Oh no you didn't...

The NBC mikes were a long
way from the days of playing
vaudeville for Jim and Marian
Jordan (Fibber McGee & Molly).

Oh yes we did.  XRB Radio said we needed another day of Christmas extravaganza, and the OTR Express was more than willing to comply, with 2 more shows from the vaults.

The first is a Fibber McGee and Molly program.  If there is such a thing as a homespun literate comedy, it would be FM&M.  From the bustling metropolis of Peoria, IL, Jim and Marian Jordan (FM&M) created these characters; latching on with writer Don Quinn turned this into one of the longest-running and best-loved comedies of all time.  Some remember it for the closet gag, but it was so much more than that. 

A rare photo of John
Brown, star of The
Damon Runyon Theatre

This Christmas show is no different from the show's other offerings; a great litany of jokes and characters that the McGees run into on the way to the post office.

Our second helping is a Damon Runyon Theatre show, called Dancing Dan's Christmas.  This syndicated program offered dramatizations of some of author Damon Runyon's famous characters.  Maybe you've seen Guys & Dolls?  Then you've seen some of Runyon's characters.  I love the DRT, though I warn you, if you listen to too many of them, you start talking in "dems" and "dozes".

New Show - "Fibber McGee & Molly" and "The Strange Dr. Weird"

This week on the Old Time Radio Express, we listen to The Fibber McGee and Molly Program from January 2, 1945, as well as The Strange Dr. Weird, and the program, "The Man Who Talked With Death".

There are so many great aspects of the Fibber Mc Gee and Molly show that it was impossible to pick one episode that hit all the highlights.  This episode does a great job of showing the brilliance of some of the joke-writing and how the middle Johnson's Wax commercial is neatly incorporated, but there are so many other F&M standards that this episode doesn't have....the characters of the Old Timer and Wallace Wimple (actor Bill Thompson was fighting in WWII during this broadcast), the famous closet gag, some of Molly's more famous catchphrases ("T'aint funny, McGee!"), Fibber's rapid alliteration jokes, and many more.  I guess that's good - we've got a lot to listen to and talk about in the future.

The Strange Doctor Weird is, essentially, The Mysterious Traveler condensed into a 15 minute program.  My preference is The Mysterious Traveler, simply because so much more can be developed in 30 minutes than 15.  But like a novelist adept at writing short stories with a punch, Robert A. Arthur and David Kogan succeeded in both long-form and short-form radio.