What’s It All About?
When the show first started, it revolved around well-to-do, happily married couple Liz and George Cugat, later changed to Cooper. Liz and George lived in Sheridan Falls at 321 Bundy Drive. The were billed as “Two people who live together and like it.”
The changes after the first few shows were initiated by new writers Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and Jess Oppenheimer, names you might recognize from a little show called I Love Lucy. The changes were made to make the couple more accessible to the listeners. In addition to the name change, the couple’s life style changed from a well-to-do banker and his social butterfly wife to a middle-class couple. The new writers thought that most listeners did not identify with a rich banker couple.
Many of the plots revolve around Liz trying to get one over on George or George doing something to make Liz crazy. For example, in the first episode, instead of taking Liz out to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary in style, George takes Liz to a party to see his old girlfriend which doesn’t go over very well.
Gale Gordon played George’s banker boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was Atterbury’s wife and Liz’s best friend, Iris. There were several wives versus husbands plots during the show’s run often with hilarious results. For example, In one of the episodes from 1950, the Atterbury’s get a new car but Rudolph refuses to teach Iris how to drive. Ever so helpful, Liz offers to teach Iris how to drive and you can imagine how the story goes from there.
There were many domestic comedies on the radio at the time such as My Good Wife, Burns and Allen, Father Knows Best, and Fibber McGee and Molly. Many of the shows were very popular like Fibber McGee and Molly but there were critics who thought that there were too many of the shows that were a pale reflection of shows like My Favorite Husband or Fibber McGee and Molly.
My Favorite Husband was a popular and funny show with a great writing team and great actors. It remained popular until the end of its run on radio.
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