I mentioned in a previous Thrilling Days of Yesteryear post that I had listened to a pair of shows originally broadcast back-to-back on a chilly Chicago December 23, 1941 .
It’s Tuesday night, 9:00pm , and on The Johnson Wax Program with Fibber McGee & Molly, our favorite comedy couple (Jim & Marian Jordan) have received a Christmas gift of a set of electric door chimes—but from whom? The usual suspects begin to arrive at 79 Wistful Vista , beginning with society grand dame Abigail Uppington (Isabel Randolph):
FIBBER: By the way, Uppy…did you by any chance send us an electric chime doorbell for Christmas?
ABIGAIL: Nooo…no, I did not, Mr. McGee…but I must say, I admire your blunt way of inquiring…I simply detest people who hint…
FIBBER: I do, too, Uppy…although when I was a cub reporter years ago I was always the diplomat…
MOLLY: Oh, sure…
FIBBER: Yes, you betcha…yes sir, never used to ask a direct question if I could help it…but if there was any inside dope I wanted, I got it…”Get That Dope McGee,” I was knowed in them days…
MOLLY: Oh my…
What follows next is a device often used by writer Don Quinn to highlight Fibber’s little “fibs”—an alliterative tongue-twister delivered by Jordan at breakneck speed to the delight of the audience, who would marvel at just how far the actor would go before running out of breath:
FIBBER: “Get That Dope McGee”…the dashing, daring darling of the dailies and the ding-dong dipsy-doodle daddy of the dirt dishers…diligently deviling dignified diplomats for delicate details…discreetly dictating data difficult to decipher and deliberately denouncing dangerous demagogues drooping with dubious dialogue designed to develop defeatism…doin’ my duty with a dearth of dilly-dallying, despite the dirty digs of the desperate dogs who determined to damper my do-or-die disposition and deteriorated a diggity dynamo into a drippety droop…a dandy detective at darting death and danger (by this time, completely out-of-breath) and doesn’t this description sound like a total stranger?
After a nice wartime tune by the show’s female vocalist, Martha Tilton—“He’s 1-A in the Army and He’s A-1 in My Heart”—the McGees return to the subject of the new door chimes:
FIBBER: Hey, Molly…this is gonna be a pretty snazzy doorbell, you know it?
MOLLY: Yes…but who do we get to install it, dearie? An electrician?
FIBBER: Nahhh…I can do it myself…
MOLLY: Oh no…no, no, please, let’s not go into that again…
FIBBER: Whaddya mean? I fixed the thermostat on the furnace last week, didn’t I? It works at the touch of a finger now!
MOLLY: Sure it does, sure…at the touch of a finger you get a shock that melts your bobby pins!
(snip)
FIBBER: Hey, Molly…do you suppose this doorbell runs on batteries or the regular house current or how?
MOLLY: Well, uh…why don’t you experiment a little, dearie? You’re a wonderful lad with electricity…
FIBBER: You really think so?
MOLLY: Why, sure I do…who else could have wired the vacuum cleaner so it runs and hides under the davenport every time I plug it in?
Radio veteran Gale Gordon makes a stop at the McGee house in his long-running role as Wistful Vista’s Mayor LaTrivia (a punny reference to New York City
FIBBER: Excuse me just a minute, LaTriv…uh, look—did you send us an electric chime doorbell for Christmas?
LaTRIVIA: I did not. I didn’t send you anything for Christmas…
FIBBER: You mean yet…
MOLLY (reproachfully) McGee…
LaTRIVIA: Except for my immediate family and employees, McGee, I’m putting my Christmas budget into defense bonds and stamps…
MOLLY: Good for you, Mr. Mayor…we’ve got to back up our buck privates with our private bucks…which is an old sayin’ I just made up…
LaTRIVIA: Exactly. Now, McGee—you’ve been hounding me for a job with the city…
FIBBER: Oh, I wouldn’t say hounding you, LaTrivia…oh, I’ll admit I’ve been kinda scratchin’ ‘round, waggin’ my tail…
MOLLY: Well, uh…have you got something lined up for him, Mr. Mayor?
LaTRIVIA: I think so. (lowers voice) Are we alone?
FIBBER: Nobody here but us chickens, LaTriv…
LaTRIVIA: McGee…how are you on disguises?
MOLLY: Heavenly days…detective work?
FIBBER: How am I on disguises (chuckles) funny you should ask that, LaTrivia…why, when I was a cinder dick for the ol’ TSR railroad…
LaTRIVIA: Uh…what railroad was the TSR?
MOLLY: The Topeka Rochester
FIBBER: When I was a detective on the TSR, LaTrivia…I was known as “The Man With a Thousand Faces”…
LaTRIVIA: You had your choice of a thousand faces and went back to your own?
In addition to LaTrivia, Gordon also played Molly’s old boyfriend, Otis Cadwallader, and one of my favorite Fibber McGee & Molly characters—“Foggy” Williams, Wistful Vista’s resident weatherman, who usually ended his conversations with the McGees with “Good day…probably!”
Fibber is disappointed when LaTrivia informs him that his expertise in disguises will serve him well in the job of playing Santa Claus, greeting visitors at Wistful Vista’s City Hall Park (Molly: “Well, Man of a Thousand Faces…it looks like you’re holding the bag again”). But his spirits brighten considerably when his former next door neighbor and nemesis—Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (Hal Peary)—makes a surprise Christmas visit appearance. Fibber McGee & Molly listeners are no doubt aware that Gildersleeve had been moved to a town called Summerfield; spun-off into his own comedy series (The Great Gildersleeve) a few months earlier.
FIBBER: Yes sir, Gildersleeve…you don’t look a day older than when you left…
GILDY: Oh? Well…
FIBBER: …not that you were any chicken then…
GILDY: Yeesh…
MOLLY: Will you have another cup of tea, Mr. Gildersleeve?
GILDY: Uh, no thank you…
FIBBER: I should hope not…you had six…
GILDY: I have not! I’ve only had five, McGee!
FIBBER: Whaddya mean, five? You had one at the coffee table…one while you were snooping through our Christmas cards…another one…
MOLLY (interrupting): Ah now, McGee, stop…he’s welcome to all the tea he can drink…
GILDY: Thank you, Mrs. McGee…my goodness…I never thought my little chum would begrudge Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve a miserable little cup of tea…
FIBBER: Whaddya mean, miserable? My wife makes the best tea in this whole…
GILDY: I didn’t say the tea was miserable!
FIBBER: You did too! You said…
GILDY: Why…
MOLLY (sharply) McGee! McGee, he didn’t mean that…he meant he was surprised you wouldn’t want him to have all the tea he wants…
GILDY: Yes…
FIBBER: Why, shucks…he’s welcome to all he wants…big ninny…but tea’s pretty stimulatin’, Throcky old man…and to a guy your age, with your blood pressure…it might make you just a trifle…
GILDY (angry) What? What are you talking about, my age? Why, I’m still on the sunny side of forty!
FIBBER: Maybe…but you’ve got no more use for suntan oil, boy…
MOLLY: I wish you boys would stop this…it’s so nice to have an old neighbor drop in on us…
FIBBER: Hear that, Gildy? Old neighbor…even Molly thinks you’re…
MOLLY (cutting him off) Never mind what I think…
Before Gildersleeve departs, he not-so-subtly sneaks in a plug for the current RKO feature film Look Who’s Laughing (1941)—an entertaining comedy featuring himself and the McGees; along with Edgar Bergen (with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, natch) and Lucille Ball. Isabel Randolph is also along for the ride in her role as Abigail Uppington, and there are brief contributions by some other members of the Fibber McGee & Molly troupe, including Bill Thompson, Arthur Q, Bryan and announcer Harlow Wilcox.
Oh, and to wrap up that loose plot end—a wire arrives from the Johnson’s Wax Company home office in Racine, Wisconsin: it seems the Boys From Glocoat sent the McGees the new doorbell chimes, which would continue to be used until the show’s cancellation in 1957. (And to think, for the first six years they had to get by with merely a knock at the front door.)
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