Fibber McGee and Molly

About Fibber McGee and Molly

Fibber McGee and Molly is the old time radio sitcom that gave America the overstuffed hall closet. Jim and Marian Jordan, a real married couple from Peoria, Illinois, played Fibber, a lovable braggart who never gave a straight answer, and Molly, his patient wife, whose "'Tain't funny, McGee!" became a national catchphrase. Their house at 79 Wistful Vista had a steady stream of visitors at the door, and each one got a few minutes of sparring with Fibber before the next knock.

The show premiered on NBC on April 16, 1935, and with writer Don Quinn it became the top-rated program on American radio. Its neighbors became stars too: Harold Peary's Gildersleeve left in 1941 for The Great Gildersleeve, broadcasting's first successful spin-off, Bill Thompson's timid Wallace Wimple inspired the cartoon dog Droopy, and Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer Fudd, played Doc Gamble. The weekly half hour ran until 1953, and shorter versions lasted until 1959.

Fibber McGee and Molly is gentle small-town comedy built on a simple rhythm: a knock at the door, a character with a catchphrase, a round of wisecracks, then the next knock. That rhythm makes it easy to drop into and easy to share with kids. The years here also make a record of American life from the last peacetime years to the home front of World War II, told by a couple who were plainly having fun together.

What you’ll hear

• The closet avalanche, ending every time with a tinkling bell and "I gotta get that closet cleaned out one of these days"
• Molly's "Heavenly days!" and the Old-Timer's "That ain't the way I heerd it!"
• Gildersleeve's "You're a harrrd man, McGee!"
• Gale Gordon's Mayor La Trivia, dressing up dull city jobs in flowery language
• Announcer Harlow Wilcox steering every conversation into the Johnson Wax commercial
• The King's Men quartet and Billy Mills's orchestra
• Wartime shows from Hollywood, with the war worked right into the jokes

Where to start

• March 5, 1940: the hall closet spills over for the first time, with a cameo by Gracie Allen, then running for president.
• September 30, 1941: Gildersleeve comes back to say goodbye before his own show and gets buried by the closet like everyone else. December 9, 1941: two days after Pearl Harbor, Molly's joke about a globe with Japan on it brings cheers.
• Follow the podcast for a new episode twice a week, in the order they first aired; released episodes also play free right on this page, no account needed. Plus members ($5 a month) can play every episode now.
• When you'd rather not choose, Laugh Track streams old time radio comedy like this live, around the clock.

Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio

NBC Radio, 1935-1959. With Harold Peary, Bill Thompson, Gale Gordon, Arthur Q. Bryan.

Where the recordings come from

The Fibber McGee and Molly recordings here come from the Internet Archive item fibber-mc-gee-and-molly (151 episodes) on the Internet Archive. Our thanks to the uploader and the collectors behind it, and to the Archive for keeping it. The sound is our remaster of those files (rumble, hiss and hum cleaned out, levelled to steady broadcast loudness); the recordings themselves are theirs. About our sources.

Every Fibber McGee and Molly episode: the full list, with air dates and stories

More to listen to

• The Jack Benny Program
• The Great Gildersleeve
• Our Miss Brooks
• The Burns and Allen Show
• The Life of Riley
• Christmas on old-time radio
• New Year's Eve on old-time radio

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