Boris Karloff stars in this 1938 broadcast of the thriller vignette series.

In 1940 the Fibber McGee and Molly program featured only three regular female characters. Molly was played by Marion Jordan, of course. Like her husband, Jim - Fibber, the impression of the audience was that they were playing themselves. That was true to some extent. The little girl from across the street, Teeny, was also played by Marion. Teeny was the only character to be carried over from the Jordans' first radio program Smackout, in which Jim Jordan played a shop owner who was always "smack out of everything," and Marion, as Teeny, his perpetual source of affectionate annoyance.

Of course, Guildersleeve supposedly had a wife, though we never meet her. At a certain point he no longer has her. She dissolves from existence and is erased from memory in a continuity lapse which led some listeners to presume that Guildy had somehow committed the perfect crime. Then there was Myrt, the telephone operator, whom we never see and whose voice is never heard. (That would change in a later program.) Of women characters there was only Molly, Teeny, and Abigail Uppington, played by Isabel Randolph.

Mrs. Uppington was the snooty society lady whose only purpose in life seemed to be dropping in on the low-brow McGee's once a day and dating the least appropriate men in town. Fibber called her "Uppy." The whole point is she was uppity. She steps out with Billy Mills the show's band leader, who calls her "Toots," and is always requiring money to pay his band, get their instruments out of hock, blow their bail - or his even. She calls him "Professor Mills" and makes like he's a symphony conductor, the naive old bird. She also keeps company with the town's perennial ne'er-do-well, Horatio Boomer, he of the deep pocket filled with everything except whatever he had promised to produce from it.

One of the jokes about Mrs. Uppington is she is not what she appears to be. Now and then tidbits of her decidely non-uppity past are revealed, but these are never mentioned again afterwards. The best example of this is the episode where the circus comes to town. We'll be up to that one in a few weeks.

Isabel Randolph (1889-1973) was a Broadway actress who made her way into NBC radio in the 30's as cast member on several popular soap operas. Her specialty was society ladies. In the later years of Duffy's Tavern she would play Mrs. Piddleton, another high society dame. Her role in the Johnson's Wax program as Mrs. Uppington remains her most memorable one. In 1940 she was actually residing in Hollywood, where she had moved the year before, but she was still on contract to record Fibber and Molly in Chicago, so it was a back-and-forth life. She was a busy girl, during the same period making several movies with both Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. She would eventually appear as Dick Van Dyke's mother on his first television series.

Well, Fibber catches a cold in this episode. Enjoy it!

   

Jack Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Chicago in 1894. Several stage names preceded his eventual transformation into Jack Benny. He began his career as a young violinist. At the age of 17 he was offered the chance to go on the road with the Marx Brothers as an accompanist, but his Mom put the kabosh on that idea. He did, however, maintain a lifelong friendship with Zeppo Marx.

In 1917, while performing for his Navy comrades, Benny's violin playing drew boos rather than applause, and so he switched to telling jokes - which drew a more favorable response. But his violin remained part of his comic repetoire for his entire career, and the story is a perfect example of how he came to develop his schtick or trademark comedic style. Benny had been a pretty decent violinist in real life, but in character played an awful one. He was regarded by his friends and co-stars a generous and very kind and genuine man, so his performance character became just the opposite of that.

Most of the laughs on Jack Benny's radio shows were at his expense. His infamous stinginess, pettiness, and grandiosity made him the butt of the jokes. His radio program character would have been a truly despicable fellow were it not for his pathos and haplessness, and of course his co-stars enduring patience with him. He managed to create a comic persona with which people could identify not merely despite his many put-on character flaws but because of them.

In this program there are several references to his mock feud with his friend Fred Allen which would become one of the longest running gags in history - perhaps the longest were it not for the latter's untimely death in 1956. Fred Allen had made reference to Benny's lack of expertise on the violin on his own radio program, prompting the beginning of a constant insult exchange which radio listeners - and later movie and TV viewers - assumed was real. The feud gave both Benny's and Allen's writers, who often collaborated with each other, all sorts of fuel for jokes and set-ups.

I would like to find some Fred Allen programs from the pre-war years to share with you - perhaps some which coincide with the date of these Jello-sponsored Jack Benny programs. So far, I find much of the war-time and post-war Fred Allen and nothing from '39 or 40.

All of the programs I post here are in the Public Domain. In cases where the estate of some performers or other agencies may have decided to acquire and control rights I steer well clear of posting them. I'll just have to keep working on finding some 1940 Fred Allen.

There are volumes more to write about Jack Benny and his program, and his life, his co-stars, and so forth. We'll have that to look forward to. Benny moved his program from New York to Los Angeles in 1939, the better to draw from his pool of Hollywood friends - and in Beverly Hills takes up residence. The idea of this miser of all misers living in the midst of such sumptuous luxury is itself a comic devise. Here he assumes his role as Dog Catcher of his community. The program ends in vehicular chaos with Rochester (Eddie Anderson) at the wheel.