Fibber McGee and Molly - The Lost Episodes
Volume 15

 

Throughout the 1940s, network radio was a powerhouse, dominating home entertainment. But, by the mid-1950s, things had changed; television had rapidly taken the place of radio and, in most American homes, people who used to faithfully listen to their radio favorites were now gathering around their TV sets to watch their favorite shows.

Many stars and shows made the transition to television, proving just as popular on the tube as they had been on the radio, but others - for a variety of reasons - didn't make the switch. The comedy team behind one extremely popular show, in fact, made the decision NOT to go to television - and, by 1953, they assumed they were on the verge of a well-earned retirement.

Jim and Marion Jordan had been the stars of Fibber McGee and Molly for nearly twenty years. The series had been a ratings grabber almost from the start, entertaining millions of listeners from that familiar address at 79 Wistful Vista. At the urging of Johnson's Wax, their long-time sponsor, they had actually filmed a TV pilot, but both were dissatisfied with the results. Fact was, after twenty years in radio - and a decade or so of vaudeville before that - the Jordan's, weren't particularly interested in putting on make-up, memorizing lines, and sweating under hot lights in a TV studio.

Their network, however, had other ideas - and so, in the fall of 1953, The Fibber McGee and Molly Show was reborn as a fifteen-minute daily series on NBC Radio. Starring Jim and Marion, along with co-stars Bill Thompson, Arthur Q. Bryan, and a host of talented radio veterans, the prerecorded show began airing twice a day five times a week - once in the early afternoon and once in the early evening. The result was three more seasons of hilarious entertainment, heard by a surprisingly large listening audience that enjoyed the antics of Fibber and Molly thru the spring of 1956.

Despite being prerecorded, once episodes of this new series were aired, the shows went into a vault at NBC Hollywood seemingly never to be heard again. Luckily, a few years ago, RadioArchives.com unearthed almost the entire run of the series - almost 480 episodes - on the original NBC transcription discs, the same recordings used to air the shows originally in the 1950s.

 

Two and a half years ago when we released Volume 14, we thought that there were no more episodes to be found, and we're excited to be offering Fibber McGee and Molly: The Lost Episodes, Volume 15 featuring thirty-one more broadcasts, just as originally aired from November 1953 to January of 1954.

 

We are always thrilled when more episodes are located. These thirty-one shows predate Volume 1, in fact the last show on Volume 15 was broadcast one day before the first show on Volume 1. If you want to refer to Volume 15 as Volume 0, that is ok with us.

The thirty-one shows in Fibber McGee and Molly: The Lost Episodes, Volume 15 haven't been heard since they originally aired over sixty years ago - and they're just as delightful and entertaining now as they were way back then. If you've been collecting these long-lost shows in the earlier sets released by RadioArchives.com, you'll want to get this latest collection to enjoy with your whole family.

Here is the complete content of this fully restored audio collection: