With CBS in the middle of a talent raid that had already tempted away Jack Benny and other NBC stars, Peary was offered a lucrative CBS deal of his own in 1950, after he chafed over NBC's and Kraft's reluctance to let him use his singing voice more often on Gildersleeve and to give him more part in the show's ownership than he already had.
Radio historian Gerald Nachman, in Raised on Radio, said Peary and his agents at MCA had negotiated fruitlessly to get Peary a bigger stake in the show's ownership.
When CBS began luring Benny (also an MCA client) and others away from NBC, mostly by offering the performers better capital-gains terms against the still-high postwar U.S. taxes than NBC was willing to do, Peary signed with the network.

Kraft Foods, who sponsored The Great Gildersleeve and owned the intellectual properties, refused to move the program to CBS.
Gildersleeve remained on NBC with Willard Waterman, whose voice strongly resembled Peary's and who had known Peary since their radio days in Chicago, replaced Peary in the title role.
Waterman refused to appropriate the famous Gildersleeve laugh however, believing Peary alone should have rights to that trademark, but otherwise slipped easily into the role; Peary himself approved of Waterman's approach, at least on radio.
When the series briefly moved to television in 1955, Peary remarked that Waterman, who was much taller than Peary, was too large to pull off the role  (Peary imagined Gildersleeve as a small man with delusions of grandeur) successfully on-screen.

At CBS, Peary began a new situation comedy, The Harold Peary Show, sometimes known as Honest Harold, a title that was actually the name of the fictitious radio show the new character hosted.
Radio veteran Joseph Kearns (later best-known as Mr. Wilson on TV's Dennis the Menace) played veterinarian Dr. Yancey, known better as Doc Yak-Yak and similar to former Gildersleeve foil Judge Hooker.
The new show also borrowed a few Gildersleeve plot devices, such as running for mayor and engagements to two women.
In what was probably a desperate attempt to recreate the Gildersleeve magic, actress Shirley Mitchell, virtually reprised her Gildersleeve role of Leila Ransom, under the name of Florabelle Breckenridge.
Additionally, Honest Harold's secretary at the radio station, Glory, bears a more than passing resemblance to Gildersleeve's Water Department secretary, Bessie: both are stereotypical ditzy blondes.
Despite  these efforts to recreate the quality and ratings of "The Great Gildersleeve", The Harold Peary Show lasted only one season of 38 episodes.

On the March 21,1951 broadcast of The Harold Peary Show, California governor, Earl Warren (later to become Chief Justice of the United States) honored native son, Harold Peary, on live radio, with the only award ever issued up to that time, for having completed his ten thousandth (10,000th) radio broadcast.
Peary's record remains unsurpassed in the annals of radio.
With CBS in the middle of a talent raid that had already tempted away Jack Benny and other NBC stars, Peary was offered a lucrative CBS deal of his own in 1950, after he chafed over NBC's and Kraft's reluctance to let him use his singing voice more often on Gildersleeve and to give him more part in the show's ownership than he already had. Radio historian Gerald Nachman, in Raised on Radio, said Peary and his agents at MCA had negotiated fruitlessly to get Peary a bigger stake in the show's ownership. When CBS began luring Benny (also an MCA client) and others away from NBC, mostly by offering the performers better capital-gains terms against the still-high postwar U.S. taxes than NBC was willing to do, Peary signed with the network.
Kraft Foods, who sponsored The Great Gildersleeve and owned the intellectual properties, refused to move the program to CBS. Gildersleeve remained on NBC with Willard Waterman, whose voice strongly resembled Peary's and who had known Peary since their radio days in Chicago, replaced Peary in the title role. Waterman refused to appropriate the famous Gildersleeve laugh however, believing Peary alone should have rights to that trademark, but otherwise slipped easily into the role; Peary himself approved of Waterman's approach, at least on radio. When the series briefly moved to television in 1955, Peary remarked that Waterman, who was much taller than Peary, was too large to pull off the role  (Peary imagined Gildersleeve as a small man with delusions of grandeur) successfully on-screen.
At CBS, Peary began a new situation comedy, The Harold Peary Show, sometimes known as Honest Harold, a title that was actually the name of the fictitious radio show the new character hosted. Radio veteran Joseph Kearns (later best-known as Mr. Wilson on TV's Dennis the Menace) played veterinarian Dr. Yancey, known better as Doc Yak-Yak and similar to former Gildersleeve foil Judge Hooker. The new show also borrowed a few Gildersleeve plot devices, such as running for mayor and engagements to two women. In what was probably a desperate attempt to recreate the Gildersleeve magic, actress Shirley Mitchell, virtually reprised her Gildersleeve role of Leila Ransom, under the name of Florabelle Breckenridge. Additionally, Honest Harold's secretary at the radio station, Glory, bears a more than passing resemblance to Gildersleeve's Water Department secretary, Bessie: both are stereotypical ditzy blondes. Despite  these efforts to recreate the quality and ratings of "The Great Gildersleeve", The Harold Peary Show lasted only one season of 38 episodes.
On the March 21,1951 broadcast of The Harold Peary Show, California governor, Earl Warren (later to become Chief Justice of the United States) honored native son, Harold Peary, on live radio, with the only award ever issued up to that time, for having completed his ten thousandth (10,000th) radio broadcast. Peary's record remains unsurpassed in the annals of radio.
Harold Peary