NRR Project: ‘Fibber McGee and Molly’:‘Fibber’s closet opens first time’ (March 4, 1940)

 

NRR Project: ‘Fibber McGee and Molly’:‘Fibber’s closet opens first time’ (March 4, 1940)

Performed by Jim and Marian Jordan, et al

NBC Radio

28:52

After The Jack Benny Show, Fibber McGee and Molly was the most popular and representative show of the golden age of American radio. Spawner of commonly used phrases such as “T’aint funny, McGee” and “heavenly days,” it was a fixture for listeners for an impressive 24 years.

To learn all about this remarkable show, read first the entry on it in John Dunning’s masterful 1998 survey, On the Air. It is extensive and precise. Dunning was my mentor in the world of old-time radio lovers, and he describes the show with loving care. (He in turn credits the indefatigable Tom Price, who compiled extensive statistics about the show.)

This comedy debuted in 1935, but it was a long time gestating. Jim and Marian Jordan were a vaudevillian couple from Peoria, purveyors of songs and laughs, and had appeared on radio beginning in 1924. Experimenting with different formats, they honed their skills. In 1929, they met the brilliant comedy writer Don Quinn – and the three of them devised an act which they brought to radio as Smackout from 1931 to 1935. It was a step from there to Fibber McGee and his loving spouse Molly.

Fibber was a teller of tall tales, naturally, a genial middle-aged man from a small Midwestern town. He and Molly roamed the country initially, but they obtained a house in the imaginary town of Wistful Vista and settled down. We never knew how they made their money; Fibber was always hanging about the house, causing trouble. His harebrained schemes were commented on by Molly, who was skeptical but supportive, always wiser than her husband.

The format of the show was consistent down the years (I have listened enthusiastically to the entire run). A certain subject or problem would come up, and a revolving cast of characters would come to 79 Wistful Vista to chat with our stars, knocking and, later, ringing the doorbell. There would be a plug or two of the sponsor’s product (first Johnson’s Wax, then Pet Milk), a band number, and more laughs.

This was a new kind of comedy. Instead of comedians standing up telling jokes, the laughs sprung from the characters themselves. We the audience grew familiar with our protagonists’foibles, and it bred a kind of intimacy that only radio could create.

The concept was flexible, the writing was strong, the supporting actors were expert. There was Bill Thompson as the Old Timer, Wallace Wimple, and others; there was Gale Gordon as Mayor LaTrivia, who would perpetually blow his stack after being befuddled by Fibber and Molly. Hal Peary played the next-door neighbor Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve until he got his own show in 1941 (the first spin-off in broadcast history).

Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer Fudd, was Fibber’s antagonistic friend Doc Gamble; Isabella Randolph played the snooty Mrs. Uppington. Fibber would tangle with each of them, as his comic schemes to get ahead or make money or invent something went awry.

There were long-running gags. There was the never-heard telephone operator, Myrt. “How’s every little thing, Myrt?” Fibber would ask. He’d get a corny answer. Fibber would go off occasionally on an avalanche of alliteration. The most famous of these gags was the venerable “opening the hall closet.”

The joke, of course, is that Fibber throws everything into the closet helter-skelter, and it all tumbles out whenever the door is opened. In this episode, Molly gets inundated with the contents and demands that Fibber reorganize things. Marian Jordan performs her “Teeny” little-girl voice. The Old Timer stops by – “That’s pretty good, Johnny, but that ain’t the way I heered it!”

Interestingly, in this episode comedienne Gracie Allen shows up – she had a running joke about running for president that year that she brought to various other shows during 1940. Mrs. Uppington and Gildersleeve stop by as well. In the end, Fibber opens the closet and, once again, the extended crash occurs, provoking laughter and applause. The gag would be repeated 128 times.

As the television era dawned, radio shows became vastly less popular. Fibber and Molly lost their studio audience and orchestra in 1953, and moved to a five-day-a-week, fifteen-minute schedule. They limped on in one way and another until 1959.

At the peak of their popularity, movie houses would halt their shows to pipe in the Tuesday night doings of the duo. Their wholesome, friendly show comforted a couple of generations of listeners.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Edward R. Murrow reports from London.