Fibber McGee and Molly Always Good for a Laugh

by Clair Schulz

On April 16, 1935 Jim and Marian Jordan began a new program at NBC's  Studio 8-H in New York City. On September 6, 1959 that couple's final broadcast,  a five~minute episode, was heard on Weekend Monitor . Between those two dates listeners were treated to one of the most sublime pleasures radio had to offer:  Fibber McGee and Molly.

(Readers comment:  The clear implication of the Clair Schulz article is that Fibber McGee & Molly originated from New York City.  In fact from 1935 to 1939 the show was from Chicago, where Marian & Jim Jordan got their start in broadcasting, and had a prior success called Smackout. (source: John Dunning's Tune In Yesterday.)   In 1939 they moved to Hollywood, & remained there through the rest of the network radio run.  I suppose it's possible that episode #1 was from Studio 8H in NYC, a detail in the opening paragraph of the article .. but since that would have necessitated moving the entire cast from their Chicago base, I don't really think that happened.

  -R.  Robinson, Victoria BC)

In the beginning the McGees were nomads, but once they settled in Wistful Vista a pattern soon developed. The formula that writers Don Quinn and Phil Leslie concocted changed very little during the vintage years. The ingredients were almost always the same: give Fibber a problem,  let him simmer for awhile, drop in three or four bits and half a dozen characters, then get him out before the tag. Fibber sometimes had a bitter pill to swallow at the end but things finally came to rest at the McGee house.

And what a house it was.   79 Wistful Vista was the most famous address on radio. We knew that property as well as we did our own: the hall where they welcomed their guests; the closet; the horsehair sofa and Fibber's well-worn chair; the living room rug spotted with paint and ink from ill-fated projects; a kitchen which was the scene of impetuous efforts to make vase, fudge, and cake; and the yard that was the site of fights with Gildy, aborted barbeques, and a singular attempt to extract maple syrup from an elm tree.

The parade of characters who walked through the front door of that house contributed no small part to the charm of the program. The Old Timer had more old gags than a gang of kidnappers, Nick and Ole regularly brought their fractured English around for the McGees to straighten out. Gildersleeve was a blustery windbag who blew in just long enough to ignite his short fuse. Horatio K Boomer could find his way in and out of the house, but was incapable of locating that missing card or paper among all the gewgaws that he carried with him. Doctor Gamble and Teeny would stop by just to aggravate Fibber. Henpecked Wallace Wimple used the house as a refuge from his formidable Sweetie Face. Often the McGees trimmed a little of the upper crust off of Mmes. Uppington and Carstairs. Try as he would to remain calm, LaTrivia usually could not refrain from flying all the handle (or hying off the fandle, as he might say at the height of his tantrum). Alice Darling and Uncle Dennis liked the place so much they decided to stay for awhile.

Fibber MrGet and Molly boasted one of the strongest line-ups of any comedy program. Harold Peary. Shirley Mitchell,  Bea Benaderet,  Gale Gordon, Dick

LeGrand. and Arthur Q, Bryan possessed some of the better  known voices on the air; Bill Thompson alone owned a handful of them. The show wasn't complete until everyone had been heard from.

Even Fibber would poke fun at their standard practice of marching the cast before us by asking Molly,  "Who hasn't been in yet?" If Teeny hadn't been in yet, Marian Jordan could have answered. "Me." Not only did she vividly portray Molly as a long suffering  good-natured housewife

but she  also was just as convincing as Fibber's nemesis, the little girl who outwiltted him so consistently that he thought she was a midget. Marian also played characters named Cornelia Wheedledeck, Mrs. Wearybottom and others  particularly in the early days of the show.

The characters were memorable, but so Were  their  favorite sayings. The show left us singing its phrases. "Tain't funny, McGee” has been squelching punch lines for half  a century. "Heavenly Days!" may not have been original with Molly, but she made it hers and we made it ours. "You're a hard man,. McGee" we would say to a friend in jest, to which he or she might reply, "Hard, my clavicle!"

The stock phrases were fun, but so was the whole show. The teasing introduction by Harlow Wilcox wet our appetite and then the visitors were shuffled in and out between two bouncy musical numbers.

Even the commercials were painless because we, like the McGees were drawn into Wilcox's web and it was over before we knew it.

The program was both fun aud funny. Some sitcoms of past and present are as murthless as Murder at Midnight, but Fibber and Molly were always good for a laugh. We were presented with a smorgasbord of word play, sarcasm, hyperbole, banter, riddles, shaggy dog stories, malapropisms, wheezes and twists on wheezes, one-liners, and non sequiturs; there had to be something we liked. Marian knew what her husband was going to say, but no one can blame her for repeatedly breaking up over the gems that emerged from his mouth. Even after hearing Fibber fume and sputter on dozens of tapes it is still a delight to listen to him blurt out a torrent of nonsense like "You haven't ever been sued for fifty

grand by a guy that it wasn't your fault if he got bit by a dog that didn't belong to you so how can I be legally liable anyway, have you?" To listen to the exchanges

between Fibber, Molly, and the characters played by Clill Arquette on episodes broadcast during 1950 is to hear the badinage of confusion at its best. When it

opens before us, we see a magical place where every business is located at 14th and Oak.  All calls have to go through a smooth operator named Myrt, streetcar conductors speak in garbled tongues, and the only drink in town is hot-buttered root beer. Over there on the back steps there's a short man saying. "Oh no you don't" and a little girl replying. "Oh, yes I do." But isn't that him by the side of the house telling his wife that if their neighbor doesn't keep dadratted lawn mower in better shape he'll borrow one from someone else. And that's the same gabby fellow on the front sidewalk who's boring a portly doctor with a story about some Fred Nitney that he used to have a vaudeville act with back in Starved Rock. Illinois. It seems that no matter which way we turn we can't get away from Fibber McGee and Molly. May it always be so.

Their most popular time slot -

Fibber McGee

& MOLLY

TONIGHT

Tuesday Night

NBC

9:30  EST

8;30  CST

7:30  MST

6:30  PST