My Little Margie is an American television situation comedy starring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955. The series was created by Frank Fox and produced in Los Angeles, California, at Hal Roach Studios by Hal Roach, Jr., and Roland D. Reed. My Little Margie premiered on CBS as the first summer replacement for I Love Lucy on June 16, 1952, under the sponsorship of Philip Morris cigarettes. In an unusual move, the series—with the same leads—aired original episodes on CBS Radio, concurrently with the TV broadcasts, from December 1952 through August 1955. Only 23 radio broadcasts are known to exist in recorded form.
Synopsis
Set in New York City, the series stars Gale Storm as 21-year-old Margie Albright and former silent film star Charles Farrell 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 and Westley Todd. Roberta Townsend is Vern's girlfriend, and Margie's boyfriend is Freddy Wilson. Mrs. Odetts 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, who plays the elevator operator, Dian Fauntelle, and silent film starZasu Pitts. Scottish actor Andy Clyde, prior to The Real McCoys, appears in the 1954 episode, "Margie and the Bagpipes." My Little Margie finished at #29 in the Nielsen ratings 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 which ran for 143 episodes from 1956–1960. 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 and Life with Elizabeth. 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. 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 takes about the difficulty of raising Margie. Then Margie's photo comes to life and she explains the difficulty of trying to keep her father to behave like 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.
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. 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 I Married Joan. Both series aired on CBN during the 1980s and then on ION. AMGTV currently carries both series daily.
