BW - EP103: A Weekend at the Malt Shop with Fibber McGee and Molly (1955)

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

In Breaking Walls Episode 103 we visit the town of Wistful Vista to spend a weekend at Walt’s Malt Shop with Fibber McGee and Molly. While between 1938 and 1950, Jim and Marian Jordan’s comedy never finished lower than fifth in national radio ratings, in this episode, we’ll focus on the period after, when the show became a closed production and aired for fifteen minutes, five days per week. —————————— Highlights: Jim Jordan—Saver of Things Who is this Fibber McGee and What does he do? First Smackout, by way of Chicago Marian Jordan—Molly McGee Fibber and Molly join NBC When Tuesday Night was Comedy Night Television takes over as NBC’s Stars Jump Ship Fibber and Molly Take a Ratings Hit Marian’s Health Deteriorates NBC’s plan for the 1950s Fibber and Molly Becomes a Serial Finding Success Taking Over Walt’s Malt After the Weekend Winding Down Looking Back to Look Forward —————————— The WallBreakers: http://thewallbreakers.com Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts. To support the show: http://patreon.com/TheWallBreakers —————————— The reading material used in today’s episode was: On the Air — By John Dunning Network Radio Ratings, 1932-53 — by Jim Ramsburg As well as several articles from Broadcasting Magazine, Radio & TV Mirror, and Sponsor Magazine. —————————— On the interview front: Parley Baer and Harry Bartell were with SPERDVAC, the Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety, and Comedy. For more information, please go to SPERDVAC.com Elvia Allman, Jim Jordan, Jim Jordan Jr, Phil Leslie, Willard Waterman, and Don Wilson were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingofRadio.com. Jim Jordan was with John Dunning for his 71KNUS program from Denver in 1982. Don Quinn was interviewed in Hawaii by Owen Cunningham while on vacation in 1951. And John Gibson and Jim Jordan were with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear their full chat at Goldenage—WTIC.org —————————— Selected music featured in today’s episode was: Caravan — By Gordon Jenkins Goodbye Montana, Pt. 1 — By George Winston I Forgot to Remember to Forget — By Elvis Presley Route 66 — By Nat King Cole —————————— Special thanks to our Sponsors: The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society https://www.ghoulishdelights.com/series/themorls/ Hey It’s Jali Entertainment https://www.heyitsjali.com/ The Fireside Mystery Theatre https://www.firesidemysterytheatre.com/ —————————— A special thank you to Ted Davenport and Jerry Haendiges: two radio show collectors who helped supply material for this episode. They’re who the large retailers go to. Ted’s got a Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/otrteddavenport/ For Jerry, please visit http://otrsite.com/ I’d also like to thank Walden Hughes and John and Larry Gassman of SPERDVAC - http://sperdvac.com/ —————————— A Special Thank you to: Tony Adams Briana Isaac Ryan Kramer Barry Nadler Christian Neuhaus Aimee Pavy Terry Wallace —————————— WallBreakers Links: Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers Social Media - @TheWallBreakers URL - thewallbreakers.com