Peary's Gildersleeve proved popular enough that it was thought to try the character in his own show. Johnson's Wax, which sponsored "Fibber McGee & Molly", sponsored an audition recording for "The Great Gildersleeve", and the Kraft Cheese Company signed on as the show's regular sponsor. Gildersleeve was transplanted from Wistful Vista to Summerfield with more than just a locale change—now a bachelor (his character had a never-heard wife on "Fibber McGee & Molly"), and now the water commissioner instead of the owner of the Gildersleeve's Girlish Girdles company. With much of his pomposity and cantankerousness toned down, he was also newly domesticated and appointed guardian of his orphan niece Marjorie and nephew Leroy. Implicitly well-off though by no means wealthy, Gildersleeve was depicted winding up his lingerie-making company and taking up a new life as Summerfield's water commissioner.