The Great Gildersleeve

All Episodes 1955 - 1956

  • Ended
  • 1955-09-20T04:00:00Z
  • 30m
  • 1h (2 episodes)
  • United States
  • English
The Great Gildersleeve is a radio situation comedy broadcast from 1941 to 1957. 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 Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a regular element of the radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly. The character was introduced in the October 3, 1939 episode of that series. The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1940s. Actor Harold 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 nemesis 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 "Gildersleeve's Diary" episode 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.

39 episodes

Series Premiere

1955-09-20T04:00:00Z

1x01 Gildy Goes Broke

Series Premiere

1x01 Gildy Goes Broke

  • 1955-09-20T04:00:00Z30m

After lecturing his nephew Leroy on spending all his money on the girls, Gildy proceeds to do the same thing when courting a beautiful woman.

When Gildy's girlfriend, Lois, starts wandering into other men's arms, Gildy realizes that something must be done.

Gildy washes his hands of the Water Department when he is unjustly accused with circumstantial evidence.

1x04 Gildy Goes Diving

  • no air date30m

When Gildy discovers that he is virtually unknown in Summerfield he goes fter publicity and makes a real splash-in 40 feet of water.

1x05 Gildy and the Con Men

  • no air date30m

Gildy falls victim to a couple of con artists.

Gildy desperately searches for a fiancée so that Birdie, his housekeeper, won't break off her marriage plans in order to care for his family.

1x07 Gildy The Private Eye

  • no air date30m

Gildy is jealous when a handsome police detective is assigned to find the burglar who broke into his friend's safe.

Leroy fools Gildy into believing that the prank he's accused of committing was actually perpetrated by another boy.

1x10 Too Many Secretaries

  • no air date30m

Gildy gets in hot water with his real secretary when he tells his friends that his new girlfriend is his administrative assistant.

1x11 The Raffle

  • no air date30m

Gildy doesn't like Marjorie's new boyfriend and decides to check into his background.

1x14 Bard Of Summerfield

  • no air date30m

Gildy tries to impress a woman with his poetry composition skills and accidentally plagiarizes a famous poem.

1x15 Gildy Goes Hollywood

  • no air date30m

Gildy gets stars in his eyes when a production company rents Summerville's City Hall to use as a movie set.

1x16 Golf Ball Incident

  • no air date30m

Gildy conks a congresswoman on the head with an errant golf shot and inadvertently starts a feud between City Hall and Summerville's newspaper.

Gildy's courtship of a pretty nurse founders when his men's club, "The Jolly Boys" disrupts the local hospital's maternity ward.

1x27 The Whistling Bandit

  • no air date30m

Appointed Acting Police Commissioner during a crime wave, Gildy inadvertently becomes The Whistling Bandit's accomplice.

1x28 Dancing Lessons

  • no air date30m

Gildy is attracted to Leroy's lovely dancing instructor.

1956-01-01T05:00:00Z

1x32 Gildy's All American Boy

1x32 Gildy's All American Boy

  • 1956-01-01T05:00:00Z30m

Gildersleeve talks Leroy and Bruce out of constructing a rocket in the back yard and into building a raft like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. When the boys disappear, Gildy panics and assumes they're lost on the river. He launches a search party while the boys, bored with the raft, head for the movie theater.

1x38 The Deed

  • no air date30m

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