My Friend Irma

My Friend Irma is a media franchise that was spawned by a top-rated, long-running radio situation comedy created by writer-director-producer Cy Howard. The radio show was so popular in the late 1940s that its success escalated the films, television, a comic strip and a comic book that comprise the franchise. Marie Wilson portrayed the title character Irma Peterson on radio, in two films and the television series. The radio series was broadcast on CBS from April 11, 1947 to August 23, 1954. Characters and story Dependable, level-headed Jane Stacy (Cathy Lewis—plus Joan Banks during Lewis' illness in early 1949 and Mary Shipp later) began each weekly radio program by narrating a misadventure of her innocent, bewildered roommate Irma, a scatterbrained stenographer from Minnesota. The two central characters were in their mid-20s. Irma had her 25th birthday in one episode; she was born on May 5. After the two met in the first episode, they lived together in an apartment rented from their Irish landlady Mrs. O'Reilly (Jane Morgan, Gloria Gordon). Irma's boyfriend Al (John Brown) was a deadbeat, barely on the right side of the law, who had not held a job in years. Only someone like Irma could love Al, whose nickname for Irma was "Chicken". Al had many crazy get-rich-quick schemes that never worked. Al planned to marry Irma at some future date so she could support him. Professor Kropotkin (Hans Conried), the Russian violinist at the Princess Burlesque theater, lived upstairs. He greeted Jane and Irma with remarks like "My two little bunnies with one being an Easter bunny and the other being Bugs Bunny." The Professor insulted Mrs. O'Reilly, complained about his room, and reluctantly became O'Reilly's love interest in an effort to make her forget his back rent. In 1953, Conried left the program and was replaced by Kenny Delmar as his cousin Maestro Wanderkin. Irma worked for the lawyer Mr. Clyde (Alan Reed). She had such an odd filing system that once when Clyde fired her, he had to hire her back again because he couldn't find anything. Useless at dictation, Irma mangled whatever Clyde dictated. Asked how long she had been with Clyde, Irma said, "When I first went to work with him he had curly black hair, then it got grey, and now it's snow white. I guess I've been with him about six months."