The Halls of Ivy is an American situation comedy that ran from 1950 to 1952 on NBC radio, created by Fibber McGee & Molly co-creator/writer Don Quinn.
The series ran 109 half-hour radio episodes from January 6, 1950, to June 25, 1952, with Quinn, Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee writing many of the scripts and giving free if even more sophisticated play to Quinn's knack for language play, inverted cliches and swift puns (including the show's title and lead characters), a knack he'd shown for years writing Fibber McGee & Molly.
But listeners were surprised to discover that the episode of January 24, 1951, "The Goya Bequest"—a story examining the bequest of a Goya painting that was suspected of being a fraud hyped by its late owner to avoid paying customs duties when bringing to the United States—was written by Colman, who poked fun at his accomplishment while taking a rare turn giving the evening's credits at the show's conclusion.
A further treat was the episode of November 22, 1951, in which Jack Benny appeared as himself, in a storyline involving his accepting Victoria Hall's invitation to perform for charity at Ivy College.
[2] For the television series the Colmans and Butterfield repeated their radio roles with Mary Wickes as Alice, the Halls' housekeeper, and Ray Collins, later of Perry Mason, as Professor Merriweather.
John Lupton, later of the western series Broken Arrow, and Jerry Paris, later of The Dick Van Dyke Show, appeared in some episodes as students.