Fibber McGee and Molly

fibber mcgee and molly
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Fibber McGee and Molly
Radio Comedy Series
For three decades, the consummate comedians Jim Jordan
(1896–1988) and his wife Marian Driscoll (1898–1961) imitated and mocked the habits of middle-class American homeowners. They began as musicians and vaudevillians. These
theatrical experiences, plus several radio series, prepared them
for the initial broadcast of Fibber McGee and Molly on Tuesday, 16 April 1935. (The show lasted in various forms until
1959.) The Jordans and their writers, mainly Don Quinn and
later Phil Leslie, wisely preserved what worked. During the
1940s, fans always voted it one of their favorite programs.
Expressions like “Fibber McGee’s closet” percolated into popular speech. So did tag lines like Molly’s (Marian) “T’aint
funny, McGee,” Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve’s (Hal Peary)
“You’re a haaard man, McGee,” and the Old Timer’s (Bill
Thompson) “That’s pretty funny, Johnny, but that ain’t the
way I heerd it.” (Fibber McGee’s overstuffed closet became an
American icon, probably for two reasons: it symbolized the
unpredictable fullness of the McGees’ world, and its sound of
falling hip boots, mandolin, Aunt Sarah’s picture, and moose
head—a triumph of sound effects—consoled listeners who had
a similar storage problem. A replica may be seen at the
Museum of Broadcasting in Chicago.)
Their modest home at 79 Wistful Vista attracted visitors
from a wide variety of social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds. Such conviviality required explanation because
McGee was often uncivil, arguing with bankers and bus drivers and department store managers, a dynamo of precarious
amiability. Luckily, Molly moderated his bumptious unconviviality so that their many callers simultaneously experienced the
contradictory ideals of defensive homeowner and welcoming
hostess.
The perilous balance of discourtesy and diplomacy allowed
McGee to insult guests and still retain their friendship. Doc
Gamble (Arthur Q. Bryan) often received the master’s barbs.
One time the doctor looked forward to a vacation he said
would leave him “ship shape.” Ever the deflator of other people’s fantasies, McGee agreed that the doctor already looked
like a great big “stern wheeler.” In keeping with the American
spirit of fair play and the aesthetic rule that helplessness is not
funny, Doc returned these insults with agility. Once he scolded
McGee for being too cheap to buy a proper suit, dubbing Fibber a “rhinestone Jim Brady” and “our little Lucius Booby in
that pin-stripe awning he uses for a sport coat.”
Similarly, other drop-ins to their parlor had positions that
would ordinarily merit respect but instead received impertinence. Policemen were called “lugans” and “larrigans,” told to
take off their hats, and given false information (asked his
name, Fibber replied, “Herman Gibbletripe—and this is my
wife Clara”). Mayor LaTrivia (Gale Gordon), outside the
McGees’ home an effective orator, dissolved into babble at the
McGees’. He boasted that the City Council had opposed him,
but he had “stuck to [his] guns.” Both Fibber and Molly confounded him by asking why an elected official needed weapons, suggesting that he might have been more successful if he
had not threatened them, and finally warning him that guns
should not be tolerated.
Fibber reacted to aristocrats with a peculiar mixture of
envy—which prompted get-rich projects to find a substitute for
sugar or turn paper back into cloth—and disdain. Despite all
the wealth of grand dames like Abigail Uppington (Isabel Randolph) and Millicent Carstairs (Bea Benedaret), Fibber commented that the latter “acts like a coquettish dray horse.” He
admired clothing store dummies for their “nonchalant, supercilious, haughty” look: “It takes six generations of money in
the family to achieve an expression like that.” Molly personalized his sociological dictum: “Yes, it’s strange how often a
vacant face goes with a full pocketbook, which ought to give
you a very expressive countenance.”
Because he never seemed to work and borrowed tools without returning them, McGee’s own income remained ambiguous. He yearned for money so much that he ripped apart their
antique sofa to find $20,000 hidden by an ancestor—$20,000
Confederate, that is. The appearance of a maid on some
shows, variously called Beulah (played by a man, Marlin Hurt)
or Lena (Gene Carroll, also a man), hinted that he was prosperous; the appearance of a renter, Alice Darling (Shirley
Mitchell), a gabby factory worker, on other episodes suggested
that he needed spare cash. The general impression was of a
household relatively secure in the economic parade.
Located in the middle of the middle class, McGee often was
bested by those whom snobs would have considered beneath
concern. When Ole Swenson (Dick LeGrand), the Swedish janitor at the Elks’ Club, said his boy in the submarine service was
on a secret mission, McGee paraphrased loftily, “Sub rosa,
eh?” Ole calmly torpedoed the hifalutin’ Latin with, “No, submarine.” Likewise, the recently immigrated Nick DePopoulous
(Bill Thompson) steamrolled over “Fizzer,” telling his own
tales with nonstop, heavily accented malapropisms.
Far from being disturbed by unpredictable standards for
social deportment, people in McGee’s universe enjoyed the
anarchy. Wallace Wimple (Bill Thompson), the hen-pecked
victim of “Sweetie Face,” his “big, old wife,” just wanted to
be alone with his bird book. To avoid her abuse, Wallace
secretly rented a room under the name “Lancelot Eisenhower
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fibber mcgee and molly
Fibber McGee and Molly
Courtesy Radio Hall of Fame
fibber mcgee and molly
Dempsey”—a name, he explained dreamily, that “just
appealed to me somehow. It’s such a brave name.”
Two final visitors show how the give-and-take of their
peculiar hosting rituals eliminated barriers. After Fibber read a
bedtime story to Teeny (Marian), the precocious little neighbor
girl, she asked, “What’s a ‘dell’?” Fibber: “Oh, it’s a kind of
shady nook in the woods where green things grow.” Teeny:
“You mean like dell pickles.” Announcer Harlow Wilcox, ever
touting the benefits of Johnson’s Wax, delivered his pitches
despite McGee’s interruptions.
Just as the program democratically blurred social distinctions, the language too evaded rules. McGee frequently delivered such tongue-tangling monologues as:
When I worked in the big mill there, I was quite the
dude. ‘Mill Dude McGee’ I was known as. Mill Dude
McGee, a magnificent mass of muscle and manly manners mesmerizing the maidens in the Midwest and mentioned most every month in many of the men’s
magazines as the mirror and model for male millinery
merchants, meticulous material manufacturers, and miscellaneous members of the metropolitan mob, mighty
and magnetic from November through May.
Individual words, like manners, evolved into new forms. After
getting Mayor LaTrivia’s goat, Fibber bragged to Molly, “He
sure gets worked up, don’t he? He was just liver with rage.”
Nick Depopoulous (1936–59)
Widdicomb Blotto
Horatio K. Boomer (1936–59)
Old Timer (1937–59)
Wallace Wimple (1941–59)
Wallingford Tuttle Gildersleeve
Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve
(1939–59)
Mayor LaTrivia (1941–59)
Foggy Williams
Alice Darling (1943–59)
Beulah (1944–59)
Mrs. Millicent Carstairs
Silly Watson
Uncle Dennis
Lena
Announcer (1935–53)
Announcer (1953–56)
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Bill Thompson
Bill Thompson
Bill Thompson
Bill Thompson
Bill Thompson
Cliff Arquette
Harold Peary
Gale Gordon
Gale Gordon
Shirley Mitchell
Marlin Hurt
Bea Benaderet
Hugh Studebaker
Ransom Sherman
Gene Carroll
Harlow Wilcox
John Wald
Producers/Directors
Cecil Underwood, Frank Pittman, Max Hutto
Programming History
NBC Blue
NBC Red
NBC
April 1935–June 1936
June 1936–1938
March 1938–September 1959
Further Reading
MOLLY: You mean livid, Dearie.
FIBBER: Go on, livid is a girl’s name, like Livid De
Haviland.
MOLLY: That’s Olivia,
FIBBER: Oh, don’t kid me, Snookie. Olivia’s a country
in South America.
During another episode, Fibber skipped from “subtle to subtitle to scuttle to shuttle to chateau.” Such celebrations of social
and linguistic independence during decades of Depression, war,
and tumultuous recovery that required national conformity
explain the enduring appeal of Fibber McGee and Molly.
JAMES A. FREEMAN
See also Gordon, Gale; Situation Comedy; Sound Effects;
Vaudeville
Cast
Fibber McGee
Molly McGee
Teeny
Mrs. Abigail Uppington (1936–59)
Jim Jordan
Marian Jordan
Marian Jordan
Isabel Randolph
Griswold, J.B., “Up From Peoria,” The American Magazine
133 (March, 1942)
Price, Tom, Fibber McGee’s Closet: The Ultimate Log of
Performances by Fibber McGee and Molly 1917–1987: A
Celebration of the 52nd Anniversary of Fibber McGee and
Molly and Jim’s 70 Years in Show Business, 2 volumes,
Monterey, California: Thomas A. Price, 1987
Price, Tom, Performance Logs of Marian + Jim Jordan, #s 1–
10, 1917–1980, Monterey, California: Thomas A. Price,
1980 (Contains logs of Air Scouts, 1927–1929; The Smith
Family, 1927–1932; Farmer Rusk’s Top O’Morning, 1931–
1932; Several Short Series, 1931–1934; Smackout, 1931–
1935; Appearances and Specials, 1917–1980; Marquette,
The Little French Girl, 1931–1932; Mr. Twister, Mind
Trickster, 1932–1933; Kaltenmayer’s Kindergarten, 1932–
1935; Fibber McGee and Molly, 1935–1959)
Stumpf, Charles, and Ben Ohmart, Fibber McGee’s Scrapbook,
Boalsburg, Pennsylvania: BearManor Media, 2002
Stumpf, Charles, and Tom Price, Heavenly Days! The Story of
Fibber McGee and Molly, Waynesville, North Carolina:
The World of Yesterday, 1987
Yoder, Robert M, “The McGee’s of Wistful Vista,” The
Saturday Evening Post 221 (April 9 and 16, 1949)