My Friend Irma

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Marie Wilson as Irma

My Friend Irma, created by writer-director-producer Cy Howard, was a top-rated, long-run radio situation comedy, so popular in the late 1940s that its success escalated to films and television, while Howard scored with another radio comedy hit, Life with Luigi.

Dependable and level-headed Jane Stacy (Diana Lynn) started each radio programme by narrating a misadventure of her innocent and bewildered room mate, Irma Peterson (Marie Wilson), a dim-bulb stenographer. Wilson portrayed the character on radio, in two films and a TV series. The girls were mid twenties (Irma had her 25th birthday in one episode - she was born on 5th May) and lived together in Mrs Riley's (later Mrs O'Riley) apartments, having met in the first episode. Irma had a boyfriend named Al (no surname, played by John Brown and others). He had replaced an earlier boyfriend named Joe. Al was a deadbeat barely on the right side of the law, who hadn't had a job in six years and had no intention of getting one and only someone like Irma could love him. He had many crazy quick rich schemes which would never work and were for laughs. When in trouble, he would call his friend "Hello Joe" (a crook) for answers, which were usually wrong. Al called Irma "Hello Chicken!" This was probably because she was always ripe for "plucking" (taking advantage of). He seemed to have some intention of marrying her at some future date and letting her support him.

Maestro Wandakin appeared as the cousin of Professor Kapokim (who had left to go to California and phoned back a few times), who he replaced though both were written as though the same character. Maestro had no surname for his first few appearances. Lodgers of Mrs O'Riley, the Prof was played by Hans Conried and both at different times lived upstairs. The formula was that he would meet Jane and Irma with remarks like : "My two little bunnies with one (Jane) being an Easter bunny and the other being Bugs Bunny." The professor seemed to have no scientific knowledge and no money but was a part time musician. He always complained about the state of his room and reluctantly became Mrs O'Riley's love interest to try and make her forget about the rent he owned. When he turned up, Mrs O'Riley would be only a minute behind so he could cast disparaging remarks about her age and appearance. Mrs O'Riley sang in an episode and the awful noise she produced got laughs so she sang often after that.

Irma worked for Mr Clyde who was a lawyer and 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. Irma was useless at dictation too and would mangle whatever Clyde dictated to her, giving it a comical meaning when read back. Asked how long she had been with Mr. 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."

Irma became more of a dingaling as time went on and gained an annoying tendency to whine/cry whenever something went wrong which was at least once every show and in the first several minutes. The show was sponsored by Swan Soap and Irma would usually make a silly remark about it so the name could be advertised. Irma was said to be from Minnesota and Jane's love interest was her boss, Mr Rhinelander who seemed to have no real interest in her. He was played by more than one person which gave him different personalities as well as voices. Frank Bingman was the announcer for Swan Soap. Other voice stars included : Gloria Gordon and Bea Benadaret. The programme was also sponsored by EMMD's which got rid of breath and body odours and each tiny capsule was said to contain 100g (nearly four ounces) of chlorophyll, which is a miracle in itself. Also Pepsident sponsored them.

Because of the popularity of the show, early in the series (shows 41-43), a contest was run for the services of Irma/Marie Wilson to act as a secretary for the highest bidder for one day, with her willing to travel anywhere in America. The money was to go to the "March of Dimes", a charity to fight Infantile Paralysis (Polio). Three business men bid $1,000 but the winner was the Coca Cola Bottling Company of Fort Worth, Texas who bid $5,000 to have Irma as their secretary for a day.

The successful radio series with Marie Wilson ran on CBS Radio from April 11, 1947 to August 23, 1954. The TV version, seen on CBS from January 8, 1952 until June 25, 1954, was the first series telecast from the CBS Television City facility in Hollywood.

The film My Friend Irma (1949) starred Marie Wilson and Diana Lynn but is mainly remembered today for introducing Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis to moviegoers, resulting in even more screen time for Martin and Lewis in the sequel, My Friend Irma Goes West (1950).

Atlas Comics (Marvel) had a run of My Friend Irma comics based on the character which lasted from No. 3 to 48 (1950 - 1955). The radio shows are now available on CD.