The makers of Johnson’s Wax welcome you to Cigarephemera: A night thread about obscure stuff Cigarette likes! Part of 1 of ♾️. Tonight’s episode: Fibber McGee & Molly. With over 1600 episodes to their name over a quarter century, the Wistful Vista duo make the Gang look like a bunch of layabouts.

Along with Jim Jordan and Marian Driscoll Jordan, the show featured The Lucy Show‘s Gale Gordon as the long-suffering Mayor La Trivia, Harold Peary as Throckmorton Gildersleeve (who would receive his own spin-off), and Bill “Droopy” Thompson as both milquetoast Wallace Wimple and the Old Timer, who always got Fibber’s goat. The show also spun off the character Beulah, voiced originally by a white man (much to the surprise of studio audiences) but later portrayed on screen by Gone with the Wind‘s Hattie McDaniel.

While it was one of the most formulaic sitcoms you would ever hear, the combination of wordplay, catchphrases (“You’re a haaaard man, McGee” “That ain’t the way I heared it!”), running gags (the stuffed-to-bursting closet), and the loving but strained interplay between husband and wife really makes it quite the comfort listen.