Posted by SignOfZeta on May 27, 2020 at 20:23:17 EST in reply to Oh wow! I haven't been able to find my entrance into the comedy genre in OTR--maybe because my main use for it is listening while painting, and the pacing of comedy might not be as handy for that--so it's good to have a tip on somewhere I might start. The incredible thing about OTR--aside from how top-notch the production of much of it is--is just how MUCH of it was cranked out in those golden days of radio. Aside from BBC stuff--I'm on Poirot now, next will be Miss Marple; not sure these are truly public domain but they're on archive.org, so eh--the US shows I've gone through so far have been the various Sherlock series, and Sam Spade, and those were loads of fun. (n/t) from Paleface.
Yeah, the BBC still produces radio drama and so does Japan. I don’t get why audio-only non-music content died out, I love it. Also the CBS radio network made decent mysteries and such...well into the 1970s I think. South Africa also did some not so old OTR. Fibber McGee and Molly was one of those shows were the formula never changes, very vaudeville. It lasted a long time and was the most popular show in the country forever. It lasted 680 episodes (still more than The Simpsons as of this writing). Because of this it’s almost like reading a newspaper or some other contemporary chronicle. You learn about the war and rations and all that week by week and Fibber was often the “Goofus” to Molly’s “Gallant” when it came to explaining away the things people grumbled about back then. What I mean by this is that in one episode they talk a bit about gasoline rationing which is something I knew a little about. What I didn’t known was that there was plenty of gas, gas was only rationed mainly to conserve the rubber parts on cars and trucks since for some months literally zero rubber was being imported into the country. I also confess that I like the formula a lot. There is comfort in knowing what you’re going to get if you already like it. Of course I love Suspense! and The Sealed Book. Journey Into Space (BBC) and it’s sequels are terrific. I played the entire series twice through on my radio show.
In the very early episodes (1935) of Fibber and Molly the two are seen as sorta vagabonds and had significant Irish accents carried over from their vaudeville days. Eventually the accents went away.
I couldn’t help but consider the attitudes of many Americans towards Irish and Catholics back then. I wondered how people would react today to a super popular show with Arabic or Chinese accents...this kind of programming provokes this kind of thought...the war was a big part of the show with the Mayor character enlisting when the show was on the air. As a listener knowing how bad WWII got you genuinely don’t know if this dude will come back and do his thing. You just keep listening.
It’s not hard to imagine Fibber being anti-mask for the first half of the episode. First fighting with Molly about it, then Mayor La Trivia would come over and they’d fuck with him some. Then Doc Gamble would come by (the voice of Elmer Fudd) and insult McGee into submission with the help of Alice Darling and logic and then Mrs Uppington would distribute PPE donated by the lady’s auxiliary. I should write that episode myself...
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