Fibber McGee & Molly

The lovable characters from "The Johnson Wax show with Fibber McGee and Molly." an American radio comedy series. Played by long time vaudevillians, [a=Jim & Marian Jordan]. They Lived at 79 Wistful Vista, in the fictional Midwestern city of Wistful Vista. Fibber was an American teller of tall tales and a braggart, usually to the exasperation of his long suffering wife Molly.

The show began as a comic reflection of Depression Era America, but as time went on and the shadows of war came over the nation, the show again caught the mood of the country. WWII was fought on the Home front on Wistful Vista as surely as anywhere else in America, but here they had the benefit of Fibber's somewhat addled perspective.

The most loved and remembered running gag was Fibber McGee's Closet. Whenever the closet door was opened, it wasn't only a treat for the audience, but great fun for the sound effects men. Always careful not to use the gag twice in consecutive episodes, the closet gag would be placed in different spots in the show and varied in length. "Fibber McGee's Closet" is now part of the American vernacular as a reference to household clutter. The closet gag would close with Fibber's lamenting "I gotta clean out that closet one of these days."

The McGees appeared in four movies. In the early years of the radio show, they were supporting characters in the 1937 Paramount film This Way Please, starring Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Betty Grable. Once the show hit its stride, they had leading roles in the RKO Radio Pictures films Look Who's Laughing (1941), Here We Go Again (1942), and Heavenly Days (1944).