Dirty Politics (Aired March 17, 1950)


The Halls of Ivy was an NBC radio sitcom that ran from 1950-1952. It was created by Fibber McGee & Molly co-creator/writer Don Quinn before being adapted into a CBS television comedy (1954-55) produced by ITC Entertainment and Television Programs of America. Quinn developed the show after he had decided to leave Fibber McGee & Molly. The audition program featured radio veteran Gale Gordon (then co-starring in Our Miss Brooks) and Edna Best in the roles that ultimately went to British husband-and-wife actors Ronald Colman and Benita Hume. The Colmans had shown a flair for radio comedy in recurring roles on The Jack Benny Program in the late 1940s, and they landed the title roles in the new show. The Halls of Ivy featured Colman as William Todhunter Hall, the president of small, Midwestern Ivy College, and his wife, Victoria, a former British musical comedy star who sometimes felt the tug of her former profession, and followed their interactions with students, friends and college trustees. Others in the cast included Herbert Butterfield as testy Clarence Wellman, Willard Waterman (then starring as Harold Peary's successor as The Great Gildersleeve) as John Merriweather, and Elizabeth Patterson and Gloria Gordon as the Halls' maid.

THIS EPISODE:

March 17, 1950. NBC network. Sponsored by: Schlitz Beer. Is "Dirty Politics aka: Willow Walk" a lover's lane or a den of vice? Dr. Hall battles P. T. Grainger, a machine politician. Benita sneezes on cue in the script, but must have sprayed someone as the audience cracks up. Ronald Colman, Benita Hume, Ken Carpenter (announcer), Edwin Max, Eleanor Audley, Herb Butterfield, Henry Russell (composer, conductor), Walter Brown Neuman (writer), Don Quinn (creator, writer), Nat Wolff (director). 28:43. Episode Notes From The Radio Gold Index.