Ask Molly McGee, part I

girlfriday poses the question:
did TV kill the Radio star?

For most, yes. For others, no.

Some never tried to transition into television, some tried and failed. A lucky few found success on the small screen.


George Burns and Gracie Allen are probably two of the most likable people to ever have careers in Hollywood. It would only make sense that the television version of their radio show would be so successful it would last for eight years.



The Jack Benny Program ran for an impressive 15 years on television.



Impressive, until you consider that his radio show ran for 23 years. To put in perspective, when he started the show, America was in the first years of the Depression; when he ended it, Eisenhower was president. He was still kickin' it on the radio when I Love Lucy and Ozzie & Harriet were airing on television. When his TV show ended in 1965, Beatlemania was still sweeping the nation. From Prohibition to LBJ. He was a part of American pop culture for that long.

Suspense? Dragnet? The Lone Ranger? All great contributions to the world of television that were birthed on radio.

Fibber McGee & Molly and The Great Gildersleeve, both hugely popular on the airwaves, only lasted a season on the telly. These are only two examples of what was typically the trend when shows tried to make the jump.

Of course TV was the ultimate cause for the demise of radio, which makes sense, and is just what happens in a world of advancing technology. Certain stars transcended radio. Their popularity couldn't be confined to the radio. America accepted them into their hearts, and weren't ready to let them go just because the medium they had met them on was fading into the past. Some stars were not so lucky. Faces made for radio, I guess they would say.

If you were pleased by this answer, and wish to have your own question answered, post them in the comments section. Molly McGee will do her best to answer your queries, that she will.

Screen Director's Assignment. Production: this blog. Star: me. Director: me.

I have kind of an obsessive personality. Not about all things. There are just certain ideas that I get into my head that I can't let go of. This blog, for instance. When I decided to create it, I had a concept. Posts about specific episodes, each with a headline that referenced Old-Time Radio in some creative way.

Then the unthinkable happened.

I had been using the same cassette and record player contraption for more than a decade. It also has an 8 track attached, but I've never used that. I use the record player from time to time, mostly for Christmas music and a Best of Mamas and Papas album. The cassette player I used on a nightly basis. I would choose a tape one night before bed, probably a favorite that I've listened to for years, and then I would listen to the tape for usually a month, maybe two. Like I said, obsessive.

One night in December, I went to push play on The Screen Director's Assignment of Miracle on 34th Street, and no noise emerged from my two-feet tall speakers, est. circa 1985. I took out the tape, assuming it was on the wrong side. It wasn't. I put a new tape in, pushed play and examined. Nothing moved. It just sat there, silently. I checked the tape, I hit the tape player a few times, because that usually fixes things. Nothing.

She lived a good life. She lived in seven houses, two cities and two states. She was kind of like a security blanket for me, or at least the device that delivered the blanket to me each night. She will probably be replaced by some lame-ass boombox from Goodwill, whenever I get around to going there. Maybe today. I wanted to show you a picture of her, but I haven't taken the picture yet, so that's why I couldn't download it. So that's Edmund Gwenn. He played Santa Claus in the 1947 film version and in the radio one that I haven't been able to listen to in over a month.

During Christmas I wanted to post about my favorite Christmas shows, I wanted to provide exact quotes but I couldn't. Instead of writing perfectly good posts quoting my shows with near perfect precision, I just didn't write at all. I didn't write anything. I can quote those shows backwards to front, but I wanted more. Because I have an idea and I want that idea to be executed perfectly. I need to get over that. It's really annoying.

Someday I'll provide you with a rundown of my all time favorite Christmas shows, but I'll surprise you with it. Who doesn't need a little Christmas spirit in, say, April?

L.S.M.F.T.

"Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco."

It's amazing that with all the tobacco commercials I heard growing up I don't smoke four packs a day.

If I were to buy into all of the fine products that sponsored my favorite shows, I would only use Johnson's wax to clean my floors (housewives flock to buy it!), Folger's Coffee in my coffee pot (it's good 'til the last drop!), Carnation milk in my cereal (milk from contented cows!), and Swan soap in the shower (it's eight ways better than old style floating soaps!) . . . What exactly are floating soaps?

But choosing a cigarette brand would be difficult. Jack Benny promoted Lucky Strikes. Bing Crosby preferred Chesterfields. Two great men, whose advice do I follow? I suppose I'll have to pick the brand with the best jingle. The clear winner here is Chesterfield:

"Chesterfields, Chesterfields always win first place. That milder mild tobacco never leaves an aftertaste. So open a pack, give 'em a smell, then you'll smoke 'em."

I'm sold, aren't you?

Oh, heavenly days!

"There has always been a lot of rivalry in Wistful Vista over whose house is the most beautifully decorated for Christmas. Mr. McGee of number 79 has never placed in the first 25. Until maybe this year. Because here in the hardware store laying in a supply of outdoor lighting equipment, we find that once-a-year exterior decorator, and his wife, Fibber McGee & Molly. . ."

One fateful Christmas, circa me, 8-years-old, my father gave our family six cassette tapes of Old-Time Radio recordings. The episodes were all Christmas-themed and came in a cheap, plastic case shaped like an old-fashioned radio. That same year my dad also gave me a tape of Bing Crosby's White Christmas in my stocking. At least that's how I like to remember it. It's quite possible these gifts arrived on different years, but I like thinking that the day I discovered Bing Crosby was the same day I discovered Old Time Radio. They are two strange loves for a girl of only 24, but love them I do.

When I first began to listen to these tapes my immediate favorite was the Fibber McGee and Molly show. The McGees head home from the aforementioned hardware store with the copious amount of supplies purchased by Fibber. As he decorates the house, many passersby (all friends of the McGees, of course) stop to shoot the breeze, and hilarity ensues. I might be playing fast and loose with the word hilarity here, but I can still get a chuckle out of it, even after listening to it hundreds of times over the past 16 years.

I lost the tape for a few years and began listening to the other shows. These tapes were my first introduction to Burns & Allen show, The Jack Benny Program and even The Great Gildersleeve, a spin-off of Fibber McGee. At some point in middle school I came into possession of a catalogue that sold Old-Time Radio tapes. It felt like a whole new world had been opened up to me. The first collection of tapes I bought for myself was Old-Time Radio's Greatest Shows, as chosen by the Radio Spirit's, Inc. Sixty episodes for $60, and I saved my hard-earned babysitting money to buy them, a purchase I'm still getting use out of all these years later. I now own hundreds of episodes on tape, a few on cds and about a dozen mp3s. But listening to them on tape is still my preferred method.

I love Old-Time Radio. For sentimental reasons, for its historical relevance and for the plain and simple fact that I enjoy it. It can make me laugh, cry and even scare the pants off me. It has long been a part of my life, and I'd now I'd like to write about it. I hope you, whomever you may be, enjoy what I have to say and maybe even learn something new about the history of American entertainment.