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Functional Johnson Wax administration bulletins which broadcasting helped to build is as dramatic as Fibber McGee and Molly are amusing
of this. The fine selling job has also created a new problem since the only way that the wax business can grow now is through increased and diversified use, not through new customers. Johnson realizes this and is putting a sizable slice of its net income back into research. From this research department came Drax (an unappealing trade name if there ever was one), water repellent with which more and more fabrics are being coated. Plans are in the works to market Drax via Fibber to the public but full production is tied up by fabric processors for the next six months. From new products will come change of copy for Fibber McGee and Molly's Wilcox to sell. The wax industry expects that.
And while the program formula seems casual, it isn't. Actually it's blueprinted second by second, line by line. No other situation comedy would have dared to drop a quartet like the Kings Men singing songs for no good reason righl in the middle of sequences. It's unorthodox program building but it's Fibber McGee and Molly. Don Quinn, who has built the entire 7" Wistful Vista menage, bases all his plot sequences on the collar button formula — "man has collar button, man loses collar button, woman finds collar button, man gets collar button and the 'I told you so'." That's a twist on the Hollywood hoy-meets-girl formula and it works. Practically any Fibber McGee airing can be reduced to this I, 2. J, and 4. It is the exception that proves
the rule (see Ten Commandments for Comedy, page 29 that situation and gag comedy can't be mixed successfully.
It's moved a long way from the tall-story teller that Jim Jordan was in Smackout. Fibber doesn't spin tall tales although losing that collar button does get him more involved than his tall tales did . . . and it always takes Molly to get him out of the collar-buttonless condition he finds himself in just before the final commercial.
The Johnson air success story reverses most others. When an advertising manager or agency man says that he's too busy to spend the time to build a program and watch over it. it's remarkable that he doesn't trip over Mayor La Trivia.*
One factor must not be discounted in weighing the Johnson air success. Jack Louis and H. F. Johnson are not JohnnyCome-Latelies. They think of tomorrow as part of today. The agency staff members are not pressure operators. The Johnson executives have been with their organization most of their business lives; Bill Connolly is in the 20 year club as are the salesmanager and most of the other executive^ It helps long term thinking not to have a swordpoised overhead.
Building a show. Fibber McGee and Molly, built a business, S. C. Johnson, and an industry, WAX and there
have never been any "ready-made" shows like F. M. & M.
* \ Don Quinn-FiM>fr M, Get an./ Molly character who really sti nothing trivial.
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