''My Little Margie'' is an American television

situation comedy A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new ...

starring

Gale Storm Josephine Owaissa Cottle (April 5, 1922 – June 27, 2009), known professionally as Gale Storm, was an American actress and singer. After a film career from 1940 to 1952, she starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, '' My Litt ...

and

Charles Farrell Charles David Farrell (August 9, 1900 – May 6, 1990) was an American film actor of the 1920s silent era and into the 1930s, and later a television actor. Farrell is probably best recalled for his onscreen romances with actress Janet Gaynor ...

that alternated between

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

from 1952 to 1955. The series was created by Frank Fox and produced in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, at

Hal Roach Studios Hal Roach Studios was an American motion picture and television production studio. Known as ''The Laugh Factory to the World'', it was founded by producer Hal Roach and business partners Dan Linthicum and I.H. Nance as the Rolin Film Company on Ju ...

Hal Roach Jr. Harold Eugene Roach Jr. (June 15, 1918 – March 29, 1972) was an American film and television producer. Biography Roach Jr. was born in Los Angeles, the son of comedy producer Hal Roach and actress Marguerite Nichols. Roach Jr. co-directed '' ...

, and Roland D. Reed. ''My Little Margie'' premiered on CBS as a summer replacement for '' I Love Lucy'' on June 16, 1952, under the sponsorship of

Philip Morris Phil(l)ip or Phil Morris may refer to: Companies *Altria, a conglomerate company previously known as Philip Morris Companies Inc., named after the tobacconist **Philip Morris USA, a tobacco company wholly owned by Altria Group ** Philip Morris Inte ...

cigarettes (when the series moved to NBC for its third season in the fall of 1953,

Scott Paper Company The Scott Paper Company was the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of sanitary tissue products with operations in 22 countries. Its products were sold under a variety of well-known brand names, including ''Scott Tissue'', '' Cottonelle'', ...

became its sponsor). In an unusual move, the series—with the same leads—aired original episodes on

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broad ...

, concurrently with the TV broadcasts, from December 1952 through August 1955. Only 23 radio broadcasts are known to exist in recorded form.

Synopsis

Charles Farrell Gale Storm My Little Margie 1954

Set in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the series stars Gale Storm as 21-year-old Margie Albright and former silent film star

as her widowed father, 50-year-old Vern Albright. They share an apartment at the Carlton Arms Hotel. Vern Albright is the vice-president of the investment firm of Honeywell and Todd, where his bosses are George Honeywell (

Clarence Kolb Clarence William Kolb (July 31, 1874 – November 25, 1964) was an American vaudeville performer and actor known for his comedy routines that featured a Dutch dialect. Biography Kolb started out as one half of a vaudeville comedy team, Kol ...

) and Westley Todd (George Meader). Roberta Townsend (

Hillary Brooke Hillary Brooke (born Beatrice Sofia Mathilda Peterson; September 8, 1914 – May 25, 1999) was an American film actress. Career A 5′6″ blonde from the Astoria neighborhood of New York City's borough of Queens, Brooke, who was of Swedish an ...

) is Vern's girlfriend, and Margie's boyfriend is Freddy Wilson (Don Hayden). Mrs. Odetts (played by Gertrude Hoffmann on TV,

Verna Felton Verna Arline Felton (July 20, 1890December 14, 1966) was an American actress, best known for providing many voices in numerous Disney animated films. She also provided the voice for Fred Flintstone's mother-in-law, Pearl Slaghoople in Hanna-Bar ...

on radio) is the Albrights' next-door neighbor and Margie's sidekick in madcap capers reminiscent of Lucy and Ethel in ''I Love Lucy''. When Margie realizes she has blundered or gotten into trouble, she makes an odd trilling sound. Other cast members include

Willie Best William Best (May 27, 1913 – February 27, 1962), known professionally as Willie Best or Sleep n' Eat, was an American television and film actor. Best was one of the first African American film actors and comedians to become well kn ...

, who plays the elevator operator, Dian Fauntelle, and silent film star

Zasu Pitts Zasu Pitts (; January 3, 1894 – June 7, 1963) was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas, including Erich von Stroheim's epic 1924 silent film ''Greed'', and comedies, transitioning successfully to mostly comedy films with the ...

. Scottish actor

Andy Clyde Andrew Allan Clyde (March 25, 1892 – May 18, 1967) was a Scottish-born American film and television actor whose career spanned more than four decades. In 1921 he broke into silent films as a Mack Sennett comic, debuting in ''On a Summer ...

, prior to ''

The Real McCoys ''The Real McCoys'' is an American situation comedy starring Walter Brennan, Richard Crenna, and Kathleen Nolan. Co-produced by Danny Thomas's Marterto Productions in association with Walter Brennan and Irving Pincus's Westgate Compan ...

'', appears in the 1954 episode, "Margie and the Bagpipes." ''My Little Margie'' finished at #29 in the

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

for the 1954–1955 television season and, even more impressively, at #6 in Nielsen's radio estimates for the 1954–55 season. Despite this success, the series was canceled in 1955. Gale Storm went on to star in ''

The Gale Storm Show ''The Gale Storm Show'' is an American sitcom starring Gale Storm. The series premiered on September 29, 1956, and ran until 1960 for 125 half-hour black-and-white episodes, initially on CBS and in its last year on ABC. Its title is also seen ...

'' which ran for 143 episodes from 1956 to 1960. Zasu Pitts joined Gale Storm in this series too, originally entitled ''Oh! Susanna''. The show has been compared with two other 1950s sitcoms which aired at the same time, ''

I Married Joan ''I Married Joan'' is an American situation comedy that aired on NBC from 1952 to 1955. It starred actress Joan Davis as the manic, scatterbrained wife of a mild-mannered community judge (Jim Backus). Synopsis The show, whose syndicated ope ...

'' and ''

Life with Elizabeth ''Life with Elizabeth'' is an American television sitcom starring Betty White as Elizabeth and Del Moore as her husband Alvin; Jack Narz is the on-camera announcer and narrator. The series aired in syndication from October 7, 1953, to September ...

''. All three programs were inspired by the success of '' I Love Lucy'', but despite their own merits, have fallen into obscurity only to gain some popularity after entering the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

. ''I Love Lucy'', however, is still under copyright in the United States. The show had two different openings and endings. Initially the show showed a pair of photos which come to life and first Vern talks about the difficulty of raising Margie. Then Margie's photo comes to life and she explains the difficulty of making her father behave the way she wants him to. This apparently ended within a year and the photos were changed and the producers dispensed with the 'photos coming to life' business.

Main cast

as Margie Albright *

as Vern Albright *

as George Honeywell * Don Hayden as Freddie Wilson

Theme song

The program's theme song was originally titled "Bows and Strings in Teasing" by its composer, Alexander Laszlo, when he composed it for a 1946 Republic Picture, '' The French Key''. When ''My Little Margie'' contracted to use his music, Laszlo wrote a new arrangement with added bars of music, which then became the "My Little Margie Theme" from 1952 to 1955. The show's music should not be confused with the 1920s popular song "Margie," also known as "My Little Margie," though the title of the TV program may have been inspired by the song. Most of the surviving radio episodes are edited versions aired on the

Armed Forces Radio Service The American Forces Network (AFN) is a government television and radio broadcast service the U.S. military provides to those stationed or assigned overseas. Headquartered at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, AFN's broadcast operations, which ...

(AFRS). CBS destroyed thousands of broadcasts from this period, so in many cases all that have survived have been the AFRS versions. The AFRS versions used the 1920s song 'Margie' as a music fill at the end of the episode to take up the time that would have had commercials in the original CBS version.

Syndication

Since the series was canceled in 1955, ''My Little Margie'' has aired on local TV stations, often paired with ''

.'' Both series aired on CBN during the 1980s and then on ION.

AMGTV AMGTV is an American family-oriented television network featuring television programming consisting of drama, sports, movies, entertainment, how-to, hunting and fishing, children's shows, and other features, much of it repackaged from off-netw ...

currently carries both series daily.

Comic books

From July 1954 to November 1964

Charlton Comics Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1945 to 1986, having begun under a different name: T.W.O. Charles Company, in 1940. It was based in Derby, Connecticut. The comic-book line was a division of Charlton ...

published 54 issues of ''My Little Margie''.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=0044283
Museum of Broadcast Communication page on ''My Little Margie''

''My Little Margie'' episodes
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

My Little Margie on Old Time Radio Outlaws
1952 American television series debuts 1955 American television series endings 1950s American radio programs 1950s American sitcoms Black-and-white American television shows CBS original programming English-language television shows NBC original programming Television shows set in New York City Television shows filmed in Los Angeles CBS Radio programs