The Great Gildersleeve is a radio situation comedy initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson. It was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. The series was built around Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a regular character from the radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly.
The Great Gildersleeve premiered on NBC on August 31, 1941. It moves the title character from the McGees' Wistful Vista to Summerfield, where Gildersleeve oversees his late sister and brother-in-law's estate (said to have both been killed in a car accident) and rears his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie and Leroy Forrester. The household also includes a cook named Birdie. While Gildersleeve had occasionally mentioned his (silent) wife in some Fibber episodes, in his own series he is a confirmed bachelor.
At the outset of the series, Gildersleeve administers a girdle manufacturing company ("If you want the best of corsets, of course it's Gildersleeve"); later and during the remainder of the show he serves as Summerfield's water commissioner.
In 1950, Harold Peary was persuaded to move The Great Gildersleeve to CBS, but sponsor Kraft refused to sanction the move. Peary, now contracted to CBS, was legally unable to appear on NBC as a star performer, but Gildersleeve was still an NBC series. This prompted the hiring of Willard Waterman as Peary's replacement as Gildersleeve. Peary, meanwhile, began a new series on CBS which attempted to reproduce the Gildersleeve show with the names changed. The Harold Peary Show, lasting one season, included a fictitious radio show within the show. This was Honest Harold, hosted by Peary's new character.
In November 1954, after an extended summer hiatus, Gildersleeve was reformatted as a 15-minute daily sitcom. Only Gildersleeve, Leroy and Birdie remained on a continuing basis. All other characters were seldom heard, and gone were Marjorie and her family as well as the studio audience, live orchestra and original scripts. The series finally ended its run in 1958. (source: wikipedia)
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