The Great Gildersleeve

The Great Gildersleeve

Peary in his heyday as the Great Gildersleeve
Running time	30 minutes (1941–1954) 15 minutes (1954–1955) 25 minutes (1955–1958)
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
Home station	NBC
TV adaptations	1955–1956
Starring	Harold Peary Willard Waterman Walter Tetley Lurene Tuttle Mary Lee Robb Lillian Randolph Richard Crenna Barbara Whiting Earle Ross Richard LeGrand Arthur Q. Bryan Shirley Mitchell Bea Benaderet Una Merkel Martha Scott Cathy Lewis Gale Gordon Mel Blanc Conrad Binyon
Created by	Leonard L. Levinson
Written by	John Whedon Leonard L. Levinson Sam Moore Paul West John Elliotte Andy White
Original release	August 31, 1941 – June 2, 1954 (30 minute episodes); 1958 (25 minute episodes)
No. of episodes	552 (1940–1954)

The Great Gildersleeve was a radio situation comedy broadcast in the USA from August 31, 1941, to 1958. Initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, it was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. The series was built around the character Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a regular element of the radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly. The character was introduced in the October 3, 1939 episode (number 216) of that series. Actor Harold Peary had played a similarly named character, Dr. Gildersleeve on earlier episodes. The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1940s. Peary played the character during its transition from the parent show into the spin-off and later in four feature films released at the height of the show's popularity.

In Fibber McGee and Molly, Peary's Gildersleeve had been a pompous windbag and antagonist of Fibber McGee. "You're a haa-aa-aa-aard man, McGee!" became a Gildersleeve catchphrase. The character went by several aliases on Fibber McGee and Molly; his middle name was revealed to be "Philharmonic" in "Fibber Discovers Gildersleeve's Locked Diary" episode #258 on October 22, 1940.

"Gildy" grew so popular that Kraft Foods—promoting its Parkay margarine—sponsored a new series featuring Peary's somewhat mellowed and always befuddled Gildersleeve as the head of his own family.

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 brother-in-law's estate 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 (unseen) 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 a better corset, of course, it's a Gildersleeve"); later and during the remainder of the show he serves as Summerfield's water commissioner.

A key figure in the Gildersleeve home was (black) cook and housekeeper Birdie Lee Coggins (Lillian Randolph). In the first season, under writer Levinson, Birdie was often portrayed as less than intelligent, but she slowly developed as the real brains and caretaker of the household under Whedon and other writers.