My Friend Irma

[craviola990]

Hi Guys- Anybody have access to this short lived TV show (Started on radio) If anyone has any tapes/DVD's available, please let me know! Thanks, Christian

[bencasey]

The show was done live and I don't believe that more than a couple exist.

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...because CBS, like the other TV networks, didn't save their kinescopes for too long. The reason the ones that survived DO exist is because they were saved by people connected with the show {the stars, production crew, ad agency personnel, etc.}, or someone {like a collector} who just happened to acquire one of the 16mm kinnies, or another happenstance. In any case, I believe most of the TV scripts of "MY FRIEND IRMA" were adapted from the radio show which was concurrently running on CBS Radio at the same time.
However, George Burns mentioned in his book "GRACIE" that, when Gracie Allen saw "MY FRIEND IRMA" on TV one night, she turned to him and declared, "Cathy Lewis is not Irma's friend". What she meant was that Ms. Lewis (as "Jane") was "taking" scenes away from Marie Wilson that should have been focused on "Irma". Perhaps this is why Lewis did not return for the show's final season on TV.

[stanwyckfan07]

Originally Posted by TV Knowledge Fan

...because CBS, like the other TV networks, didn't save their kinescopes for too long. The reason the ones that survived DO exist is because they were saved by people connected with the show {the stars, production crew, ad agency personnel, etc.}, or someone {like a collector} who just happened to acquire one of the 16mm kinnies, or another happenstance. In any case, I believe most of the TV scripts of "MY FRIEND IRMA" were adapted from the radio show which was concurrently running on CBS Radio at the same time.
However, George Burns mentioned in his book "GRACIE" that, when Gracie Allen saw "MY FRIEND IRMA" on TV one night, she turned to him and declared, "Cathy Lewis is not Irma's friend". What she meant was that Ms. Lewis (as "Jane") was "taking" scenes away from Marie Wilson that should have been focused on "Irma". Perhaps this is why Lewis did not return for the show's final season on TV.

Many of the old radio broadcasts of My Friend Irma still exist and they are hilarious. I would love to see the tv adaptation; I think at least one episode was on a VHS compiliation of 1950's television back in the 1990's but I've never owned a copy.

[TV_on_the_Porch]

There are two episodes in the Classic TV Archive. I don't think I'm supposed to link them directly, but they come up easily in a search--if you do it just right. Enter "my friend irma" in the left search window, then in the right dropdown menu select "Moving Images". The top two results will be the two TV episodes. If you search under "Television" it will come up empty.

"Friend of Irma" or not, most would probably prefer Cathy Lewis to Mary Shipp so be forewarned: they are both later 'Kay' episodes.

[Bob's TV Treasures]

Only the MARY SHIPP episodes exist. There are no known episodes with Cathy Lewis in existence - not even at the Paley Center, nor the UCLA TV Archives.