Nostalgia USA April 2016 Nostalgia USA April Issue 2016 | Page 14

FIBBER MCGEE & MOLLY
Fibber M cGee and M olly was
an American radio comedy
series that maintained its
popularity over decades. It
premiered on N BC in 1935
and continued until 1959, long
after radio had ceased to be the
dominant form of
entertainment in American
popular culture.Fibber M cGee
and M olly originated when
the small-time
husband-and-wife
vaudevillians began their third
year as Chicago-area radio
performers. Two of the shows
they did for station WEN R
beginning in 1927, both
written by H arry Lawrence,
and rank as one of the earliest
forms of situation comedy. In
their Luke and M irandy
farm-report program, Jim
played a farmer who was given
to tall tales and the other was a
weekly comedy, T he Smith
Family, M arian's character was
an Irish wife of an American
police officer.It was at WEN R
where the Jordans met Donald
Q uinn, a cartoonist working
in radio, and they hired him as
their writer in 1931. T hus,the
magic of Fibber M cGee and
M olly was born.

Fibber M cGee & M olly T V Pilot 1959

Radio Show
An attempt at getting the
M cGees onto television came
in September 1959, produced
by W illiam Asher for N BC
(and co-sponsored by Singer
Corporation and Standard
Brands), with younger actors
Bob Sweeney and Cathy Lewis
in the roles. T he show also
featured H arold Peary as M ayor
LaTrivia,[19] rather than as
Gildersleeve. T he show was
unable to recreate the flavor

Jim Jordan of "Fibber M cGee and M olly"
inter viewed by R ichard L am parski 1975

and humor of the original and
did not survive its first season;
in fact, it did not even last
through January 1960. But the
Jordans themselves had resisted
television far earlier. "T hey
were trying to push us into T V,
and we were reluctant," Jim
Jordan told an interviewer
many years later. "O ur friends
advised us, 'Don't do it until
you need to. You have this
value in radio? milk it dry.'"

M cGee Gets Glasses 4- 25- 39