson Wax's advertising manager, try the show out on a national network. The terms of the agreement between S.C. Johnson and the Jordans awarded the company ownership of the names "Fibber McGee" and "Molly".

Existing in a kind of Neverland where money never came in, schemes never stayed out for very long, yet no one living or visiting went wanting, 79 Wistful Vista (the McGees' address from show No. 20, August 1935 onward) became the home Depression-exhausted Americans visited to remind themselves that they were not the only ones finding cheer in the middle of struggle and doing their best not to make it overt. The McGees won their house in a raffle from Mr. Hagglemeyer's Wistful Vista Development Company, with lottery ticket #131,313, happened upon by chance while on a pleasure drive in their car. With blowhard McGee wavering between mundane tasks and hare-brained schemes (like digging an oil well in the back yard), antagonizing as many people as possible, and patient Molly indulging his foibles and providing loving support, not to mention a tireless parade of neighbors and friends in and out of the quiet home, Fibber McGee and Molly built its audience steadily, but once it found the full volume of that audience in 1940, they rarely let go of it. In January 1939, the show moved from NBC Chicago to the new West Coast Radio City in Hollywood.

Cast and characters

right|250px|thumb|The other cast members circa 1939.

Fibber McGee and Molly was one of the earliest radio comedies to use an ensemble cast of regular characters played by actors other than the leads, nearly all of whom had recurring phrases and running gags, in addition to numerous other peripheral characters unheard from over the course of the series.

Main

  • Fibber McGee (Jim Jordan) – a habitual storyteller and the central figure of the series. Originally portrayed with a cartoonish accent, the character settled into using Jordan's own natural voice by the early 1940s.
  • Molly McGee (Marian Jordan) – Fibber's Irish wife and the straight woman of the double act. Her traditional putdown, "'Tain't funny McGee!", appears in the very first episode.

Recurring

  • Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (Harold Peary) – the pompous next-door neighbor with whom Fibber enjoyed twitting and arguing. Introduced in 1939. Gildersleeve went through several incarnations and first names, all voiced by Peary, before settling on Throckmorton. Many of his interactions with Fibber include the catchphrase "You're a hard man, McGee", in response to a harsh or critical statement from Fibber. Throckmortons's wife is frequently mentioned, never heard, and dropped when Peary moved on to his own show. However, the wife of Homer Gildersleeve (again played by Peary) was briefly heard from in one episode.
  • The Old-Timer (Bill Thompson) – a hard-of-hearing senior citizen with a penchant for distorting jokes, prefacing each one by saying, "That ain't the way I heer'd it!" For no apparent reason, he refers to Fibber as "Johnny" and Molly as "Daughter". A recurring joke is that he refuses to tell his real name; he uses various aliases, and his "real name" is "revealed" more than once, one time as Rupert Blasingaime and another as Alderton P. Bagshaw. The Old-Timer's girlfriend is named Bessie, and she usually refers to him as "O.T." In the December 10, 1940 episode "Mailing Christmas Packages", his sister refers to him as "Roy".
  • Teeny, also known as "Little Girl" and "Sis" (Marian Jordan) – a precocious youngster who frequently tried to cadge loose change from Fibber (often in cahoots with her rarely heard best friend Willie Toops). She often ended her sentences with "I betcha!", and when someone mentioned food, or a word that sounded like a food, she usually responded "I'm hungry." Teeny was also known to lose track of her own conversations. When Fibber showed interest in what she was saying, she would forget all about it, and her conversation would switch from telling to asking. After Fibber repeated everything she had been telling him, Teeny would reply "I know!" or "I know it!" in a condescending way. Her appearances were sometimes foreshadowed by Molly excusing herself to the kitchen or to have a nap. Fibber would wistfully deliver a compliment to her, saying, "Ah, there goes a good kid", upon which the doorbell would ring and Teeny would appear, usually greeting Fibber with "Hi, mister!" On rare occasions Molly and Teeny would interact. Fibber McGee and Molly, the Wimple character and Fibber's nickname for him may have contributed to a surge in popular use. Mr. Wimple had originated on Don McNeill's Breakfast Club in 1934 before he joined the Fibber McGee and Molly cast and would later use the voice and some of his deceptively devious mannerisms for the cartoon character Droopy.
  • Alice Darling (Shirley Mitchell) – a ditzy and boy-crazy young aircraft-plant worker who boarded with the McGees during the war.
  • Horatio K. Boomer (Thompson) – a con artist with a W. C. Fields-like voice and delivery.). The musical interlude would segue into the second part of the script, followed by a performance (by the vocal group, the Kings Men – occasionally featuring a solo by leader Ken Darby). The final act would then begin, with the last line usually being the lesson learned that day. A final commercial,

|-

| January 1936

| 6.6

|-

| January 1937

| 13.0

|-

| January 1938

| 14.8

|-

| January 1939

| 16.7

|-

| January 1940

| 30.8

|-

| January 1941

| 27.4

|-

| January 1942

| 33.3

|-

| January 1943

| 37.7

|-

| January 1944

| 31.9

|-

| January 1945

| 30.8

|-

| January 1946

| 30.8

|-

| January 1947

| 30.2

|-

| January 1948

| 27.7

|-

| January 1949

| 26.9

|-

| January 1950

| 16.9

|-

| January 1951

| 13.7

|-

| January 1952

| 10.7

|-

| January 1953

| 11.9

|}

Running gags

thumb|250px|Jim and Marian Jordan as Fibber McGee and Molly, at a Victory Bond rally at [[Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto in 1945. Note sound effects men and equipment at right.]]

Much of the show's humor relied on recurring gags, unseen regulars and well-timed punch lines. The 30-minute show usually opened with the audience in full laughter as announcer Harlow Wilcox called out "The Johnson Wax Program with Fibber McGee and Molly!" To McGee's periodic bad jokes Molly often answered "T'ain't funny, McGee!", Molly's Uncle Dennis, who lives with the couple, is apparently a dedicated alcoholic and a punch line for many Fibber jokes; at times he was the main subject of some shows in which he "disappeared".

Fibber's lack of a regular job led to numerous references and jokes: Mayor La Trivia often offered McGee mundane jobs at City Hall using flowery descriptions such as "looking in on the higher-ups at City Hall" (a window-cleaning job). Another was for Fibber to work in disguise for days at a time as the Wistful Vista Santa Claus.

"Fibber" McGee is overly proud of past misdeeds, sometimes recalling nicknames acquired; many involved a bad pun. An accusation of being a glib talker became "Ad Glib McGee". And making expressions with his eyes led to the nickname "Eyes-a-muggin' McGee" (a play on the popular Stuff Smith swing tune "I'se A-muggin). The opening involved much boastful alliteration.

The couple's Peoria schoolmate (and Molly's earlier boyfriend) Otis Cadwallader is the subject of a longstanding one-sided grudge by Fibber. The "corner of 14th and Oak" in downtown Wistful Vista was routinely given as a location for various homes, places of business and government buildings throughout the show's run. Whenever someone asks the time it is always half-past.

McGee has a reputation for telling tall tales, and there are occasional jokes linking this propensity to his name "Fibber". In the episode "Fibber Changes His Name" (March 25, 1941), he goes so far as to claim that "Fibber" is his actual given name and not just a nickname. According to McGee, "I was named after my fourth cousin, Walpole J. Fimmer ... but the minister who christened me had a cold in his head."

The Hall Closet

thumb|Photo of "the Closet"; the actual on-the-air sound was done by sound effects men.

None of the show's other running gags was as memorable or enduring as the overstuffed "I gotta get that closet cleaned out one of these days" was the usual McGee observation once the racket subsided. Naturally, "one of these days" almost never arrived. A good thing, too: in one famous instance, when a burglar (played by Bob Bruce) tied up McGee, McGee informed him cannily that the family's silver was "right through that door, bud... just yank it open, bud!" Naturally, the burglar took the bait and naturally, he was buried in the inevitable avalanche, long enough for the police to apprehend him.

This gag appears to have begun with the March 5, 1940, show, "Cleaning the Closet". Molly opens the closet looking for the dictionary and is promptly buried in Fibber's "stuff" ("arranged in there just the way I want it"). Cleaning out the closet becomes the show's plot, inventorying much of the contents along the way: a photo album, a rusty horseshoe, a ten-foot pole. After repacking the closet, Fibber realizes the dictionary has been put away too—and he opens the closet again, causing an avalanche. This episode also features a cameo by Gracie Allen, running for president on the Surprise Party ticket. Toward the end of the September 30, 1941 show, "Back from Vacation; Gildy Says Goodbye", next-door nemesis Gildersleeve—who has moved to Summerfield to finish raising his orphaned niece and nephew (and already begun his successful spin-off show The Great Gildersleeve)—has come back to Wistful Vista to wind up his affairs there. In a farewell to the show that made him famous, Gildersleeve opens the closet to be buried in the usual avalanche.

On at least one occasion, the gag is flipped, and the closet is silent: in "Man's Untapped Energies" (broadcast March 11, 1947), visiting Dr. Gamble makes to leave. Molly warns, "No, Doctor, not through that door, that's the hall closet!" As the audience chuckles slightly in anticipation, Fibber explains: "Oh, I forgot to tell you, Molly, I straightened out the hall closet this morning!" This was certainly not the end of the gag, though, as the closet soon became cluttered once again, leading to many more disasters.

Like many such trademarks, the clattering closet began as a one-time stunt, but "the closet" was developed carefully, not being overused (it rarely appeared in more than two consecutive installments, though it never disappeared for the same length, either, at the height of its identification, and it rarely collapsed at exactly the same time from show to show), and it became the best-known running sound gag in American radio's classic period. Jack Benny's basement vault alarm ran a distant second. Both of these classic sound effects were performed by Ed Ludes and Virgil Rhymer, the Hollywood-based NBC staff sound effects creators. Exactly what tumbled out of McGee's closet each time was never clear (except to these sound-effects men), but what signaled the end of the avalanche was always the same sound: a clear, tiny, household hand bell and McGee's inevitable post-collapse lament. This show introduced single parenthood of a sort to creative broadcasting: the pompous, previously married Gildersleeve now moved to Summerfield, became single (although the missing wife was never explained), and raised his orphaned, spirited niece and nephew, while dividing his time between running his manufacturing business and (eventually) becoming the town water commissioner. starring Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Betty Grable. Once the show hit its stride, they had leading roles in the RKO Radio Pictures films Look Who's Laughing (1941), Here We Go Again (1942), and Heavenly Days (1944).

The first two RKO films are generally considered the best, as they co-star fellow radio stars Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Harold Peary also appears in both as Gildersleeve, with Arthur Q. Bryan, Bill Thompson, Harlow Wilcox, Gale Gordon, and Isabel Randolph appearing in both their show roles and as other characters. Bill Thompson in Look Who's Laughing played two parts: The pushy sales-man, and the man who shouted "It's Hillary Horton". Gale Gordon played Otis Cadwalader, Molly's ex-boyfriend in Here We Go Again. Arthur Q. Bryan played the Mayor's aide in Look Who's Laughing. The Jordans' participation in Look Who's Laughing was set up in the Fibber McGee & Molly episode "Amusement Park" (June 17, 1941), in which Gale Gordon played an RKO pictures representative who followed the McGees around the amusement park and chose the McGees as a representative American couple to star in a movie with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. The day before the film's real-life premiere in San Francisco, the movie had its fictional opening in Wistful Vista during that week's radio episode, and Bergen and McCarthy made a guest appearance ("Premiere of Look Who's Laughing" (November 11, 1941)).

Look Who's Laughing has been released on VHS and DVD as part of the Lucille Ball RKO Collection. Here We Go Again has been released on VHS and was released on DVD on January 14, 2014, through Warner Archives. Heavenly Days was also included in the January 2014 DVD release of Here We Go Again as part of a "double feature" DVD. Look Who's Laughing, Here We Go Again and Heavenly Days have been featured on Turner Classic Movies.

In addition to the feature films, the McGees appeared in character in the 1945 film The All-Star Bond Rally, a promotional film for war bonds. The characters appear as bookends to the film, attending a stage presentation hosted by Bob Hope, who knows and recognizes them. The All-Star Bond Rally lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and is widely available.

Other films featured the McGees' neighbors. The first film was called Comin' Round the Mountain (1940) and featured the McGees' neighbors The Old-Timer (played by Bill Thompson) and Gildersleeve, as the mayor of the town. Gildersleeve's character was in many other films before The Great Gildersleeve show and movies. Abigail Uppington is in the film County Fair along with Harold Peary, and his future radio show co-star Shirley Mitchell (who also played Leila Ransom in The Great Gildersleeve); the Uppington character also appeared in Barnyard Follies.

Changes

NBC, taking stock of its most valuable broadcast properties and anticipating the lucrative new field of television, regarded Fibber McGee and Molly as being essential to its future plans. In 1948 the network offered to buy the franchise outright from its owners: Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan, and Don Quinn. The owners agreed to the buyout, and Fibber McGee and Molly officially became the property of NBC.

The network had high hopes of converting the radio show to television. These hopes were not shared by the Jordans, who preferred to remain in radio. "They were trying to push us into TV, and we were reluctant," Jim Jordan told an interviewer many years later. "Our friends advised us, 'Don't do it until you need to. You have this value in radio--milk it dry.'" The Jordans grudgingly agreed to film a TV pilot when their longtime sponsor S. C. Johnson requested it, but the video adaptation was abandoned. The sponsor, anxious to devote more advertising dollars to television, parted company with Fibber McGee and Molly amicably. Pet Milk took over the sponsorship of the radio show in 1950 (for two years), followed by Reynolds Aluminum, which subsidized the show until the end of the primetime run on June 30, 1953.

NBC wanted to keep its property going, so the show was retooled as a daily 15-minute show, aired Monday through Friday twice a day (afternoons and evenings). The retooling had new economies taking their toll on the original format. The studio audience was dispensed with, leaving the Jordans to record their dialogue in a quiet studio. All five of each week's episodes were recorded in a single session. (This proved a special boon to Marian Jordan, who found the new surroundings more comfortable and convenient.) The musical sections of the half-hour format were removed, leaving a quarter-hour of continuous comedy. Although announcer Harlow Wilcox and character comedian Gale Gordon did not participate in the daily shows, Bill Thompson and Arthur Q. Bryan continued making appearances alongside the Jordans, along with familiar radio performers Virginia Gregg, Herb Vigran, Robert Easton, and Mary Jane Croft, among others. The new format began airing on October 5, 1953, and was successful; NBC Radio kept Fibber McGee and Molly in its weekday lineup through March 23, 1956.

NBC had launched an ambitious new format for its weekend programming in 1955: Monitor. This was designed especially to demonstrate the immediacy and importance of radio, with a mixture of news, sports, music, comedy, human interest, and special events running continuously throughout the weekend hours. In 1957 NBC, still valuing its Fibber McGee and Molly property, invited Jim and Marian Jordan to record new comedy routines for Monitor. These interludes, aired as Just Molly and Me, featured the Jordans (alone, with no supporting cast) in five-minute sketches written by Monitor staffer (and Bob and Ray writer) Tom Koch. Koch caught the spirit of the series beautifully, bringing back many of the familiar hallmarks of the half-hour series and cleverly fashioning new stories in five-part serial form. A 1959 strip, "Autumn Drive," has Fibber and Molly planning to look at the fall foliage: episode one has the couple enthusing about the trip; episode two has McGee explaining foliage to Teeny; episode three has the McGees loading their car for any contingency; episode four has them on the road; and episode five has them reviewing the photographs they took on the tour. Radio historian Gerald S. Nachman has written that the Jordans anticipated renewing their contract with NBC for another three years when Marian's battle against ovarian cancer ended with her death in 1961.

Television

After the last of the Just Molly and Me radio shorts ceased production, there were two attempts at getting the McGees onto television. Only one came to fruition. The Fibber McGee and Molly TV series began production on March 15, 1959, for broadcast beginning in September 1959. Initial press releases stated that Jim Jordan Jr. would be the director, but he became a consultant, along with the radio show's original creator, Don Quinn. thumb|[[Cathy Lewis as Molly McGee in 1959.]] The TV version was produced by William Asher for NBC (and co-sponsored by Singer Corporation and Standard Brands). Neither of the Jordans, nor Phil Leslie (the head writer by the end of the radio series), took part in the series. The decision was made to recast both roles, with younger actors Bob Sweeney and Cathy Lewis as Fibber and Molly respectively; Lewis had previously played Jane Stacy, a very similar straight-woman character, on the radio version of My Friend Irma. Bill Davenport served as head writer for this series. The only radio alumnus to appear as a regular cast member was Harold Peary, who took the role of Mayor La Trivia.

The TV version's main asset was character comic Bob Sweeney, who caught the spirit and cadence of Jim Jordan's "Fibber" delivery, alternating between cheerful, boastful, and fretful. Veteran screen actor Addison Richards made a good foil as Doc Gamble. The series had solid comedy situations, and might have succeeded as a typical domestic comedy if the characters had been named anything but Fibber and Molly, but it could not replicate the flavor and humor of the original Fibber McGee and Molly. The TV series did not survive its first season, ending its run in January 1960. The pilot episode and at least three episodes of the television series have lapsed into the public domain.

The second TV venture only got as far as the planning stages. NBC approached Jay Ward, producer of the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV cartoons, to film a series of half-hour Fibber McGee and Molly cartoons. This was probably an attempt by NBC to reactivate its property to compete with ABC's then-new cartoon sitcom The Flintstones. Ward declined, and NBC's Fibber McGee and Molly franchise finally came to an end.

Jim Jordan later in life

In the 1970s, Jim Jordan briefly returned to acting. An episode of NBC's Chico and the Man featured a surprise appearance by Jordan as a friendly neighborhood mechanic. Jordan also lent his voice to Disney's animated film, The Rescuers (1977) and reprised his role as Fibber McGee (complete with the closet gag) in an advertisement for AARP. He died in 1988—a year before Fibber McGee and Molly was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

Jim Jordan married Gretchen Stewart (the widow of Yogi Yorgesson) after Marian's death. Gretchen and the Jordan children donated the manuscripts of Smackout and Fibber McGee and Molly to Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications after his death in 1988. Perhaps fittingly for his longtime radio alter ego, Jordan died on April Fool's Day.

See also

  • Lucille Ball
  • Desi Arnaz

References

Further reading

  • Jordan R. Young, (1999) The Laugh Crafters: Comedy Writing in Radio & TV's Golden Age. Beverly Hills: Past Times Publishing
  • Fibber McGee and Molly
  • as 'Jim & Marian Jordan'
  • Peoria nephew of 'Fibber McGee' keeps memory of uncle alive
  • Zoot Radio, over 750 free Fibber McGee and Molly radio shows

Audio

  • Radio Journeys: Smackout (1931)
  • McGee and Molly at Free-OTR.com
  • Botar: Fibber McGee and Molly (66 episodes)
  • Free OTR Fibber McGee and Molly (117 episodes)
  • OTR Network Library: Fibber McGee and Molly (442 episodes)
  • Internet Archive: Fibber McGee and Molly (hundreds of episodes)
  • OTR Fans: Fibber McGee and Molly (seven episodes)
  • Fibber McGee & Molly
  • Fibber McGee & Molly at Way Back When
  • Fibber McGee and Molly on Old Time Radio Outlaws

Video

  • In Studio A at NBC Hollywood with Fibber McGee and Molly and The Billy Mills Orchestra LIVE (1948), an original NBC transcription in High Fidelity
  • Jim Jordan reprises the closet gag for an AARP advertisement in color at the Internet Archive
  • Four public-domain episodes of the Fibber McGee and Molly TV series at the Internet Archive