The Great Gildersleeve Christmas Shopping Gildy Accused of Loafing Christmas Stray Puppy

Premiering on August 31 1941 The Great Gildersleeve moved the title character from the McGees Wistful Vista to Summerfield where Gildersleeve now oversaw his late brother-in-laws estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew Marjorie originally played by Lurene Tuttle and followed by Louise Erickson and Mary Lee Robb and Leroy Forester Walter Tetley The household also included a cook named Birdie Curiously while Gildersleeve had occasionally spoken of his never-present wife in some Fibber episodes in his own series the character was a confirmed bachelor

In a striking forerunner to such later television hits as Bachelor Father and Family Affair both of which are centered on well-to-do uncles taking in their deceased siblings children Gildersleeve was a bachelor raising two children while at first administering a girdle manufacturing company If you want a better corset of course its a Gildersleeve and then for the bulk of the shows run serving as Summerfields water commissioner between time with the ladies and nights with the boys The Great Gildersleeve may have been the first broadcast show to be centered on a single parent balancing child-rearing work and a social life done with taste and genuine wit often at the expense of Gildersleeves now slightly understated pomposity

Many of the original episodes were co-written by John Whedon father of Tom Whedon who wrote The Golden Girls and grandfather of Deadwood scripter Zack Whedon and Joss Whedon creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Firefly and Dr Horribles Sing-Along Blog

The key to the show was Peary whose booming voice and facility with moans groans laughs shudders and inflection was as close to body language and facial suggestion as a voice could get Peary was so effective and Gildersleeve became so familiar a character that he was referenced and satirized periodically in other comedies and in a few