The
wacky women who dominated 1950s television comedy did not begin
with Lucille Ball (Gracie Allen and Imogene Coca predated her TV
debut), but the phenomenal success of Ball in I Love Lucy
surely inspired a grand assortment of imitations on the small screen.
Soon after Lucy's TV premier, programs like I Married Joan with
Joan Davis, Life with Elizabeth with Betty White, and My
Friend Irma with Marie Wilson premiered, all centered around
the doings of various "wacky wives" with staid, even dull, husbands.
Drawing on similar conventions was one of the most successful sitcoms
of the 1950s, My Little Margie.
My Little Margie presented 21 year-old Margie Albright, who
lived with her widowed father Vernon in a New York City penthouse.
Mr. Albright worked as an executive for the investment counseling
firm Honeywell & Todd, and was perpetually in fear of losing "the
big account" because of Margie's meddling. Rounding out the cast
were Freddie, Margie's "boyfriend," elderly neighbor Mrs. Odetts
(the Ethel to Margie's Lucy), Roberta Townsend, Vern's lady friend,
George Honeywell, president of Honeywell & Todd, and Charlie, the
black elevator operator (depicted as a sad African-American stereotype,
typical of TV at that time).
The
program starred Gale Storm (31 when she began in the role), a former
film actress noted for her roles in westerns playing apposite Roy
Rogers. Vernon was played by Charles Farrell, formerly a highly
successful silent film leading man. The program premiered in 1952
as a last minute summer replacement for I Love Lucy but proved
so popular, landing consistently in the top five, it was renewed
for fall and ran for three seasons.
The
title My Little Margie can certainly be taken in such a way
as to be demeaning to women: "my" indicating the possession of someone
as if they were a thing, and "little" a somewhat inaccurate and
condescending term for a twenty-one year-old woman. Nevertheless,
it has been noted that the premise of My Little Margie was
in other ways rather progressive. First, Margie was a single woman
at a time when most women on television were conveniently married
off. Secondly, the Albrights were slightly different from the normal
nuclear families then being depicted on TV. The widowed father and
his daughter were frequently involved in stories designed around
the two taking on and exploring roles not their own, duties and
responsibilities which conventionally would have been handled by
the now absent mother. Additionally, Margie, though "of marrying
age," is seldom depicted as eager to walk down the aisle. Though
she had a steady boyfriend in neighbor Freddie Wilson, few sparks
ever flew between them. Margie was always too busy for her own romance,
usually busy launching schemes to keep gold diggers away from her
single dad. Margie's self-chosen single status and irrepressible
individuality make her, in some respects, one of TV's pre-feminism
feminists. Week after week, despite what her father and other men
around her wanted her or expected her to do, Margie did her own
thing, engaging in outrageous acts and everyday rebellions, as Gloria
Steinem would later refer to them.
Yet,
despite the presence of such advanced notions, in practice Margie
rarely chose to develop them. Produced by the Hal Roach Studios,
the series had access to all the studio's haunted houses sets and
breakaway props and frequently fell back on the Roach's stock and
trade--slapstick. The program got most of its mileage from Storm's
enchanting charm, her wardrobe (provided by Junior House of Milwaukee,
almost always with a fetching, matching hat), and her frequently
performed trademark "Margie gurgle," a rolling of the throat it
seemed only Storm could produce.
My
Little Margie, had absolutely no critical support. From its
premier, every newspaper dismissed the show as silly. Yet it had
enough fan devotion to secure a highly rated run, making it one
of the first shows to survive on audience support alone. Moreover,
it was the only television program to reverse the usual media history
and make the jump from the small screen to the audio airwaves; an
original radio version (also starring Storm and Farrell) aired for
two years. Its popularity is also attested to by the fact that Margie
was one of the most widely syndicated programs of the 1950s and
1960s. It even proved popular enough to air on Saturday mornings,
perhaps acknowledging Margie's near-cartoonish antics before a new
and loyal audience among kids.
-Cary
O'Dell
Castleman, Harry, and Walter J. Podrazik. Harry and Walter's
Favorite Shows: A Fact-Filled Opinionated Guide to the Best and
Worst on TV. New York: Prentic Hall, 1989.
Mitz,
Rich. The Great TV Sitcom Book. New York: Perigee, 1983.
Storm,
Gale. I Ain't Down Yet. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1981.
