Planet Podcasts
Radio

The Great Gildersleeve

NBC

NBC · 1903–1957

1483 EpisodesWeeklyPGSince 1903

The run

Network
NBC
Years active
1903–1957
Surviving broadcasts
1483
Genre
comedy

The Great Gildersleeve is a radio situation comedy broadcast from August 31, 1941, to March 21, 1957. Initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, it was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. The series was built around the character Throckmorton P.

1946 · 11945 · 31944 · 21943 · 21942 · 21941 · 11903 · 1

Restoration quality — measured from the surviving files

Clean transfer · 10 of 40Listenable · 3 of 40Rough but complete · 27 of 40

Source collection

Internet Archive audio collections

Rights

Public domain — no renewed US copyright

Cataloguing

Air dates and notes from the Archive item record

Every broadcast below carries its own provenance sheet — transfer quality, file source and rights.Archive record: Otrr_The_Great_Gildersleeve_Singles

The shape of the run

What survives, year by year

12 dated broadcasts across 55 years on the air, with 48 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.

JFMAMJJASOND
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
Clean transferListenableRough but complete No surviving recording

Episodes

Start here

Listen to the run in order

Restored broadcasts from 1903, in original transmission order.

  1. 1. Gildy's Dream - Summerfield 1903 · 1 Jan 1903
  2. 2. GG 1941-11-23 ep013 Leroy Smokes a Cigar · 23 Nov 1941
  3. 3. Writes to Servicemen · 29 Mar 1942
  • 01

    Gildy's Dream - Summerfield 1903

    1 Jan 1903 · 29 min

    Transferred from the Internet Archive item “Otrr_The_Great_Gildersleeve_Singles”, part of the Old Time Radio Researchers public-domain collections.

  • 02

    GG 1941-11-23 ep013 Leroy Smokes a Cigar

    23 Nov 1941 · 29 min

    Originally broadcast on NBC, 23 November 1941. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

  • 03

    Writes to Servicemen

    29 Mar 1942 · 29 min

    Originally broadcast on NBC, 29 March 1942. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

  • 04

    GG 1942-10-11 ep051 The First Cold Snap

    11 Oct 1942 · 29 min

    Originally broadcast on NBC, 11 October 1942. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

  • 05

    Sabotage

    24 Jan 1943 · 29 min

    Originally broadcast on NBC, 24 January 1943. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

  • 06

    GG 1943-06-27 ep088 Gildys Wedding

    27 Jun 1943 · 29 min

    Originally broadcast on NBC, 27 June 1943. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

  • 07

    GG 1944-02-06 ep112 Sleigh Ride

    6 Feb 1944 · 28 min

    Originally broadcast on NBC, 6 February 1944. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

  • 08

    Election Day

    25 Jun 1944 · 29 min

    Originally broadcast on NBC, 25 June 1944. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

Same night on the air

23 Nov 1941

Everything else the archive still holds from the night of 23 Nov 1941.

The Shadow
The Shadow cover art
The Shadow

The Shadow 1941-11-23 (233) The Ring of Light

23 Nov 1941 · 29 min

Transferred from the Internet Archive item “the-shadow-1938-10-09-141-death-stalks-the-shadow”, part of the Old Time Radio Researchers public-domain collections.

The Dinah Shore Show
The Dinah Shore Show cover art
The Dinah Shore Show

DinahShoreShow-1941.11.23 somebody Loves Me

23 Nov 1941 · 12 min

Originally broadcast on Syndicated, 23 November 1941. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

Screen Guild Theater
Screen Guild Theater cover art
Screen Guild Theater

Screen Guild Theater 1941-11-23 (92) If You Could Only Cook

23 Nov 1941 · 29 min

Originally broadcast on Syndicated, 23 November 1941. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).

Also on NBC

NBC in 1903–1957

Other series the network carried while The Great Gildersleeve was on the air.

Same seasons

comedy on the air then

Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.

What it became

Friends in front of a microphone

Jack Benny and Fibber McGee sold intimacy: recurring characters, in-jokes, a house style. The modern hang-out show is the same trick without the script.

Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.

Descendants

Working in the tradition of The Great Gildersleeve

Modern series carrying this form forward.

If you liked this

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