The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Frank Fox

Theme song: “My Little Margie Theme” Alexander Lazlo, re-arranged from Lazlo’s composition “Bows and Strings in Teasing” from the motion picture “The French Key” (13 -35-39-39)

• 001. Reverse Psychology – 6/9/1952
  • Vern Albright (Charles Farrell), a 50-year-old New York City vice-president of the investment firm Honeywell & Todd, is a widower who lives in the Park Carleton hotel with his daughter, the strong-willed 21-year-old Margie (Gale Storm). While Vern laments that he has lost all control over Margie, she worries because he is a bigger playboy than most men half his age. One night he comes home with his current girlfriend Roberta Townsend (Hillary Brooke) at 3am, stopping to check out the newest book Reverse Psychology by Professor D.J. Windsail that the elevator operator Charlie (Willie Best) is reading. Margie is furious when she catches him coming home so late and tells him how much she worries about his heart. In actuality she has her boyfriend Freddie Wilson (Don Hayden) over and has to sneak him out. Vern catches them in the act, and she then blasts Margie because he is certain she can do so much better. Later their housekeeper Mildred (Eileen Stevens) tells her about Windsail’s book since he is one of her other clients, suggesting that the book might help solve Vern’s aversion to Freddie. Elsewhere Vern’s boss George Honeywell (Clarence Kolb) turns Vern onto the same book. That night Margie spends the evening putting Freddie down, while Vern tries to build him up. Vern suggests inviting Freddie over to dinner with him and Roberta. Margie agrees only so she can pretend that she’s breaking it off with him. Vern has an argument with Roberta when she makes plans to leave town to deliver a dress to a wedding in Greenwich for work, even going so far as to end the relationship with her. Margie and Freddie find Vern’s copy of the book, and she realizes that he’s made a fool of her… and speculates that Vern’s breakup isn’t real either. Vern agrees to go to a dog show with Mr. Honeywell since his plans fell through with Roberta, and they all wind up on the same train. When Margie finds out that Vern is going to Greenwich, she also speculates that they are going to get married there. Vern and Roberta run into each other on the train and make up, and when Margie spots them, it solidifies in her mind that they plan to marry. She removes her necklace and hides it in Freddie’s pocket, then tells the conductor that Vern had stolen her necklace to get him arrested and thus stop the wedding. Vern goes to look for Honeywell to identify him, and inadvertently sets free all of the dogs he brought for the dog show. Once the chaos dies down, they all sit down and agree to no more reverse psychology… except for Freddie who has been arrested when it was discovered that he had possession of the ‘stolen’ necklace. 6/18/20

• 002. A Friend for Roberta – 6/16/1952
  • Margie and Freddie come home from their date late one night, and when Margie asks him to come in, Freddie expresses concern that if Vern catches him, he’ll throw him out. Margie tells him that he is out with Roberta and won’t be home soon. She is concerned about his dating her because he always stays out too late trying to impress her by living the wild life. They do in fact come home early because after seeing the new Angio Piazza (Douglass Dumbrille) show in the theater, they go into an argument over whether he is a good actor or not. Much to Freddie’s surprise, Vern doesn’t throw him out but rather asks him to side with him in stating that he thinks Piazza is a bum. This enrages Roberta and she storms out, and then Vern turns on Freddie and throws him out. Margie gets an idea how to get rid of Roberta by hooking her up with Piazza himself. She calls Piazza and claims that she is producer Morton Warnock’s (William E. Green) secretary and invites him to a cocktail party. She then calls Warnock, claiming to be Piazza’s secretary and does the same. Piazza isn’t so much interested in meeting Warnock, but more in the girl who called him. When he meets Margie at the party, he becomes attracted to her. She tries to tell him that she wants to introduce him to another woman, and he invites her to his place to talk about it. She later gets into a fight with her father and tells her that she is a full-grown 21-year-old and rubs it in his nose that she’s going on a date with Piazza. the Albrights’ neighbor Mrs. Odetts (Gertrude W. Hoffman), who is smitten by Piazza and was invited to Margie’s party, tells both Vern and Freddie that Margie is on a date with Piazza, which sends them both to Piazza’s apartment to retrieve her. Margie figures out that Piazza is actually interested in her when he kisses her unexpectedly. Vern poses a a room service waiter and does everything he can to interrupt their meal. Freddie shows up as a janitor who offers to fix the phone. Mrs. Odetts brings groceries since she knew Piazza would have unexpected guests. In the chaos, Piazza demands Freddie and Vern leave and pushes Vern onto the service cart. Margie reacts by punching him in the eye. Everyone leaves and makes up, all gathering at Vern and Margie’s place to watch TV. When the announcer (John Milton Kennedy) introduces Angio Piazza on the Hour of Symphonic Charm, he appears with a full shiner on his eye. 6/22/20
• 003. Radioactive Margie – 6/23/2952
  • Margie insists that Freddie demand a job from her father, so he agrees to play it rough. When Vern comes home after a hard day of work, Freddie grabs him by the tie and throws him into a chair and demands a job at the firm. Vern explodes on him and sends him running, telling Margie that at least if he hasn’t backed down, he would have known that Freddie had gumption. Mrs. Odetts advises Margie that if only Freddie had some courage – false or not – he could perform better. Margie presents Freddie with a box of dirt and tells him that she had it taken from some land in Arizona that he had inherited, and it is full of uranium. Freddie immediately starts to think about life as a rich man, but Margie reminds him that he needs to make some money to have his land professionally reviewed. Freddie again goes and demands a job at Honeywell & Todd, but Honeywell and Vern throw him out. However, when they overhear that has uranium, they hire him on the spot. They then start to suspect that Margie set the whole thing up, so they hire a metallurgist (George Pembroke) to come review the dirt with his Geiger Counter. Sure enough, it is worthless, so they decide to play a joke on Margie by get the metallurgist posing as Mr. Wessler from Washington to convince Margie that she is radioactive from touching the dirt. She is naturally worried… until Mrs. Odetts calls her and tells her that she overheard Honeywell discussing the joke on her before they went into the apartment. Margie then feigns that she is going to commit suicide at Satan’s Cliff. She also calls the police to be on the lookout for three maniacs looking for an imaginary radioactive girl. The two cops (Peter Leeds and Bob Carraher) take the men and throw them in jail overnight. The next morning, Vern is still angry about the whole thing… and even throws out Freddie, who still thinks he is rich.
• 004. Margie Sings Opera – 6/30/1952
  • Margie is all set to go to a dude ranch with her father, but he is forced by Mr. Honeywell to skip the trip so that he can help woo a client named Mrs. Stegmuller (Florence Bates) who is about to be stolen by investment competitor Conway-Staab, who notoriously impress clients with celebrities. Meanwhile, Margie is visited by her friend from Alabama Ginny Clark (Gloria Eaton), who asks that Margie pose as her and step into her place to entertain a friend of her father’s, famed Italian opera singer Anthony Branchetti (Fortunio Bonanova). Margie poses as Ginny and writes notes about her family on her palms so she can convince him. Her real goal is to introduce him to Mrs. Stegmuller and win her over as a client for her father. All goes well and she arranges to have a party at her apartment, but when the Ginny’s father Tom (Marshall Bradford) comes to see Branchetti unexpectedly, Margie is revealed to be a fraud. She enlists Mrs. Odetts to help her transform herself into Branchetti, using a bald wig, fake beard, and inflatable fat suit. She manages to fool Mrs. Stegmuller, even after the suit gets punctured and she repairs it with chewed gum. She even recovers when she lip-syncs to the opera song Funiculi Funicula and it starts to skip. But when she accidentally begins inflating the fat suit and it explodes, it spoils the illusion, and Mrs. Stegmuller becomes angry and embarrassed, vowing never to work with Honeywell & Todd again. Fortunately, Ginny brings the real Branchetti to the apartment, and he charms Mrs. Segmuller into forgiving all. 1/22/21 
• 005. Margie’s Sister Sally – 7/7/1952
  • Margie has been babysitting Mrs. Odetts’ out-of-control granddaughter (Sheila James), but agrees not to tell her grandmother how bad she behaved if she promises to refuse to allow Margie to babysit her again. Meanwhile Margie tries to push Freddie to get tickets to the International Ball. Vern however wants Margie to entertain the son of an old friend Wesley Charlton who used to take care of him when he was in England. When he shows an old picture of Wesley Jr. to her, it is a deal breaker because he looks homely and goofy. Since Vern insists, Margie bribes Norma Jean to let her use her clothes and skates and tries to pass herself off as an 11-year-old. However, when she sees Wesley (Ron Randell), she is shocked how good looking he is now. What’s more, he plans to take her to the International Ball. She immediately tries to undo the damage by telling Wesley that she has an older sister named Sally who is going to go out with him. Norma Jean asks for $5 to tell Wesley the truth, and Vern overhears him being told. He and Wesley team up to teach Margie a lesson by having her change back and forth between Sally and Margie. He also insists on taking Sally to the fair, where she is pursued by a young boy (Tom Mann) who wants to go steady with her. Freddie also spots Wesley with Margie, and becomes jealous, stalking them wherever they go. Margie decides to tell him the truth and asks he father to out so she can be alone with Wesley. He refuses because he wants to watch an old Charlie Farrell movie that’s playing on TV. Before she can tell him the truth, he insists on seeing Margie. He goes into her bedroom, and while he is there, Norma Jean and Freddie, dressed as a little boy himself, come to play with ‘Margie’. Wesley emerges from the room and claims he has tucked in the little girl, and they head off to the ball. 1/22/21
• 006. Costume Party – 7/14/1952
  • Roberta’s old friend Frank Cragg (Roy Roberts) has been tagging along on her dates with Vern, constantly bragging about his big game hunting exploits. They are clearly in competition for her affection, but she doesn’t seem to realize it. Meanwhile, Vern gets an invitation to attend Mr. Honeywell’s masquerade party. Although Margie wants to go, Vern is resistant to attend. Honeywell wants him there as well as there will be a lot of business cohorts attending. Honeywell and Margie scheme to have Roberta ask Frank to escort her, while Margie says she’ll bring Freddie along. With those two there, Vern suddenly feels like he has to go, and while Roberta has already asked Frank to go, Vern decides to attend wearing a suit of armor. Roberta is anxious for him to come also and brings a clown costume to his apartment that will match hers. Roy comes as a big game hunter, and all parties convene at Vern and Margie’s apartment. A burglar named Jimmy Potts (William Newell) has read about the party in the society section of the paper and has decided to rob the houses of folks on the guest list. He breaks into Vern’s place while they are all still there and puts on the spare costume that Roberta had brought along for Vern. Frank tries to romance the robber, thinking that he is Roberta. Finally, Vern identifies him as the robber, and all of the men chase him around the apartment. Eventually he knocks himself out on Vern’s armor… as does Frank. Vern and Roberta head off to the party, while Frank nurses his wound and brags about a tiger he just shot, which turns out to be a porcelain figure in the apartment. 10/5/20
• 007. Margie Plays Detective – 7/21/1952
  • Mrs. Odetts is trying to avoid a man and woman, and then goes into Margie’s apartment and hides something inside one of her records. Meanwhile Margie is excited that father is going to take her to Havana for a business deal, so she decides to walk the straight and narrow line and behave so he doesn’t change his mind. She even sends Freddie home early so Vern doesn’t get irritated. However the mystery couple sneaks into Margie’s place to search the hall closet, and then Freddie returns to grab his hat, gets punched by the man, and dragged into the closet. Vern finds Freddie in the closet, and gets angry because he’s convinced that Margie was hiding him there, and because he thinks she lied, decides not to take her. The woman leaves the closet and is spotted by Roberta, but when she questions Vern, he denies that any woman was in the apartment. Margie plays it up to make it sound like Vern must be lying to Roberta, to make a point about him not believing her. Margie decides to play detective and try to figure out who has been sneaking in and enlists Freddie to help. He immediately gets punched again when he checks the closet. Vern and Mr. Honeywell decide to have a going away party for his clients Mr. Maderra (Fortuni0 Bonanova) and his wife (Poppy del Vondo), and invite the to come over and let themselves in if he isn’t there yet. Margie and Freddie then think they are the prowlers, and Freddie punches Honeywell when he arrives just after the Maderra do. Honeywell then punches Maderra, Maderra punches Honeywell, Margie punches Maderra, Honeywell punches Freddie, and then Honeywell calls the police. Vern and Roberta finally arrive at the party and run into Mrs. Odetts and her grandchildren Maurine (Gloria Talbott) and David (Malcolm Mealey), who were the two who had broken in to find the Power of Attorney form that Mrs. Odetts had hidden in the Albright’s apartment. In order to keep Vern out of trouble, Margie knocks out Freddie so that they can blame him for being the prowler so that the Maderra’s will move forward with the business deal. The police arrive and take Freddie away, and Margie thanks him profusely for taking the heat. 5/20/21
• 008. Insurance – 7/28/1952
  • Vern and Mr. Honeywell are trying to score a business deal with the eccentric Mr. (Charles Evans) and Mrs. Lamont P. Hartford (Florence Lake), Vern has been boning up birds, which Mrs. Hartford loves, and health foods the Mr. Hartford is into. Vern’s broker Whitlock calls to tell him that Amalgamated Merchandising is going up in smoke and he has got them out of their investment before it costs them $600,000. Honeywell advises Vern to update his insurance policy, while Vern decides to start living a healthier lifestyle, Margie however believes that they lost money from Amalgamated, and when Vern mentions not eating and not taking a cab home, he tries to tell her that it’s for his health, but Margie thinks he has gone broke. Both Margie and Freddie start treating him tenderly, and Vern can’t understand why. They even think he’s trying to kill himself when he attempts to fix the awning on balcony, so Margie hires Professor Nelson (Byron Foulger) to come over and check out Vern’s state-of-mind without Vern knowing. She also put the apartment up for rental and starts to move their belongings out. Freddie proposes to Margie so that he can support her, but Margie says she’ll need to take care of her father first. Famous wrestler Luscious Lou (George Givot) and his wife (Valerie Vernon) come to look at the apartment, as Honeywell tells Vern that the Hartfords are on their way to his apartment to stay there in order to put the deal over. Professor Nelson also shows up to secretly examine Vern, and when he starts exercising and playing bird calls because he thinks that Luscious Lou is Lamont Hartford, he does in fact appear to be crazy. Margie asks Luscious Lou to not let anyone in to see Vern, so when the Hartfords arrive, Lou throws them out, causing Mr. Hartford to say he’s not doing any business with Honeywell & Todd. When Honeywell shows up and tries to get Mr. Hartford inside, Lou throws both of them out. Honeywell arrives with the police, and eventually the truth is revealed about who everyone is and what is going on. Margie delivers a heartfelt apology to Mr. Hartford, but he thinks it is all an act. However, Mrs. Hartford is so touched by Margie’s willingness to help her father, that she assures them that all will be fine, since it is her who signs the checks. 5/20/21
• 009. Margie’s Mink – 8/11/1952
  • Margie receives a mink coat in the mail, but the store calls quickly afterward and lets her know it was delivered by mistake. The real owner Saiyid Nasif (Victor Millan), a U.N delegate from Barabia, wants to come and retrieve it himself. Meanwhile, Margie is still mad at her father from the night before when he set Freddie home because they were a minute late getting in from their date. Vern tries to tell her that he’s looking out for her because she is his little girl, so Margie tries to con him into believing that a man gave her the mink coat. Vern initially accuses Freddie and Mr. Honeywell of giving it to her, thinking that Honeywell wants to use Margie to convince him to do something. When it turns out to be neither of them, he becomes obsessed in finding out who it was, sending Freddie to investigate. Nasif comes to get the coat that he had bought for his sister, but winds up attracted to Margie and offers to let her keep it. Margie declines the coat, but accepts an invitation to lunch, and then asks to borrow the coat for a few days. She also does her father a favor and asks Saiyid to use Vern as his financial investor. Saiyid’s acquaintance Kalif Whadi (Sol Gorss), who hails from the dangerous Whadi family, tells Saiyid that it would be a disgrace for Sayid to court Margie. Freddie finds out that the coat came from Saiyid, so Vern then declines Saiyid’s business. Saiyid admits that he is courting Margie and wants to marry her. Vern plans a scheme to dress up like a Barabian assassin who wants to kill her, and then allow Freddie to save the day by punching him… all so he will look better to Margie, and it will keep Margie from marrying him. However, before Vern can get to the apartment dressed up as a Barabian, Whadi shows up with a knife and really does try to kill her. Freddie tries to stop him, but it is finally Margie who knocks him out. When Freddie removes his mask and sees that he is not Vern, he passes out himself… while Whadi escapes. Vern then shows up, and Freddie, thinking it is still Whadi, attacks Verne and knocks him out. When he comes to, Vern throws Freddie out, and Margie tells her father she never had any intention of marrying Saiyid. 9/13/21
• 010. Efficiency Expert – 8/18/1952
  • When Margie tells her father she’s having Freddie over for dinner, Vern goes through his usual spiel on why he doesn’t want Freddie dating her. This time though he sticks to minor annoyances like the way he spills things in Vern’s lap, always seems to smash his hat, and always keeps him from reading the paper. Sure enough, Freddie manages to do all of these things before Margie finally tells him to go home. Vern tell her he’s like to see her with someone who is ambitious, aggressive, and affirmative, and a. When Margie stops in to see Vern at the office, the secretary Betty Fuller (Charmienne Harker) tells her that he’s gone home because he was so stressed by the efficiency expert, Mr. Albright’s nephew Dillard Crumbly III (Alvy Moore) who is onsite driving everyone crazy with his militant behavior. Margie gets the idea to attract him since he is ambitious, aggressive, and affirmative so that she can bring him home to Vern and surprise him. After spending the entire evening with him being driven even more crazy, Roberta points out to Vern that Margie is clearly doing this to make Freddie look good. Vern takes revenge by suggesting to Dillard that he’d like to see him get married to Margie, so he comes over and proposes that they have they get married and have the wedding the next day. At this point, Margie realizes she’s been had, so she calls a truce with her father, and the two of them then plot a way to get rid of Dillard. On their wedding day, he shows up in the morning, and is fed a 30-second breakfast. That is, Vern and Margie suspend all of the food with strings over the kitchen table, and then pass the food back and forth so that they can serve it and eat it within 30 seconds. But when Dillard and Margie attempt to do this together so he can get used to Margie’s meals, he winds up covered in food and milk. He decides he can’t go through with the wedding because he’s not efficient enough after all. Once he is gone, Margie tries to bring Freddie back into the picture, to Vern’s irritation. 9/13/21
• 011. The Hooded Vern – 8/25/1952
  • Margie laments to her father that convention won’t allow her to ask out an FBI agent named Norman Masterson (Richard Simmons) who she’s been eyeing at a restaurant. Mrs. Odetts sees a way around this, advising her to act suspicious around him and causing him to have to investigate her, hopefully staring with him inviting her to dinner. Margie comes into the restaurant using a Russian accent and then buying a flower from Mrs. Odetts after some phony code words are used. She does in fact rouse Norman’s suspicions and he takes the ladies’ info back to his partner Bradley. (Paul McGuire). When they are both found to be clean, Bradley postulates that Margie was just trying to meet him. Norman goes through with pretending to be a phone repairman, while Margie continues with her spy ruse, but Margie still cannot get him to commit to a date. Norman gets with Vern and they both agree that she needs taught a lesson. Norman has his friend, who goes by the name of Seven (Otto Waldis) approach Margie and mistake her for a real spy named The Countess, then ask her to meet at a location to get further instructions from The Leader. Margie reports this back to Norman and admits that this had started as a joke. Norman asks her to go along with it as this might help him stop a spy ring. The Leader, who is actually Vern, tells Margie that Seven will be delivering a capsule containing the world’s most explosive powder. That night Seven brings her the capsule, but the ‘real’ Countess (Teresa Tudor) shows up and demands that Margie hand over the capsule. To ensure they can’t get it, she puts it in her mouth. Norman then enters and ‘shoots’ both of the spies, causing Margie to swallow the capsule. Vern and Norman act as if she is going to explode at any minute, so they lay her on cushions on the floor, then pretend that they must operate on her. Seven and the Countess then reappear and say they’d like to watch the surgery, just before all parties break down laughing at Margie. She then tells them that the capsule she ate was a concentrated hair dye capsule if they got it out of her medicine cabinet. Norman then apologizes profusely, while Vern promises to buy her a car if she comes out of this. Margie then has the last laugh as she accepts a date with Norman…nd accepts Vern’s offer for the car. Diane Fauntelle is the waitress. 3/12/22
• 012. The Contract – 9/1/1952
  • With Roberta out of town, Vern and Margie plan to have a nice family dinner alone, but the Mr. Honeywell insists that he take out client Helen Chaney (Alix Tolton) like he had done the previous year. Meanwhile, Margie is planning to have Freddie join her and her father for lunch, but then finds out that her father has to cancel the dinner date. Furthermore, Margie gets a call from Bill Watson (Cliff Ferre), who claims that he had a date to have dinner at her apartment that night, having made it on a speedboat when she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Margie then sees that Roberta has gotten back into town early and finds out from her that she is planning on having dinner with Vern. Margie borrows Mrs. Odetts’ housekeeper Mildred and plots to have dinner with Freddie in the den, and with Bill on the cold, windy terrace, while Vern has dinner with Roberta in the living room, and with Helen in the dining room. She has Mrs. Odetts’ periodically alternate between ringing the doorbell and the phone to give her and her father an excuse to leave one person and join the other. As they run this routine several times, Mr. Honeywell shows up to check on the status of the contract. He spends most of his time answering the phone and trying to catch the person who is ringing the bell and then running away. When he finally catches Mrs. Odetts’, she screams and draws everyone to the entry way. Freddie is furious when he sees Bill and tries to fight him. Roberta is furious to see Helen, while Helen feels insulted and refuses to sign the contract. After Helen and Bill leave, Margie and Freddie make up, as do Vern and Roberta. Mr. Honeywell shows back up to show Albright that he had what it took to get the contracts signed after all… and shows him the lipstick smudges on his face from Helen. Sandy Sanders is the cowboy on TV, 3/12/22 
• 013. Vern’s Chums – 9/8/1952
  • Vern has a bad day at work when Mr. Honeywell bothers him to tell him that now that they’ve had a record-setting month at the firm but to not rest on his laurels. He wants Vern to bring him in a new account for the new Benson Foundation. Then Margie comes in asking for money, and Honeywell not only encourage him to give it to her but throws in that he should buy her some jewelry too. It sets him off even more that she wants money to buy a new dress for dinner with Freddie. At dinner that night with Roberta, she sees how upset Vern is, and tells him that he should try just being nice to Freddie. He takes her advice, and when he goes home, he tells Freddie he’s welcome to stay and finish playing a game with Margie. They are both surprised, and Margie mentions how hard Mr. Honeywell was on Vern about the account. Freddie mentions that his father Stephen (Harry Hayden) is the chairman of that particular account. She says he should help his father get the account by inviting his parents over for dinner. When Vern finds out the next day, and then he sees that Margie has asked to borrow ring sizer from the jeweler, he gets more irritated by Freddie again, thinking this is the beginning of marriage plans. Meanwhile, two of his old friends and Vaudeville performers, Chauncey (Harry Tyler) and the Dodger (Harry Brown) stop by Vern’s office to borrow five dollars, He gets the idea to invite them to the dinner in order to irritate Freddie’s parents and make a bad impression. Margie is aghast when they show up, but Freddie tells her that her mother Trixie (Lela Bliss) loves that sort of thing. In fact, it turns out that she had her own seal act in Vaudeville. Mr. Wilson and his wife have so much fun that he tells Vern to call his office as soon as the announcement is made about the Benson Foundation. 7/15/22

SEASON 2

• 017. The Missing Link – 10/25/1952
  • Margie wants to invest her $400 but isn’t impressed with her father’s recommendation that it will only yield a four percent return. Margie seeks out fly-by-night broker Edward Kinka (Dick Elliott) in hopes of tripling her money. Kinka ends up selling her the contract to a wrestler named Willie Walker (George Givot). Verne is aghast to come home and find Willie practicing in their living room, and even more so when he finds out that Margie is not responsible for housing and feeding him. Margie tries to book him with matchmaker J.D. Toomey (Herb Vigran), but he thinks that Willie doesn’t have the personality to draw fans. Margie arranges a press junket to introduce Willie as “The Missing Link” between man and ape, whose one major skill is professional wrestling. Margie gets him a match against Scottish wrestler Sir MacGregor (Frank Jares). Vern wants to teach Margie a lesson about getting into wrestling, so when he finds out from Willie that he has a big heart and will purposely lose to wrestlers with hardships, he tips off MacGregor. Willie is winning in the match until MacGregor tells him about his sick sister, and then starts losing. Margie knows that Willie gets upset when any man kisses her, so she runs in the ring and has MacGregor kiss her. Willie gets furious and throws MacGregor out of the ring… right on top of Vern. Margie later tells he father that she’s quit the wrestling game and traded Willie’s contract for a prize fighter. Frank J. Scannell and Ralph Brooks are reporters. 11/20/15
• 019. Who’s Married?  – 1/1/1953
  • Freddie has lost another job, this time at the pickle factory, for taking a long lunch while watching a toy salesman sell him a moving metal figure, and then damaging the time clock trying set it backwards. Margie doesn’t want Vern to find out, but when he comes home and finds the toy, he knows it must belong to Freddie, who is hiding behind a door in their den. Vern calls him out, and Freddie sings like a canary about his job. Vern tells him that he can’t date Margie again until he’s held a job for three straight months. He mentions that jobs are easy to come by, and tells him about one of his clients, Mr. Peterson (Paul Maxey), who is hiring at Peterson Jet Engine Company. Freddie gets hired but can’t get the job as an accountant unless he is married. Margie, who has gone along with him, says that they are in fact married. In the other room, Mr. Peterson is sitting with Vern and wants to show him an example of one of the married men that they hired, to show how well his strategy of only giving high-level jobs to married men works. The personnel manager (Jack Rice) sends Freddy and Margie to see Mr. Peterson, but when Margie sees her father, she faints without Vern seeing who they are. Mr. Peterson assumes that Margie is expecting due to her fainting. When a company investigator (Ralph Brooks) comes to see Roberta as a reference check for Freddie, she and Vern find out from him that Freddie is married. Vern calls to verify this, and the personnel manager also informs him that Margie is expecting. Vern is initially furious, but softens when Roberta reminds him that he has been too tough on Freddie for him to ask for permission to marry Margie. When he thinks about becoming a grandfather, he decides to soften on Freddie, buy them a roomful of baby supplies, and hire him to work for Honeywell & Todd. Vern and Roberta also talk about how they couldn’t keep it a secret from Margie if they were married to each other. Mrs. Odetts overhears this and thinks that Roberta and Vern are married. Margie and Freddie are suspicious about why Vern is being so nice to them, so they ask Mrs. Odetts if she’s heard in any gossip. She tells them that Vern and Roberta are secretly married, and when they come home with all of the new baby items, Margie assumes that they are expecting. Margie has all of Roberta’s stuff moved into their apartment, while she tells them that she plans to move into Roberta’s smaller apartment. After much confusion about who is married and who is having a baby, it finally becomes clear that neither of them are either. Vern is furious about the mix-up and immediately fires Freddie. As they scuffle out into the hallway, Charlie returns with a celebratory cake, which winds up atop Vern’s head. Fred Sherman is the clerk in the baby department. 12/21/23
• 020. New Neighbors – 1/8/1953
  • While Vern is away in Boston, Mr. Honeywell lines up a new client named Harvey Lane (John Hubbard), and Westley Todd (George Meader), Mr. Albright’s partner, suggests that they rent the apartment above Vern and Margie’s place for him to stay in so they can keep him close as they get ready to close the deal when Vern returns. It turns out that Lane likes to work out, and he ends up making so much noise that Margie phones him and reads him the riot act. Vern comes home early from his trip and overhears Margie yelling at him on the phone. He tells her that she is being overly critical and that she needs to recognize that everyone must live in harmony on this planet. However, that night when Lane takes his shower with the radio blasting and singing at the top of his lungs, he too feels the need to call Lane. He tries to be diplomatic, but Lane has already had his feathers ruffled by Margie. They get into an escalating war of making noise, and eventually Vern goes upstairs to talk to him in person… and gets immediately punched in the face. The next day, Vern heads out of town again, but tells Margie that they are going to get revenge on him that night. Before he leaves, he asks Margie to drop off some papers at his office. When she arrives there, she meets Harvey Lane face to face. Since they’ve never actually met, they begin flirting with each other between yawns. The spend the morning together, and they are both surprised when they realize they live in the same apartment. When he walks her to her floor, he points out the apartment where the people lived whom he quarreled with the night before. Margie then realizes that it is Lane who lives above them, so she tells him that the Andersons live in their apartment, and she claims to live with Mrs. Odetts. Margie goes up to see his appointment, and while she is there, Vern comes home with some powerful speakers and records of sound effects. He blasts an auto accident and incoming jet engines toward Lane’s apartment. He wants to fight the ‘Andersons’, but Margie says she will go down to talk to them and try to make peace. While she is there, Mr. Honeywell shows up at Lane’s apartment and wants to take him down to introduce him to Albright. Lane then discovers that the ‘Anderson’ apartment belongs to Vern and Margie, while Margie’s supposed apartment belongs to Mrs. Odetts. When Vern answers the door, Lane acts as if he wants to fight Vern, but then says he will forget the whole thing if Vern gives him permission to date his daughter. Mr. Honeywell is still puzzled over who Anderson is. Barbara Hill is Mr. Honeywell’s secretary Betty Sherman. 12/21/23
• 024. Hollywood Trip – 2/5/1953
  • Vern is planning a trip to Hollywood to meet with Rovan Pictures Studio head Mr. Van Ness (Walter Woolf King). Margie tells Mrs. Odetts she plans to go along so that she can try and break into the movies. Mrs. Odetts like the idea and asks if she can go along with her. However, Vern isn’t too keen on Margie going, thinking that she will cause trouble like normal. Margie convinces him that she only wants to go for the culture like the libraries, Olvera Street, and the La Brea tar pits. He agrees to let her go if she brings along Mrs. Odetts as a chaperone. Margie invites her to come, and she shows up fully packed within seconds. When they arrive at the Hotel Amador, Mrs. Odetts pretends that it is her idea to hang around at the studios to learn about film culture. Mrs. Van Ness arranges for studio guide Jack Winslow (Larry Carr) to show her around. He starts to take her to the soundstage where famous director Andre Duprez (Fritz Feld), known for his discoveries of new talent, is working. Jack thinks better of it since Mr. Duprez doesn’t like strangers on the set, so he takes Margie and Mrs. Odetts to see a horror film set up with a chair that drops people into a pool of water. Margie manages to drop Jack into the water, and then sneaks off to wardrobe and she dresses in a short dress while Mrs. Odetts dresses as a clown. They infiltrate Duprez’s movie set and disrupt it, which ultimately causes Jack to get fired. Margie feels terrible when she finds out, so she comes clean to her father and asks him to help get his job back. Vern talks to Mr. Van Ness, and he not only agrees to re-hire Jack, but to help teach Margie a lesson. He has Duprez convince Margie that he wants her in his picture, and the he puts her through the paces of having knife-thrower Dead Eye (Jim Bannon) throws knives at her, then she gets a big cake in the face, and finally tells her that she had to take a tumble off a trapeze… without a net. Mrs. Odetts overhears Vern, Van Ness, and Jack laughing at her and comenting that they’ll make her never desire to be an actress again. Margie takes Vern to the horror picture room and dumps him in the water. She then sits down and gets dropped in by Jack. He then sits down and Mrs. Odetts dumps him. Vern comments that he’s going to get his hands on Margie and Mrs. Odetts, but first rescues Margie from under the water. Helene Hayden is the trapeze girl. John Close is the assistant director. 4/15/23
• 025. Hillbilly Margie – 2/12/1953
  • Mr. Honeywell sends Vern on a trip to acquire more stock in Consolidated Electric in order for Carruthers to obtain voting control from the Tolliver family, a mountain family in Squirrel Gap. Margie accompanies him on the journey, and they dress and speak like hillbillies themselves in order to appeal to the Tollivers. The meet the backwoods family Paw (John Dierkes), Luke (Robert Easton), Ellie Mae (Virginia Rose), and Grammaw (Nora Busch). The Tollivers take a liking to them, but when they mention buying the stock, the Tollivers become suspicious that they are in cahoots with their rivals the McGrews and insist that they shoot one to prove otherwise. Vern and Margie flee, but they soon get a letter from the Tollivers announcing they are coming to visit to complete the transaction. Margie dresses up the apartment in hillbilly fashion and continues the facade when they show up. After dinner and a square dance, Honeywell shows up with Mr. Carruthers (Charles Halton). The Tollivers mistake them for the McGrews and force them to square dance. The Tollivers have such a good time that they agree to sell the stock – which is pasted on the door they brought from home – and seal the deal by giving Carruthers a swig of moonshine. Roscoe Ates is Zeke. William McCormick is McGrew. 12/28/15
• 029. Trapped Freddie – 3/12/1953
  • Due to a flat tire, Margie doesn’t get home from her date with Freddie until 2am. Although she tries to trick her father by setting back the clock, he catches on and tells her that unless she refrains from seeing Freddie for one month, he will not buy her the car that she wants. Freddie asserts himself and storms over to Margie’s apartment but ends up trapped in the bathroom and then under Vern’s bed when he comes home sick and has to spend the day in bed. Vern starts to think he’s going crazy when Freddie is swiping and eating his food while trapped under the bed. Roberta stops by to check on Vern, and Margie lets her in on their secret. Although Margie plans to sneak him out after her father falls asleep, Freddie’s snores end up waking up Vern. Margie realizes that he is onto them and pulls one last fast one: when Vern puts Freddie in his bed and then tries to ‘reveal’ him, Margie has gotten Charlie to take his place. 2/29/16
• 032. Buried Treasure – 4/2/1953
  • Vern rents a house on Long Island for a two-week getaway. The house is isolated and far from the beach and after a week, Margie becomes bored and is ready to head back to New York City. The mailman (Paul E. Burns) tries to entice her to stay by showing her about the house’s history of gangster activity, as well as a secret panel in the house. He also gives Vern the idea to plan a pirate treasure map to keep her there. The plan backfires when Margie finds the map and begins digging, finding the gold Doubloon that her father has planted, and heads back to the city to get Vern’s boss Mr. Todd to buy the house. He accompanies Margie back to the house and they begin digging, much to Vern’s chagrin. Meanwhile the gangsters who once inhabited the house, Lefty Muller (Ric Roman) and Joe (Joe Devlin) return to the house to claim their stolen buried jewels, which Todd finds first. The gangsters hold everyone hostage while they inventory the jewels. Margie attempts to capture them several ways and is finally successful when she climbs on the roof and falls through a hole and catches them in a net. 2/29/16
• 035. The Newlyweds – 4/23/1953
  • All is going well in the life of the Albrights’ neighbors, newlyweds Richard (Robert Neil) and Norma Calkins (Gloria Henry), until one of Richard’s old girlfriends named Hazel Miller (Tracey Roberts) calls Richard and begins threatening to come by and cause trouble simply because Richard decided to go with a different woman than her. Richard steals away to go talk to Vern and Margie for advice. Richard recalls that he would write both Hazel and Norma the same love letter, both of which he copied from a book. Vern remembers a movie with a similar scenario. He suggests finding another woman to ‘play’ his wife so that when Hazel tries to interfere the fake wife will act as if she doesn’t care at all. Margie, who is annoyed when she realizes that Freddie has been writing her form letters from the same book that Richard used, volunteers to play his wife. When Hazel later shows up to cause trouble, Vern takes Margie to their apartment and tells them that Margie would like to see the scrapbooks that Richard had showed him, then asks that Norma come to his apartment to give him decorating tips as a surprise to Margie. Charlie delays Hazel getting upstairs, and when she arrives everything is in place. However, when Norma goes back to apartment to grabs wallpaper samples, and she kisses Richard in front of Margie, Hazel is quite confused. Hazel also believes that Norma is married to Vern, so when Roberta returns from an out-of-town trip unexpectedly, and Norma sees her kiss Vern, she is even more confused. Freddie then shows up and kisses Margie in front of Richard. Hazel likes the open-mindedness of everyone so much that she moves next door to the Calkins. Margie comes up with a plan to make her want to leave by filling her life with chaos. First Richard calls Hazel in the middle night and asks for Herman. He is caught by Norma and forced to hang up. Then Roberta comes to her apartment looking for Herman, toting a gun and threatening to kill both Herman and her. Two ‘detectives’ in the form of Vern and Freddie then come in and start ripping up pillows supposedly looking for a fortune that Heman hid. Finally, Margie comes dressed in Geisha attire looking for Herman as well. Amidst the chaos, Richard and Norman show up and tell them all that since Norma caught him making the call, he confessed everything… and she is more than understanding about everything. Everyone then leaves, leaving behind a very confused Hazel. Margie calls out Freddie for using the same form letters on her. 11/9/22
• 036. To Health with Yoga – 4/30/1953
  • Margie is reading the book Health with Yoga by Professor Chester Ambrose (Thomas Henry Browne), who also happens to be a potential client of Vern’s. Margie wants Ambrose to speak at her book club, but Vern warns her against it, then finds out that Ambrose is lonely in New York and plans to move to Florida, which stymies both his and Margie’s plans. Margie then pretends to be Amy Perkins from Ambrose’s hometown of Elm Grove and invites him over, roping both Robert and Freddie into pretending that they are studying yoga. The plan works too well when Ambrose has such a good time that he decides to move back to Elm Grove. Margie meets him at lunch to tell him the truth, then finds out her father is also coming. She alternately pretends to be herself and Amy Perkins, as she alternates calling Ambrose and her father away for telephone calls. Eventually they clear up the shenanigans, and Ambrose agrees to speak at the book club, happy to get out of another engagement… which happens to be Margie’s book club as well. 5/26/16
• 037. Young Vern – 5/7/1953
  • Vern’s girlfriend is off on a business trip, but Vern has insisted that she update him on all that she is doing. However, when he gets a note that she has been dancing with younger men all through the trip, Vern starts to feel like he is over the hill before he turns 50. He starts moping around so badly that even Mr. Honeywell comes to Margie to see what they can do to cheer him up. Margie and Mr. Honeywell accompany him to see his barber Joe (Alphonse Martell), and bribe him to dye Vern’s hair, mustache, and eyebrows. As soon as he sees it, he wants it removed, but they offer to take him to dinner, and if he still doesn’t like it after that, Margie promises that she will wash it out for him. Meanwhile, Margie has a friend from France named Suzanne Gilbert (Jacqueline Duval) coming for a visit, and she will be followed by her fiancé Francois (Pepi Lenzi aka Joseph Lenzi). Upon Suzanne’s arrival, Margie asks her to pretend that she has a huge crush on Vern in order to boost his confidence. She says Francois is very jealous, but he won’t be there for a few days. She lays it on think about how much she likes his dark hair and finds him so interesting. Vern decides not to wash out the dye, but tells Margie that she needs to tell her friend that he has a girlfriend, so she will need to learn to live without him. That night he overhears Margie and Suzanne laughing about the joke they pulled on him. He also gets another letter from Roberta, who admits that she really hasn’t had a single date and can’t wait to get home and see Vern. He decides to get back at the girls by pretending that he is now in love with Suzanne as well. The next morning, he gives her a big kiss at the breakfast table. Margie decides to call his bluff and tells him that if he is going to marry Suzanne, then she is going to marry someone on whom she has long had a crush. She then brings in Mr. Honeywell, who now has his hair dyed too. Vern forbids the marriage, but the realizes it is probably another bluff, so he gives his blessing and says they should all head to the chapel together. He swoops up Suzanne in his arms and carries her outside…where they run into Francois. He is immediately jealous and gives both Vern and Honeywell a punch to the face and knocks them out. When Suzanne tells him it is all one big joke, he apologizes and splashes water on the men to wake them up, causing all of the ink to run out of their hair. 7/17/22
• 038. A Horse on Vern – 5/14/1953
  • Vern and Freddie collaborate on trying to get Margie away from newspaper man Don Hadley (Harry Lauter). Vern’s interest is that Margie’s investigative nature is costing him clients, and Freddie is simply jealous. Mr. Honeywell is suspicious that Vern and Freddie are talking, so Freddie tells him that he has a tip on a client with a uranium mine. Their idea is to get Margie to call Don about a story, and by the time he arrives, the story – in this case, a horse in her apartment house – is gone. The plan nearly works, but Margie hears her father and Freddie talking about their ruse. She tells Don about what happened, and they decide to turn the tables. Margie pretends to be crazy after the horse has appeared and disappeared before her eyes. Don has his photographer Bob Porter (George O’Hanlon) pose as a doctor and advise Vern that he needs to play along and pretend there is a horse in the apartment. When Margie pretends to ‘suspect’ him humoring her, the ‘doctor’ tells him to bring the real horse back into the apartment. This nearly ruins another business deal when Honeywell brings over prospective client Mr. McHollister (named McAllister in the credits, Jack Rutherford), who is turned off by the horse in the apartment. Honeywell nearly fires Vern, but then recalls the ‘uranium deal’ that he has been repeatedly pestering Vern about and lets him keep his job. 5/26/16
• 039. Girl Against the World – 5/21/1953
  • Freddie has written a play script called Girl Against the World about a girl named Gwendolyn Lovequist who is disowned by her rich father and is trying to rehabilitate her shoplifting grandmother and help her delinquent cousin Donald extract himself from a life in pool halls. Margie has her father read it, hoping that he can share it with is new client George Schuck Jr. (Robert Lowery), a successful Broadway producer. Meanwhile, Freddie tries to shop the script to producers, all of whom find the script too unbelievable. Mrs. Odetts thinks the script is wonderful and suggests that they get Schuck to believe that the script is completely plausible. Margie likes the idea, so she plants herself outside of Schuck’s office door and poses as Gwendolyn Lovequist, a girl who is following apart and who is prone to all of the same hardships as the character she’s named after. Schuck takes Margie back to her supposed apartment and pretends she is surviving on hard bread. Mrs. Odetts poses as her grandmother, fresh back from a store at which she was shoplifting. Freddie shows up, acting as if he is her cousin Donald, with the attitude to match. Margie tells Schuck that her father disappeared without leaving a trace. Schuck vows to help ‘Gwendolyn’, but his offer is to buy a lunch counter and shoe stand as a place for her to work and raise money. Since the place is so near to Vern’s office, he stops by there and finds Freddie and Mrs. Odetts working there, while Margie hides inside the freezer. Vern is actually impressed that Freddie is trying to work a respectable job shining shoes, and that Mrs. Odetts is starting her own business at her age. The ice man (Jack Shea) shows up and buries Margie in ice. Later, Schuck meets with Vern separately and sees Margie’s picture in his office. On behalf of Gwendolyn and her grandmother, he punches Vern in the race and then throws water on him. When he comes to, Schuck makes his accusations about how he has treated his daughter Gwendolyn Lovequist. This prompts Vern to show Schuck Freddie’s script. Vern agrees to buy the hamburger stand back from Schuck if he promises to help teach her a lesson. That night, Schuck shows up at Vern’s apartment and pretends to read him the riot act again for his treatment of Margie. Schuck then pulls out a gun on Vern, causing Margie to plead with him as he and Vern struggle. They pretend that Schuck is shot and killed, and Vern laments that he’ll be executed for this. When Margie sees her father and Schuck smiling and congratulating each other, she turns the table and acts as if she in utter despair. She goes out on the balcony and screams, making them both think that she’s jumped to her own death. When they go out onto the balcony, she reveals that she is okay. Schuck tells Margie that all good plays should end with a kiss, and then gives her one. Back at the food stand, Freddie is shining Mrs. Odetts’ shoes as they wait for Margie to return. 8/30/23
• 041. Vern’s New Girlfriend – 6/4/1953
  • Vern is smitten by a young woman named Sandra Fleming (Joan Shawlee), whom he met at a dance that he attended with Roberta. Margie assumes he is getting ready to marry Roberta, but she sets him straight how Sandra went after him. This leads Margie to believe that Sandra is a gold digger, and after further research, she finds out that she is right, and that Sandra has been married several times and always took a large settlement from her husband. Margie works with Freddie, Mr. Albright, and Roberta to convince her father to break it off. They hire an actor who poses as a butler Carlton (Keith McConnell) for a special dinner for Sandra. As Freddie keeps distracting Vern with fake phone calls, Margie and Mr. Albright convince Sandra that Vern is not only short on cash but losing his job. Freddie shows up posing as a rich colleague, and Sandra ends up leaving with him, thus showing Vern that was in fact just about his money. Vern is angry, but grateful. 8/27/16
• 043. Delinquent Margie (aka Margie the Delinquent) – 6/18/1953
  • Vern laments the current slang that kids are using that seems to be rubbing off on him, demanding that Margie pay him a dollar each time she uses a ‘bop’ phrase. Later Margie accompanies Mrs. Odetts to look at a new sports car, but Odetts’ banker Bill Bronson (John Hubbard) hassles her about releasing her $6000 to pay for it, citing past poor investments. She tells Bronson that she is helping a young friend in need, then needs Margie to vouch for her. Margie reluctantly agrees then gets the idea to use an old play she once did with her father called Gambling Woman. She convinces her father to help practice it by playing the character Lefty Lutrec to Margie’s Vivian, with Mrs. Odetts visiting with Bronson in the other room. Bronson believes it so wholeheartedly that when he runs into Vern and Margie at a restaurant, he punches Vern and vows to help turn Margie’s life around. It also turns out that Bronson is a potential client for Vern, and not knowing that Bronson was the man who punched him, invites him and his date – which is Margie – to come for dinner. When they run into each other, Bronson punches Vern a second time. Later when Bronson shows up at Vern’s office for business, Vern and Mr. Albright ambush him and beat him up. Margie arrives and explains everything, followed by Mrs. Odetts in her new car. Bronson says that he will let her keep the money and will continue to date Margie… but is concerned when Mrs. Odetts now shows interest in an airplane which Margie has recently flown with her. Dick Cogan is the car salesman. Charlie Hall appears as a waiter. 8/27/16
• 048. Double Trouble – 2/23/1953
  • Margie eavesdrops and overhears that her father is taking a business trip to Rio in South America. She naturally wants to go along, but Vern wants to prevent it. He recalls that the only time Margie requested to not go along on one of his trips was when she had a love interest at home. He calls one of the actors he is using in a production he is working on named Tom Carter (Gustaf Unger) and hires him to come over and win Margie’s heart. On the other hand, Margie remembers that the last time she had a love interest before his business trip, he practically forced her to come along. She uses her father’s list of amateur actors and calls the same actor that her father did, but she talks to Tom’s twin brother Jerry (Bertil Unger). Jerry tires to give Margie’s job to Tom, but since he is busy with Vern’s request, he gives it back to Jerry… even though he is nervous around women. Jerry comes and sees Margie and gets the marching orders to flirt with her in front of her father. Things get confusing when both Tom and Jerry show up the same night. Margie doesn’t realize they are both in the house and becomes more and more confused when one of them tries to flirt with her, while the other is nervous is around her and knows to only flirt with her in front of Vern. Eventually, she realizes that she is doing with two twin brothers and decides to hire them both to try and confuse Vern. She takes him out to eat at The Little Gypsy restaurant, where both brothers play the roles of the maître d’, the waiter, the wine steward, the bus boy, the violinist, and the chef. The drives Vern nearly out of his mind, so Margie calls a doctor to see him, who also is one of the Carter brothers. Just when the doctor convinces him that he’s having a breakdown and will need someone to look out for him on the trip, Vern suddenly decides that he needs Margie on his trip to Rio after all. However, when he overhears Margie telling the twins that she’s going to pay them, he decides to take the gag one step further, and he starts to accuse Margie of being Carter as well. While he is still sounding like a raving lunatic, Mr. Honeywell stops by and sees the spectacle. He is about to decide to send someone else to Rio, when Margie and Vern both stop the act and explain what happened. Nevertheless, Mr. Honeywell decides he needs to get away from the two Albrights and decides to go to Rio himself to handle the client. 9/3/23

SEASON 3

• 051. A Day at the Beach – 9/16/1953
  • On a hot, sweltering Wednesday afternoon, Margie, with the help of Mrs. Odetts, manages to talk her father into missing work and taking her to the beach. He calls and tells Mr. Honeywell that he has a headache, and Honeywell insists on a doctor’s note. Meanwhile, Honeywell meets with a potential client named Norma Fairbanks (Kristine Miller), who wants to turn over her investments to Honeywell & Todd but wants to make sure that the man doing business with her is a serious businessman, and not a handsome playboy. Honeywell assures her that Vern Albright is such a man, even though she finds him attractive in the photo he has in the office. She leaves and decides to pay Vern a visit at home, so she gets his address from the secretary Betty (Crystal Reeves). When Honeywell finds out that she is heading there, he hightails it over to Vern’s house to make sure that he doesn’t screw things up. When she arrives, Mrs. Odetts tells her that Vern blew off work and went to Secret Cove. After she decides to head there to see how much of a playboy he is, Mr. Honeywell shows up at the apartment, and Mrs. Odetts accidentally spills the beans as to where he and Margie are. Norma shows up at the beach and quickly gets Vern’s attention by throwing sand on him. He finds her attractive and begins to brag about his status at work and how he can blow it off anytime he likes. While Norma is getting lunch for everyone, Mrs. Odetts shows up and tells Vern that Mr. Honeywell is on his way. Vern attempts to leave and get changes in the bathhouse, but Mr. Honeywell comes ins to change into his swimwear at the same time. Vern pushes him into a locker and head back to the beach, where Margie buries him in sand to hide him. Honeywell returns to the beach, where Margie claims she has no idea where he is. A boy (Stephen Wootton) attempts to read the funny papers covering Vern’s head and nearly gives him away, before Honeywell ventures off again. He finally spots Vern using a telescope on the boardwalk, but when he sees Vern with his head in Norma’s lap, he assumes that he is winning her over. However, as Vern continues to brag about how little work she does, Norma gets angry and storms off. Margie concocts a plan to find a lifeguard named Bruce (George D. Wallace) to be rude to Betty, and then take a fall when Vern confronts him in order to make him look like a brave hero. However, the plans nearly backfire when a different man (Henry Kulky) sees Bruce being rude and punches him in the face. Vern then arrives and tries to talk tough to the wrong guy and winds up getting punched in the face himself. Honeywell then shows up and apologizes to Norma and fires Vern. By now, Norma does in fact see Vern as a hero and insists that she will only do business with Vern, instigating his immediate re-hiring from Honeywell. 9/16/24
• 057. Margie’s Phantom Lover – 10/28/1953
  • Vern can’t concentrate on his work because he’s hoping to stop Margie from entering a car race. Mr. Honeywell launches a scheme to take her mind off the race and onto romance from the weekend. He and Vern send Margie gifts and a card signed by the mysterious ‘Bright Eyes,’ who claims he met her at a Honeywell & Todd party. Margie naturally heads to the office to start making calls of anyone associated with the office to figure out who it is. Meanwhile Bill Davenport (Rip Callahan), the young president of a business that Honeywell would like to represent called Consolidated Lumber, happens to call the office and Margie answers. The two hit it off, as Bill claims to be ‘Bright Eyes.’ Vern tries to put a stop to them meeting and spoiling the deal by sending Margie a fake note from Bill that he won’t be able to meet, but when Margie finds the order for the flowers, she figures out what he is up to. She meets with Bill and hatches a plot to make a fool of her father. She claims to be her father’s doctor and is puts him under hypnosis, telling him to play along so that Bill will hire the firm. Honeywell is working on Bill’s uncle DeWitt Davenport (Russell Hicks), thinking that he is in charge of the firm. They all wind up back at Vern’s apartment, where Margie convinces them both to act hypnotized and pose as a rider on a horse. They realize Margie is just playing a joke on them, and Bill decides to use their services despite the craziness. 11/19/15
• 062. What’s Cooking? – 12/2/1953
  • Freddie gets a job peddling cookware for Pilgrim Pots & Pans, and tries out his sales pitch on Vern, whereby he cooks in the pots and pans and attempts to sell them as he serves the meal. He ends up spilling the soup and chicken on Vern, causing him to blow up and storm out. When Margie finds out that Mr. Honeywell needs a caterer to serve a new client with a black eye named Mr. Crater (Thurston Hall) at Honeywell’s apartment, she gets the idea to have Freddie serve the meal. Freddie reluctantly agrees and he and Margie involve Pilgrim’s supervising cook Gertrude (Barbara Morrison). It turns out that Crater works for Pilgrim’s competition BB Cookingware, and had already been given the sales pitch from Gertrude, who got angry at him and punched him in the eye. When Crater comes to the dinner and finds out that Gertrude is there, Crater storms out and cancels his business with Honeywell, who is then hit over the head with a pan by Gertrude and fires Vern. Margie retaliates by going to see Mr. Crater and pleading for her father’s job, and then having Freddie deliver a fake telegram telling him that he is fired so he knows how it feels to be fired. Vern and Honeywell have reconciled already however, but Carter is angry at Honeywell for firing Vern. It then comes to light that Margie had sent the telegram causing Crater to blow up all over again and sever ties with Honeywell, who fires Vern yet again. Eventually Margie’s crying and yelling at Crater, gets him to soften and agree to do business with Vern again. Honeywell re-hires him and Vern insists on an option-free contract. Freddie gets arrested in the lobby for selling a pot without a license to a policeman. Dian Fauntelle is Vern’s secretary Betty. 11/16/16 
• 065. Margie’s Millionth Member – 12/23/1953
  • Margie is helping their young neighbor Andy (David Saber) collect box tops from Boomies cereal, a direct competitor to one of Vern’s clients, Calvin Burns (Ralph Dumke) who runs the Crackies cereal company. In order to help Andy achieve a ‘space sergeant’ status on the Captain Stratosphere Show, Margie fills in Vern’s name as one of Andy’s recruits, which results in Vern winning the grand prize on the show. Captain Stratosphere (Roger Pace) and Bertram Bolton (Paul Maxey) visit Vern’s apartment to award him the prize… at the same time that Mr. Burns, who takes issue with the way Bolton does business with childish promotions and has long wanted to merge, shows up for a golf date with Vern. When Bolton finds out that Vern is an adult, he threatens to sue Vern and Burns, causing Burns to quite Honeywell and Vern to be fired. Margie comes to the rescue and disguises herself as Ethel Westbrook, president of the Associated Parents of America, and thanks her for involving adults in the children’s program, leading Bolton to turn around his position and invites Vern to appear on the show to reign the parents into the Captain Stratsosphere fun. Honeywell and Burns serve Vern with an injunction that says he can’t work on the show… but Margie offers to go on in his stead and expose them. With no other options Burns and Bolton finally decide to merge their companies. Bill Sheldon is the reporter. 7/26/17
• 066. Meet Mr. Murphy – 12/30/1953
  • When Vern won’t give Margie an advance on her allowance to give to Freddie, she goes to his office to try and get a job. There she meets a monkey named Mr. Murphy (Cindy the Chimp) and his owner Tom Shane (Richard Garland), who is lending Mr. Murphy to a motion picture that Honeywell is backing. Margie ends up agreeing to babysit Mr. Murphy while Shane is out of town. Although Margie is getting paid $50 a day to babysit, Vern thinks that she is just doing it to force him to give her and Freddie the money, so he calls her bluff and says he can hold out with a monkey in the house as long as she wants. Mr. Murphy gets on Vern’s nerves at every turn, and Vern is forced to eat mashed bananas for breakfast. Although he does go along and help with the monkey, Vern ends up hiring Freddie to kidnap the monkey and hide him at his place. Margie convinces Freddie to go through with it, but then pretend that Mr. Murphy escaped, knowing that Honeywell has funded the movie that they need the monkey for. Margie tells her father that she’s hired detectives to find the monkey, but Vern tells her to call them off. Honeywell brings the movie producer Mr. Branch (William Forrest) over to Vern’s place to meet him, and Shane returns and expects to find Mr. Murphy at the apartment. Honeywell and Branch blow up when Vern tells them that he’s gotten rid of Mr. Murphy, and when he calls Freddie to retrieve him, Freddie lies and tells him that he’s escaped. It turns out however that while Freddie is on the phone, Mr. Murphy actually sneaks out of his apartment. After they’ve had the police put out an APB, Mr. Murphy shows up alone at the Albright apartment… and immediately chases Vern around the room. 11/16/16
• 073. Margie Babysits – 2/17/1954
  • Margie is taking pictures for a newspaper contest and aims to catch the “Old Lady Robber” in action, but the building manager Mr. Patterson (Frank Jaquet) warns her not to take any more candid pictures. Margie also gives a copy of a candid photo she took of the cleaning lady Miss Flannigan (Marjorie Bennett), who then phones her partner to tell him that she needs to steal the negative since she is in fact the robber. Meanwhile Vern agrees to babysit practical joker Sidney (Stuffy Singer), the grandson of Vern’s client Mrs. Mortenson (Kathryn Sheldon) while she dines with Mr. Honeywell. In no time Sidney has climbed out onto the ledge, dropped a water bomb on Mr. Patterson, and flooded the bathroom. Verne gets punched in the eye by Patterson. Margie agrees to dress up like the Old Lady Robber in order to get Sidney out of the bathroom, but then gets Miss Flannigan to do it. While she robs them for real and finds Margie’s negatives, Sidney drops more water on Mr. Honeywell, who had brought Mrs. Mortenson back to check on Sidney. They bring a police officer (James Burke) up with them to arrest Vern since they think he is dropping the water, but he ends up catching the robber with Margie’s help. She splits her reward money with Sidney, in order to get her father back in good with Mrs. Mortenson. 2/4/18
• 080. Tugboat Margie – 4/7/1954
  • Vern tells Margie that he has been called by the Navy to return to the sea for a refresher course as an ensign. He tells Margie that as a sailor, he belongs to America and will go on any mission that he is asked to. He describes the scene in noble and distinguished terms, and then tells her that he is going to report to get his assignment. He heads to the docks to see the Admiral (Edgar Dearing), and on his way out, he runs into Freddie, who is in the Navy Reserves and has been called to duty as well. Vern takes great delight as a Navy officer in berating Freddie for his sloppy appearance, and once again tells him to stay away from Margie. When he reports to the Admiral, he finds out that he is being assigned to a mere tugboat. Embarrassed by this, he tells Margie that his mission is top secret, and he cannot let her see the ship before he leaves. When he gets onboard, Captain Murtaugh (Roy Roberts) tells him that on the reserve cruises, they put a reserve officer in command… and this one happens to be Freddie. When he finds out that he will be the commanding officer over Vern, he starts with the abuse and insults right away, sending him on the swab the deck detail. Freddie calls Margie and invites him to come see him off, so that he can embarrass Vern. When Vern sees Freddie with Margie on the ship, he quickly takes the place of the sailor (Don McArt) scrubbing the deck and attempts to crawl away, and then jumps inside a channel buoy that they are going to use to replace one at sea, which Freddie fills with water. When Margie sees her father, she can’t help but poking fun at him too for his haughty attitude and lies. Freddie and Vern both panic when the boat takes off with Margie on it. They team up to try and hide her, but when she gets seasick and starts wandering around the ship, Vern hides her inside the same buoy that he had jumped into. Freddie gets her out while Vern keeps the captain busy. When Vern thinks she may have jumped overboard, he starts to panic and confesses what happened to the captain. He is understanding and asks Vern if he’d like to help teach Margie and Freddie a lesson. When Freddie asks for some seasickness pills for Margie, the Captain tells Freddie after he’s administered them that they were poison exterminating pills. He tells Freddie that they will have to pump her stomach, but he only ends spraying water all over Margie and Freddie. He then tells Freddie that he will have to operate on her and cut out the pill, and then has Vern portray a Navy doctor over the radio who will give him directions. When he tells Freddie to use a can opener to open her up, Freddie faints. Vern then reveals himself to Margie and tells her to warn Freddie to never try and make him look foolish again. Edmund Penney is the sailor who passes the word to the engine room to shove off. 4/28/24
• 082. Honeyboy Honeywell – 4/21/1954
  • Margie notices that her father is irritated and exhausted every day he comes from work because Mr. Honeywell is working him too hard. She deduces that finding him a mate will occupy his evenings so that Vern won’t have to work so many of them. She first asks Mrs. Odetts to marry Honeywell, but Odetts suggests a lonely-hearts club. Margie visits a man named Ron Kent (John Eldredge) with the 400 Whist & Social Club to hook him up. Kent turns out to be crooked and gets his girlfriend Annette Gilmore (Joan Blair) to try and seduce Honeywell and then bleed him dry. The plan nearly works as she ingratiates herself into his life, but just before they are married, Margie and Mrs. Odetts visit Kent to thank him and overhear him plotting with Annette. Margie also finds out that Annette has talked Honeywell into selling his firm which means her father will be out of a job as well. Margie and Mrs. Odetts disguise themselves and visit Annette, claiming to be his long lost wife and daughter, and that Honeywell had attempted divorce but it wasn’t binding. Annette calls Kent with this new information, so he pretends to be Annette’s brother and tries to seek a settlement. However, when he visits Honeywell, it is actually Vern in disguise. The ruse is nearly ruined when Honeywell walks in on the action, but Mrs. Odetts knocks him out with a frying pan. Annette then visits as well, and when she sees the real Honeywell after he wakes up, she knocks him out again. Vern and Margie refuse to give any settlement and Kent and Annette leave having gotten nothing out of Honeywell, and Vern keeps his job. 3/9/20
• 085. Margie and the Shah – 5/12/1954
  • A big international oil potentate, the Shah of Zena (Edgar Barrier), is coming to New York, and Vern thinks that by having known him in college makes their company a shoe-in for helping arrange capital for his oil purchases, which he hopes will impress Honeywell. When Vern calls to arrange a meeting with the Shah, his assistant Ahmed (Henry Corden) shuts him down and lies to the Shah about who has called for him, having made plans of his own for the oil lease deal. When Vern arrives, the guards deny him entry. When Margie finds out, she comes up with a plan for her and Freddie to sneak into his room disguised as hotel employees. However Vern is finally able to arrange a meeting on his own, while Freddie is caught by members of the Shah’s dancing girl harem, with whom Margie has disguised herself. Vern and the Shah decide to teach her a lesson, by assigning her to be Vern’s handmaiden, then to become the Shah’s 66th wife. Margie purposely fails her test of grace, charm, and beauty by clumsily performing a flapper dance with he teeth blacked out, but the Shah still claims to want her as a wife. Margie then spots her father standing by watching and realizes she’s been had, then turns the tables, reveals herself as Margie, and pretends to be in love with the Shah, ready to camel-whip him for turning her down. Vern tries to intervene, but she chases him with the whip as well, saying this is what happens for me who try to fool her. Donna Martell is Samia. Ralph Sanford is the policeman. Mickey Simpson is a bodyguard. 2/23/17

SEASON 4

• 091. Star of Khyber – 9/22/1954
  • Margie has a crush on a private detective named Dick Taylor (Tom Avera), whom she’s been chasing at the local nightclub. Vern doesn’t approve of her crush and forbids her to see him. Miss Odetts advises Margie that she can’t stop seeing him until she meets him first, and furthermore persuades her to hire Dick as a private detective and report that she suspects that Odetts is a jewel thief. Meanwhile Taylor discusses his latest case with his secretary Gloria (Lucille Knox) in which he is searching for a missing jewel called the Star of Khyber for the Maharaja of Rampur. Margie shows up at the office, but Dick will see no one but the Maharaja’s representative Mr. Pandit (Tristram Coffin). Two henchmen (Henry Corden, Rus Conklin) who are enemies of the Maharaja and also seeking the Star follow Margie back to her apartment and rough up Vern and lock him in the closet while looking for the Star. Odetts has another idea: to dress up as a Hindu and to drop by the nightclub posing as the Maharajah’s cousin with Margie to get Dick’s attention.  Dick and Pandit believe her to be an imposter, while the henchmen think she will be involved in passing off the Star. Dick finally meets Margie, who sends Odetts home, and she is trailed by both Pandit and one of the henchmen. Mr. Honeywell lets Vern out of the closet, and he confronts Odetts, punches out Pandit, and is knocked out by the henchman, who ties him up again. Margie tells Dick the real reason for the caper, but still not trusting her, he engages the police to meet them at the apartment, where Margie and Dick find Vern, Odetts, and Pandit all tied up. Pandit fingers Vern as the one who hit him, so Dick punches him out. The henchmen arrive to steal the Star, but Dick overpowers them and holds them at gunpoint, threatening to arrest them all. Vern is adamant that Honeywell will vouch for him, but when the police arrive, they have arrested Honeywell who they have fingered as one of the gang. Dick later sends word that he has delivered the Star of Khyber to the Maharajah but plans to stay there. 7/30/19
• 096. Shipboard Story – 10/27/1954
  • Vern is getting ready to go to London to speak to a newly titled Earl of Westbrook to make sure his account is still secure with Honeywell & Todd, and Margie wants to go along with him. Vern is planning on taking her, so Margie pretends she has met a man she intends to marry in order to get her father to take her away with him. He doesn’t believe her, and she admits to Vern’s secretary Betty that he is correct for once. Meanwhile, the Earl of Westbrook, who still goes by his actual name Tony Stanley (John Lupton) is on the ship en route to London and gets word to meet with Vern at his office as they make an American stop in New York. On his way in, he runs into Margie, who asks him to pretend to be her lover to convince her father that there is a real man for him to worry about. She purposely lets him overhear her express her love for Tony, even telling him that her father is rich and will take care of them. This works like a charm, and Vern throws him out of his office and ‘makes’ Margie go to London after all. Vern is later surprised to find Tony on the ship, and he warns him to stay away from Margie. Meanwhile, Vern also keeps running afoul of a man named Finchley Bore (Roy Roberts), who keeps jogging in circles around the deck and literally running into Vern. Margie and Tony meet up on board as well, but Vern bribes the steward Joseph (Barry Bernard) to let it slip in front of Margie that Tony is actually a card cheat who swindles people on ships out of their money. This causes her to slap Tony, but she soon overhears her father and Joseph laughing about it. Margie and Tony then bribe Joseph to give a Vern a fake telegram naming the identity of the Duke of Westbrook as the jogger Finchley Bore. Vern then starts kissing up to him by joining him in jogging, until Vern can barely walk. The steward then reveals to Vern – for a price – that Finchley isn’t the Duke after all. Vern and Joseph then collaborate to make Margie think that Vern has become depressed over losing the account of the Duke and has jumped overboard. Tony reveals to Margie that he is the Duke. Tony then jumps overboard to try and save Vern, but then Vern reveals to Margie that he’s still safe and sound on board. Margie has the last laugh when she reveals to her father that it is Tony who is the Duke, prompting Vern then to jump overboard to help Tony. 11/9/22
• 100 – Vern’s Winter Vacation – 11/24/1954
  • Freddie has been appearing on game shows to try and make money, and the latest one is called Love Conquers All, during which he tells host Mr. Creevey (Peter Leeds) about the hardships in his love life, and the more judges he makes cry, the more he gets. He demolishes the competition Frank Fox (Ralph Hodges) and Ethel Westbrook (Helene Fosmore), making the judges and Creevey cry by telling them that he has a secret bride in Palm Beach, Florida who is held under lock and key by her cruel father, eventually winning a trip to Palm Beach where the show plans to do a follow-up story. Freddie is in a panic that he’ll be charged with fraud unless she comes to Palm Beach to pose as his bride. Margie and Vern however have made plans for a bonus winter trip to Bermuda courtesy of Mr. Honeywell and refuses to stop in Palm Beach first. Margie fakes getting hit on the head and coming down with amnesia, pretending to remember nothing and no one but Freddie. Dr. Farrell (Edward Earle) advises Vern to take her to Freddie, so he has no choice but to go to Palm Beach. Once there he overhears Margie telling Freddie about how she is faking the illness, so he gets even with them by telling her that she is really crying out for their old neighbor Freddie Hassengruber about a traumatic event in which she and young Freddie got into a custard fight. He forces Margie and Freddie to re-create the event, until Freddie gets mad and hits Vern with a custard. Vern locks up Margie but she escapes, so that she and Freddie can appear on the Love Conquers All follow-up show. When Vern sees it on TV, he believes that Margie really is married to Freddie and rushes down to the station. When Margie is questioned by both Vern and Mr. Creevey, she simply pretends to be crazy and says she thinks she is Little Red Riding Hood. Vern later tells her that Margie will have to cover the extra expenses he put out by going to Palm Beach out of her allowance, even though they did go on to their Bermuda vacation with Honeywell. 10/12/18
• 102. Operation Rescue – 12/8/1954
  • Vern returns from a yacht cruise and tells Margie that he’s worried because he got engaged on the ship to a woman named Claire Winthrop (Jeanne Gray). Margie decides to help get him out of it by intercepting a visit with her and presenting Mrs. Odetts as her crazy grandmother, the matriarch of their lunatic family. However unbeknownst to her, it is actually one of Vern’s clients Mrs. Vera Wagner (Dorothy Green) in front of whom she is acting crazy. When Margie finds out that she has ruined one of her father’s business deals, she forces herself into Vera’s office and demands that she listen to the truth. Meanwhile Mrs. Winthrop wants out of the engagement as well and sends her lawyer Mr. Burton (Lester Matthews) to talk to Vern, who assumes the worst, and decides to use Margie’s ruse and act crazy himself. By this time Margie has convinced Vera to give Vern another chance, and she shows up just in time to see Vern acting crazy again. Although Mr. Albright nearly fires Vern, Vera decides she will only deal with Vern after seeing his originality in acting crazy. Joanne Jordan is Miss Hennessy. 7/13/17
• 106. Miss Whoozis – 1/5/1955
  • Margie has been working as an advertising model for a photographer named Harrison (Cliff Ferre), on whom she has a crush but he can’t even remember her name. Another model named Hercules (Ed Fury) tries to get Margie to do some modeling gigs with him but she refuses. Harrison is signed to a big contract with fashion mogul DuVal (Fritz Feld), and he chooses Margie to be the exclusive model. Meanwhile Honeywell and Albright are DuVal’s bankers, and he invites them to come to the studio to check out his latest line. When they arrive, Harrison mistakes them for models for his Distinguished Gentleman line, but when he realizes they aren’t models, he still convinces Vern to pose for some pictures. Margie, in trying to hide from him, is underneath his prop table the entire time, and overhears his father’s preference for southern fried chicken for dinner. She serves it to him and asks advice on how to make a man notice a woman, and he advises to get him nice and angry. Margie accomplishes this with Harrison by doing some department store window modeling with Hercules. Harrison secretary Lois (Elaine Riley) warns him that Margie has a crush on him so he better tread lightly. He pursues her and invites her to his cabin, which Margie accepts – especially since she sees that DuVal, Honeywell, and her father are in pursuit of her at the department store. It isn’t until they go back to the studio and check out the pictures that Vern realizes that Margie is the model. He and Honeywell think that Harrison has taken her to the cabin to intimidate her, while Hercules thinks that Honeywell and Vern are merely bankers who go to bully her. At the cabin, Margie agrees to pose in some ‘captive Indian maiden’ photos and is tied to the fireplace. Vern and Honeywell go in to rescue her, but Hercules, thinking they are the captors, knock them and himself out. Although Harrison reveals he had forgotten her name because his mother had given him multiple presidents’ names: Grover Cleveland Washington McKinley Tyler Harrison and now consequently has a mental block about names in general. Their relationship is short-lived as she later reveals to her father that she’s rather be with someone who liked to hold hands rather than take pictures of her. 7/30/19
• 108. The Unexpected Guest – 1/19/1955
  • In the midst of Vern’s vacation, he and Margie stop at the apartment before heading out to the mountains, but want to make sure that Mr. Honeywell doesn’t find out he’s back and put him to work. Meanwhile Honeywell has told potential client Mr. Withers (Donald MacBride) that he can stay in the apartment while he is in town for a couple of days. When Withers catches Margie and Vern in the apartment, Margie has them pretend that they are the maid and butler Marie and Brighton, and then plan to sneak out later. Things get more complicated when Honeywell figures out what they are doing, and Withers’ dog Francis arrives. Margie concocts an idea to have ‘Margie’ return from the trip early, so she wears a disguise and tells Withers that she had a bad cold and had to return early. This fails to work when Withers insists on staying and having Marie take care of her. Margie then has Freddie bring over a bunch of dogs from the pound to give Francis fleas, thinking that will get them to leave. Honeywell and Withers catch them in the act. Finally, they have Freddie pose as Albright to make his return. In the meantime, Withers catches Margie as Marie not knowing who she is supposed to be. Margie finally comes clean and tells Withers the truth. Withers decides to have fun with Freddie, Vern, and Honeywell and tells Honeywell that he will only sing a contract with their firm if Albright lets him have Brighton. Finally Withers lets them off the hook and says he never has as much fun, and is now willing to sign with the firm. 3/9/20
• 110. Vern’s Mother-in-Law – 2/2/1955
  • During an argument with her father and Mr. Honeywell, Margie is told about how her feistiness was inherited from her mother-in-law. Through flashback we meet Grandma Margie (Gale Storm) and see her trepidation about her daughter Cathy (Gale Storm) dating Vern. Grandma contacts Honeywell, with whom she does business, to test Vern’s tenacity when she tips him off about a job at his firm. Honeywell puts him through a series of tests starting with getting through his secretary Miss Joyner (Leslie Turner), who blows him off. Vern returns dressed as a technician from the Power & Light company. His perseverance pays off and he is hired as the janitor. Although caught napping after working all night, he is given the job as office boy and is told to return to work immediately following his all-night shift. Working both jobs back-to-back, he can barely stay awake. Cathy overhears Grandma Margie’s plan to test Vern in a crisis situation whereby Honeywell will burglarize the office while Vern is working as a janitor at night. Cathy tips him off, which makes Vern prepared to capture Honeywell and threaten to call the police… unless he hires Vern and help get even with his future mother-in-law by pretending that he shot Honeywell. The plan backfires momentarily when Grandma realizes that Honeywell is covered in ketchup. In the end Grandma gives her approval for Vern to ask for Cathy’s hand. 12/28/15
• 111. Too Many Ghosts – 2/9/1955
  • In anticipation of a masquerade party that night, Margie dresses her in a ballerina outfit and throws on the monster mask that she bought for her father and scares Mr. Honeywell with it when they show up at the apartment. Vern is in no mood for her childishness, as one of their clients, Lord Tony Stanley (now played by Jon Shepodd) is in financial trouble, and Margie suggests that they try and sell one of Tony’s castles in England to a wealthy American. In order to get her out of their hair, Honeywell suggests that she start calling real estate agents to try and find a buyer. She comes across one realtor named Mr. Phillips (Bill Baldwin), and he actually had been contacted by a strange, rich old woman named Edith Bishop (Hallene Hill) who had inquired about buying a castle with a ghost living in it. Margie goes to her father’s office as they are working on selling out Tony’s securities and offers to go to England to help close the deal with Mrs. Bishop. Margie coaches Mrs. Bishop not to mention the ghosts around her father and Mr. Honeywell but promises that she can produce a ghost in Lamora Castle. They arrange the trip and visit the castle on a dark, stormy night to spend the night there. Tony and Margie have a reunion and greet each other, and Tony plans to take her sightseeing. Mrs. Bishop refuses to sign the sale papers until the following morning until after she’s met the ghost. When Mrs. Bishop asks the castle butler Blivens (Gerald Oliver Smith) about the ghost, he realizes that she won’t buy it unless they produce one for her. That night while everyone is in bed, Margie paints her face white and begins haunting the halls of the castle, while Blivens has the same idea and stars walking around in a suit of armor. Mrs. Bishop is thrilled by both of the ghosts, but they wind up scaring Vern and Mr. Honeywell. Margie and Blivens then see and scare each other, causing Blivens to fall onto and knock over the others. Mrs. Bishop says she only wanted a nice, quiet ghost and decides to not buy the castle. Tony decides that they should pretend to exorcise the ghosts so that Mrs. Biship will be interested again. Margie, on the other hand, apologizes to Mrs. Bishop for the trick they pulled, and she tells Margie that she’s taken a liking to the castle whether it has ghosts or not. When Vern tells Mrs. Bishop that they are going to rid the castle of the ghosts by letting the ghosts of Sir Roderick and Lady Diana entrance to the dungeon, the scene of the ‘crime’ where Roderick had once murdered Lady Diana. She decides it would be fun to see what they do, and Margie suggests that they play a trick on the three men. The ladies overhear that Vern is going to play Lady Diana, who will be tied to a spinning wheel and subjected to water torture. Tony stands by with Mrs. Bishop while this act unfolds, and a hidden Margie gets involved by pouring extra water on Vern. Honeywell then pulls the lever that Tony told him to, which starts the wheel spinning. However, what he didn’t tell him is that the lever would cause Honeywell to fall down a trap door and that the wheel would spin uncontrollably. Margie eventually stops the wheel and reveals her involvement, much to her father’s anger. As Honeywell tries to climb his way out of the trap door, he pulls on the lever and starts Vern spinning again. 9/19/24
• 112. Make Up Your Mind – 2/16/1955
  • Margie is excited that she and Mrs. Odetts will be accompanying Vern to Hawaii for a business trip involving one of his clients, Wilbur Weems (Robert Nichols), who is planning to purchase a pineapple plantation. Unfortunately, Vern comes home and tells them that Weems has been wishy-washy and changed his mind about buying the plantation. Meanwhile, Roberta is trying to have some shirts made for Vern to take on his trip as a surprise but has to meet with the tailor to find the right material. She cancels a date with Vern and tells him she has a headache, but Vern spies her with the tailor. Margie and Mrs. Odetts scheme a way to get Weems to change his mind about Hawaii, so they go over to his hotel disguised as hula girls from Hawaii. Margie tells him that her name is Aloha and she can’t wait to greet him on the island. Weems is ready to change his mind again but confesses to Margie that he has a chronic psychiatric hangup about making decisions. She tells him that she once suffered from that too but has been cured by a Doctor Kranitz. When Weems wants to see the doctor, Margie arranges for Roberta to assume the role and to visit with Weems. She has to cancel another date with Vern, so he follows her to his place, and winds up punching him in the nose. While Weems acknowledges that Margie really did help him become more decisive, he agrees to get back at her by inviting her and Mrs. Odetts over to his place. He tells Margie that he will buy the plantation, but only if she agrees to become his wife and move there with her. Margie then feigns being indecisive again, so Weems forces her to go see specialist Dr. W.F. Wilton (Tristram Coffin), who is actually an old friend of Vern’s. Vern also ropes Mrs. Odetts and Roberta into the gag. Dr. Wilton gets Margie to admit that she’s been lying, and he diagnoses her with schizophrenia. He also makes her have ‘hallucinations’ of her father, Mrs. Odetts, and Roberta in Hawaiian garb. Mrs. Odetts then tells Margie that they are pranking her, so she pretends that she isn’t seeing any of them, all the while delivering them insults. She sneaks off and calls the nearest sanitarium, and when the driver (Peter Leeds) arrives, he and his colleagues find everyone dressed in strange costumes put on for Margie’s benefit, and he hauls them off to the sanitarium, much to Margie’s glee. 4/15/23
• 113. The Hawaii Story – 2/23/1955
  • Vern is planning to woo potential client, actress Nan Carter (Margaret Irving), who is living in Hawaii and trying to appear younger than she is by claiming he son Tom (Roger Pace) is her nephew. In order to beat out the competition Phillip Hubbard (Kent Taylor), an attractive younger playboy who will also be trying to secure Nan’s business, Honeywell leaves a memo with secretary Betty that Vern needs to dye his hair black to appear younger, and nix the idea of taking Margie with him so that Nan won’t know he has a grown daughter. Vern tells Margie that his trip has been changed to Nome, Alaska, but in defiance to Honeywell, he tells Margie she can cash in the tickets and keep the money. Margie decides to use the tickets and take Roberta with her, and ends up meeting Tom on the plane. He offers to let the ladies stay at his mother’s estate and they accept. Once Vern realizes that Margie and Roberta are staying in the house, he pleads with them to pose as his 12-year old daughter Margie and her nurse as not to expose his true age. Phillip finds out from his boss the truth about Margie and Roberta, so he woos Roberta and tells her that Vern plans to propose marriage to Nan. Roberta’s jealousy gets the better of her and she ends up dousing Vern and Nan with water, followed by Vern spraying Phillip with the hose. He gets angry and tells Nan the truth about everyone, causing Nan to storm off. Tom steps in and tells his mother that she is doing the same thing that Vern is by posing as a younger person. All is forgiven, but when Nan goes to announce that she and Vern will be in business together, Roberta mistakes it for an engagement announcement and douses Vern again. 10/12/18
• 117. Corpus Delicti – 3/23/1955
  • Margie buys an old wardrobe trunk from Chalie’s church rummage sale and finds a diary inside from someone who confesses to the murder of movie director Romley Brentwood. Other letters in the trunk indicate that the owner of the trunk was Roland Roberts (Michael Fox), so Margie and Freddie, who just gotten hired as a private detective and has already performed the duty of delivering a subpoena to Vern, begin to investigate. Meanwhile Roberts is revealed to be a client of Vern’s who is in fact trying to retrieve the diary as it is a key piece of evidence in plagiarism suit. The diary was written by Roberts as an outlet for his frustration for a director, and then used the phony murder as a the plot that he being sued over by a writer who claims he stole the very same idea or a writer killing his director. Margie and Freddie break into Roberts’ home and are caught by the housekeeper (Ruby Goodwin) and claim to be moth inspectors. Roberts tell Vern they need to visit the Zenith movie studios to dig up a copy of the first script he wrote based on the story, but when Margie and Freddie overhear it, they assume he is heading out to dig up the body. Vern and Roberts arrive at the studio and tour a horror movie set with a worker named George (El Brendel), and Margie and Freddie follow. There they are scared by and victim to the various props and trap doors, ending with Freddie knocking out George, and sending Vern and Roberts down a trap door into a safety net. They are soon followed by Freddie and Margie, who discloses that she has the diary and makes her father and Roberts promise to be nice to her so they can retrieve it and win their case. 2/4/18
• 121. Papa and Mambo – 4/20/1955
  • Vern is excited because he has reached the end of his contract and Mr. Honeywell has promised that at that point, he will make Vern the new president of the company. Honeywell however wants to make a competition out of it by seeing whether Vern can win an existing contract from the widow Mrs. Mendoza (Teresa Tudor) before Honeywell does. Meanwhile Margie thinks that Vern’s surprise is that he is going to propose to Roberta. Honeywell plays up to this by telling Margie that Vern is having an affair with Mendoza. This seems to be validated when they spy Vern with a South American woman, who is actually a Mambo teacher named Pepita (Charlita) who Vern is seeing to take lessons in order to charm Mendoza. Margie enlists the help of Roberta and they try to put a stop to it by visiting Mrs. Mendoza and having Margie pose as a bunco officer and telling her that Vern is a gold-digger. When Vern visits her, she hits him over the head. Vern then tells Margie about the competition, so Margie changes plans to help him out by disguising herself as Mendoza and visiting Honeywell. Vern is able to straighten out the real Mendoza and gets her to come to the office and sign the contract… but she gets fed up with every one of the crazy Americanos and calls off the whole deal. Tom Hernandez is Hernando. 2/25/17
• 122. Matinee Idol – 4/27/1955
  • Marge tells her father that she intends to marry a man named Harold Clairmore (John Hubbard), a rich and famous Broadway actor. Although Margie has never met him, she says that he has described his ideal woman in a Stage magazine, and she fits every one of his criteria… except for his love of onion sandwiches. Vern laughs off the idea as a publicity stunt, but Margie gets ready to go meet Harold at the Majestic Theatre. On her way out, she runs into Freddie and tells him that it was nice knowing him, but that he is moving on. Vern finds this all amusing, but then Freddie warns him that Clairmore will likely break Margie’s heart. Vern imagines Clairmore having a roving eye on his wedding night with Margie, which will prompt him to run off with another woman. Ten years later, Margie will be selling flowers outside the stage door to support her two children. Vern will threaten Clairmore with a gun for destroying Margie’s life, but Margie will try and stop him and wind up getting shot herself. Back in reality, both Vern and Freddie have been reduced to tears. Over at the theater, Clairmore’s love interest, actress Lynn Loring (Gale Robbins), is annoyed by the article that has been cooked up by Clairmore’s publicity agent Danny (Herb Vigran). Clairmore tells her that she can put a stop to it by agreeing to marry him, but she refuses yet again. Clairmore then tells Danny that the article will surely bring the girls to him, and that he can use that to make Lynn jealous. Vern goes to see Clairmore at the theatre, at first threatening after what he ‘did’, but then calming down and simply pleading with him to quickly reject Margie and not string her along. Clairmore promises that he won’t give Margie the time of day if she shows up. However, when Margie shows up, she presents herself under a fake name, Evelyn Lovequist, so Clairmore has no idea that she is Margie. He tries to make Lynn jealous by inviting ‘Evelyn’ to go to dinner that night. Both Vern and Freddie are shocked when Margie tells them that she has a date with Clairmore that night, so they follow them to the Blue Lagoon restaurant. Also in attendance are Lynn and Danny, who observe Clairmore with Margie. Vern and Freddy also watch, and Vern believes that his visions were try when it appears that Margie is crying from eating an onion sandwich, and then when Clairmore asks Lynn to dance. Vern tries to punch Clairmore, but winds up getting knocked out by him instead. When Lynn threatens to leave the show, Danny tells her that it was all a ruse to make her jealous, and then they go over to Margie’s place and tell her the same thing. The ladies decide to make the men pay for their actions, so Margie tells her father that it is true love between her and Clairmore so that he will have him over to the house. Lynn also shows up and tells everyone that she has fallen for Vern, testing out the chemistry between them with a kiss. The ladies suggest that they have a double wedding to seal the deal between the couples. Clairmore gets it out of Danny that they are putting them on, so the men agree to the weddings to teach Lynn and Margie lessons. They follow throught right up to the ceremony with the Justice of the Peace (Ferris Taylor). As they stand ready for their vows, Margie removes herself and ask them each if the other is being stubborn and if the whole thing is ridiculous. This tricks them into both saying “I do” and the Justice pronounces Clairmore and Lynn as man and wife. 4/28/24

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