58: Too Many Husbands!

It’s a simple idea with a long history: Woman is told her husband has perished at sea, so she remarries, then the original husband turns up alive and hijinks ensue! An old-timey excuse to show a throuple and a natural premise for comedy, this concept stayed resonant for many years and was remade a number of times – including as a classic screwball 1940 film, that was later itself in 1947 adapted into a hilarious and chaotic radio production starring Lucille Ball as the wife with Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra as the husbands. This week, we hear that radio production in full, and go on a deep dive beginning with a simple title which does not officially have an exclamation mark in it but absolutely should – Too Many Husbands!

Referenced media:

• Black Mirror latest season (2025)
• Dale Beran - It Came from Something Awful (2019)
• Search Engine podcast episode, "What’s actually on teenagers’ phones?" (2025)
• Social Studies (TV documentary series, 2025)
• Erin in the Morning (Substack newsletter)
• A Minecraft Movie (2025)
• Prince - N.E.W.S. (2003)
• Origin of "Knock it into a cocked hat" from Wordhistories.net
• D.H. Lawrence - Samson and Delilah
• Caught in the Draft (1941)
• Paris Review on "Brownette" - "A Visit to the Max Factor Museum" by Sadie Stein (2014)

"TOO MANY HUSBANDS" TIMELINE (incomplete... could be someone's PhD to work all this out, likely many strands missing)

• 1565 – Martin Guerre story published
• 1800s – Someone, somewhere, writes a story probably called “The Fisherman” about a fisherman who goes missing, is presumed dead, comes back and finds his wife has married.
• 1854 – Thomas Woolner is an English sculptor and poet visiting Australia, and while there he buys a lot of books. He then returns to England on board a ship called the Queen of the South and spends a lot of time reading. In one of those books he reads “The Fisherman”. We don’t know what book it is or who wrote it. He later passes it on to his friend Lord Alfred Tennyson.
• 1864 – "Enoch Arden", poem by Lord Tennyson, based on “The Fisherman”
• 1911 – Too Many Husbands, play by Anthony E. Wills
• 1914 – Too Many Husbands, film based on Wills’ play
• 1918 – Too Many Husbands, English film
• 1919 – Home and Beauty aka Too Many Husbands, play by Maugham
• 1938 – Too Many Husbands, British film
• 1940 – Too Many Husbands, American film based on 1919 play
• 1940 – My Favorite Wife, remake of 1940 film with genderflip
• 1947 – “Too Many Husbands” radio adaptation with Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope
• 1954 – “Too Many Husbands” episode of Rocky Fortune
• 1955 – Three for the Show, remake of 1940 film
• 1962 – Something’s Got to Give, aborted Marilyn project, remake of My Favorite Wife
• 1963 – Move Over, Darling, made instead of above
• 2020 – “Too Many Husbands”, song by Coriky

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