THE ANDREWS SISTERS TV SHOW

Patti, Maxene and LaVerne Andrews

THE ANDREWS SISTERS TV SHOW (1951). Director: Jean Yarbrough.

This is the pilot for a sitcom-musical series that wasn't picked up by any network. The Andrws Sisters -- Patti, Maxene, and LaVerne -- basically playing themselves, run a music shop in Hollywood but are always behind on the rent. Patti is dating Willie (that amusing nebbish Marvin Kaplan), and LaVerne has set her cap for a character, Tex, played by Buddy Ebsen [Breakfast at Tiffany's] who is not that far from Jed Clampett. In between the limited plot, the gals do song numbers, including the comic "Hawaii: and "Pennsylvania Polka." Patti does a solo on "I Can Dream, Can't I?" and is excellent at putting across this classic romantic ballad. The sisters do two promos for possible sponsors, singing songs, invoking the name of Bing, and mentioning how they can easily get guest-stars from show business. Donald MacBride [Murder Over New York] angrily (as usual) plays the dyspeptic landlord who wants his rent money. One could certainly quibble about many aspects of this pilot, how it's lame at times and hokey, and the gals are certainly not in the league of say, Lucille Ball as comediennes, but they are otherwise not bad actors, with Patti, as usual, being the most accomplished and effervescent, and the show might have been successful if given a chance.

Verdict: Pleasant sitcom with welcome song numbers. **1/2.

DADDY O [LOST PILOT]

Lee Philips and Don DeFore

DADDY-O (unsold pilot/1961). Director/producer: Rod Amateau.

Daddy-O was a situation comedy with a fairly unusual premise. Ben (Don DeFore of Killer Bait) is a carpenter who is working on a house for TV producer Albert Shapian (Lee Philips). For some reason, never explained, Albert thinks Ben would make a good actor, and the fellow winds up in a show called Daddy-O, produced by Shapian, wherein he plays a hapless family man in slapstick situations. The show-within-the-show is a big hit, but despite all the money Ben is dissatisfied. He thinks his work is frivolous whereas before he was helping to build homes and thereby helping the nation. He wants to quit Daddy-O, but Shapian won't think of it. At a hospital where Ben's wife Polly (Jean Byron) volunteers, he meets an elderly female patient who tells him how much the show means to her and other lonely people of all ages, to whom it has given a family. Ben decides to stay with Daddy O, not realizing that the old lady was an actress paid by Shavian, although she tells the producer that she actually meant every word. Other characters in the show include Ben's two teenaged sons, and Shavian's dumb brunette but sexy secretary. In the opening sequence -- a scene from Daddy O -- Sheila James from Dobie Gillis plays his daughter. Shavian seems to have a bit of a thing for Polly.

This pilot was apparently aired but wasn't turned into a series. The actors are fine -- even bland DeFore -- but perhaps it was too critical of dumb sitcoms for its own good, and without delivering the major laughs that any good sitcom requires. A surprising scene has Shapian and his colleagues adjusting the laugh track on an episode  -- the fact that sitcoms used laugh tracks was generally downplayed in this era. Still Daddy-O is amiable and has a few chuckles in it. Had this gone to series it might have developed into a memorable show. Philips at least gives the project a little sex appeal, as does his uncredited secretary. Created and written by Max Shulman. DeFore wound up in the long-running Hazel with Shirley Booth.

Verdict: Had possibilities. **1/2.

THE DENNIS O'KEEFE SHOW

Dennis O'Keefe

THE DENNIS O'KEEFE SHOW. 1959.

This sitcom starring popular actor Dennis O'Keefe lasted for one season in 1959. The premise had him as a newspaper columnist with one son, Randy (Ricky Kelman), and a housekeeper named "Sarge" (played by Hope Emerson after she was replaced on Peter Gunn). The very lovely Eloise Hardt plays a sometimes girlfriend, Karen. Three episodes from this lost, pretty much forgotten series are available at the Internet Archives, and two more on youtube. In "June Thursday" 42-year-old Hal Towne (O'Keefe, who was actually a somewhat older-looking fifty-one at the time)) tries to make a star out of a talented cigarette girl. In another episode Randy sends a note to a cute little girl, but her grandmother (Zazu Pitts) thinks the note is for her and that it was sent by Hal! In "Counterfeiters" two elderly counterfeiters buy tickets from Randy with phoney bills, leading to complications. In another episode Hal tries to romance his son's teacher, upon whom he has an unrequited crush, while another teacher (Nancy Kulp, who was eternally cast as the homely "other woman) tries to get a date with him. The best and most amusing episode you can find on line [on youtube], "The Regency Club," has Hal romancing a snobbish society lady who's only dating him so she can dump him, but he goes her one better with some help from his son, housekeeper, and Karen [why Hal would want any other woman when the very attractive, classy yet down-to-earth Karen is available is the question]. Judging from these episodes, there have certainly been worse sitcoms than The Dennis O'Keefe Show and much better ones as well. The cast is appealing, O'Keefe is fine, Emerson amusing, Kelman a cute kid, and Jerome Cowan scores, as he generally does, as a rival columnist. O'Keefe was in Hold That Kiss, Weekend for Three, and many, many other movies.

Verdict: No I Love Lucy, but O'Keefe fans may enjoy. **1/2.

GREAT OLD EPISODE: THE OPERETTA -- I LOVE LUCY

"I am the queen of the gypsies..."

I LOVE LUCY: "The Operetta." Season Two. 1952.

SQUIRE/FRED MERTZ: "There's lots of ale and stout upon the shelf.
  And I take a drop or two myself"

PEASANTS: "A drop, he says! The squire's got the gout.
The stout makes him ail, and the ale makes him stout."

Needing to quickly replenish the treasury of the Ladies Wednesday Fine Arts League (or whatever the heck it's called), Lucy decides to write and put on an operetta entitled "The Pleasant Peasant." Since Ethel can sing much better than Lucy, she is given the lead role of Lily, while Lucy has to be content with Camille, "the snaggle-toothed old queen of the gypsies." To drown out Lucy's awful singing, the cast has been instructed to join in every time she opens her mouth. The costumes and scenery have been rented, everything's going well on opening night, but as always when Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) is in charge, things don't go quite as expected ...

Asked who wrote the songs, Lucy replies "Did you ever hear of Victor Herbert?" Of course, Lucy wrote the songs herself. When I first saw this in reruns as a child, I thought the rather tuneful music really was composed by Victor Herbert -- it's in his melodious style --  but I've never been able to determine who really did the music. [I Love Lucy has credited composers such as Eliot Daniel and Wilbur Hatch but they did general music for many episodes.] In any case, all of the songs are surprisingly memorable, including Ethel/Vivian Vance's delightfully-performed number "Lily of the Valley" ["when other girls go walking on their arm they've got a swell beau; whenever I go walking on my arm is just my elbow"], Ricky's love song to Lily, the drinking song, the Squire/Fred's number, and so on. I assume the clever and amusing lyrics were written by the Lucy writing team, Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr. The episode was directed by Marc Daniels.

Ball, Vance, Desi Arnaz, and William Frawley are all in top form, aided and abetted by Myra Marsh as the club president and the other ladies, especially the woman who interrupts the performance to sing to Lucy about a bounced check, and whose identity I can't determine [she isn't listed on imdb nor even on the I Love Lucy DVD], although I have definitely seen her elsewhere, possibly other Lucy episodes.

UPDATE: Aside from the first number in the operetta, the songs were all composed by Eliot Daniel, who also composed the show's theme song.

Verdict: Classic comedy. ****.

THE LUCY SHOW SEASON TWO

Lucy and Viv try to get the "world famous Thunderbolt" to move

THE LUCY SHOW Season 2.1963.

The first season of The Lucy Show had its moments but was certainly no I Love Lucy. The second season also has some laughs, but there isn't a single really outstanding episode. The more memorable ones feature Jay Novello as a safe cracker; Robert Alda and John Carradine as art student and instructor [and a very clever bit involving the Mona Lisa]; Lucy's all-woman fire department putting out a fire at the bank; Lucy and Viv opening a restaurant [though it can't compare to "The Diner" episode on I Love Lucy]; Lucy working with Mr. Mooney [Gale Gordon, who is introduced on the fourth episode of the season] at the same bank; the gals competing in a bake-off; and the frenetic couple organizing kiddie parties [the funniest bit has the gals trying to get a recalcitrant dog, "the world-famous Thunderbolt" -- see photo -- to just get up and move]. The problem with The Lucy Show is that everyone thinks that all Ball needs is a little shtick to be hilarious, but the episode with her conducting an orchestra is just plain bad, and there are other overly silly and unfunny episodes with labored and poor material that even the talents of Ball and Vance can't save. However, the gals get some good support from Gale Gordon, Mary Jane Croft, Kathleen Freeman, and others. Ball's second husband, comic Gary Morton, appears in one episode and is quite good. Season three was slightly better. In the introduction to the show, there are nuermous photos of Lucy, and only one of Vivian Vance, who is still billed only as a "co-star."

Verdict: "Ethel Mertz" is one thing, but you can really miss her teaming up with Ethel Merman. **.  

MEET THE MERTZES

MEET THE MERTZES: The Life Stories of I Love Lucy's Other Couple. Rod Edelman and Audrey Kupferberg. Renaissance books; 1999.

This book takes an interesting and pleasant look into the lives of Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz) and William Frawley (Fred Mertz) both before, during and after I Love Lucy, their appearances on which made them forever famous. There is a look at Frawley's long, long career in films, his important role on the post Lucy sitcom My Three Sons, and tales of his drinking and famous, if lovable, grumpiness. Vivian, who grew up in Albuquerque [but was not born there] -- "Ethel's" home town -- got her start in New Mexico theater then migrated to Manhattan where she had some important stage roles but never quite graduated to stardom [she made very few films]. She appeared with Lucille Ball on The Lucy Show, even  though she would rather have stayed in Connecticut with her gay husband, a publisher who was her late-in-life companion. There are also details on her earlier marriages, as well as the one time Frawley tied the knot. Illustrated.

Verdict: A good read for Lucy fans. ***.

THE "CRAPTASTIC" BETTY HUTTON SHOW

Dennis Olivieri and Betty Hutton

THE BETTY HUTTON SHOW (1959 - 1960).

When I first came across this sitcom that I never heard of on the Internet Archives -- a site that lists thousands of public domain TV shows, films, radio broadcasts and more for free watching or downloading -- my attention was caught by the term "CRAPTASTIC" -- the term with which the person who uploaded the show onto the site labeled the series, meaning it was bad, bad, bad. How bad is The Betty Hutton Show? I just had to find out, wouldn't you know? Judging by the three episodes available for viewing, it was pretty bad. In other words: Craptastic! Hutton plays Goldie Appleby, a manicurist who becomes guardian of three park avenue children. Their lawyer is played by Tom Conway (George Sanders' less interesting brother), who had a long, long list of mostly B movie credits. The teenage girl is played by child star Gigi Perreau [Journey to the Center of Time], and the boys by Peter Miles and Dennis Olivieri, who is a very talented boy and easily out-acts almost everyone on the show, including Hutton, who is generally terrible. Norma Varden [Witness for the Prosecution] plays Goldie's aunt, and is also vastly superior to Hutton. (Peter Miles was the brother of Perreau and appeared with her in Roseanna McCoy, in which he was excellent.)

In one episode a bosomy client of Conway's sets her cap for the lawyer, so Goldie concocts a dumb story about his having a wife and children. In another Goldie encourages Perreau to take up painting, and a misunderstanding develops when she overhears the girl and a boy friend acting out parts in a play. The third, and most watchable episode, has Goldie dealing with two con artists who try to con her out of money allegedly for an orphanage (they are very well played by Robert Emhardt and Ellen Corby). This last episode at least has a couple of minor chuckles.

Unfortunately, the others are almost unwatchable. Hutton -- and I admit she was never one of my favorites -- is at her most over-bearing worst, shamelessly mugging, obvious and vulgar, and even seems drunk at times. Unlike Lucille Ball, Joan Davis and even Eve Arden, she has no real skill as a comedienne, but simply lumbers about trying desperately to get laughs.

Betty Hutton, producer, should have fired Betty Hutton, star. The show lasted only one season.

Verdict: Definitely "craptastic!" *. 

THE LUCY SHOW: SEASON ONE

Lucy and a bleating sheep

THE LUCY SHOW: SEASON ONE. CBS/1962.

After the end of I Love Lucy as well as the dissolution of Lucille Ball's marriage to Desi Arnaz [although not the end of their professional relationship due to their involvement in Desilu], Ball and Vivian Vance re-teamed without the boys as a widow and a divorcee living together with their children in a small town. Although The Lucy Show had the same writers as I Love Lucy, the show -- which also ran several years before turning into Here's Lucy -- was not in the same classic league. [One problem was that the writers couldn't resist re-using some classic I Love Lucy bits and plot lines.] There are, however, some funny moments and memorable scenes in the first season, such as "Lucy and Viv take Up Chemistry" and "Lucy Buys a Boat." The two best episodes are "Lucy Builds a Rumpus Room," which has a very funny finale, and "Lucy is Kangaroo for a Day," which has a priceless bit in which a strand of her suit is caught in an elevator and completely unravels her outfit, as well as some hilarious scenes in a restaurant. Dick Martin is okay as the girls' neighbor and occasional date, Harry, but Charles Lane [later replaced by Gale Gordon] is terrific as the severe banker Mr. Barnsdahl. The three children in the cast are all talented and appealing as well. However, there are too many mediocre episodes to make most people want to look at later seasons, although they had their moments.

Verdict: Lucy can still make you laugh -- with reservations. **1/2.

BETTY WHITE IN BLACK AND WHITE

BETTY WHITE IN BLACK AND WHITE DVD collection.

If you can't get enough of Betty White, here's a DVD collection of some of her shows from the fifties. There are two episodes of Life with Elizabeth that she did with Del Moore [three sketches per episode] in which they play a married couple. The skits range in quality from amusing to tiresome but all are well-acted. Betty reveals a very pleasant singing voice on an episode of the daytime variety show The Betty White Show. Betty surprises a young orphan (also named Betty) with a ton of gifts but it's hard to tell if the strangely subdued child is shell-shocked or annoyed that she didn't get the gift she wanted! Then there are two episodes of the sitcom A Date with the Angels in which Betty and Bill Williams play another married couple. On one episode stately Nancy Kulp [Miss Jane Hathaway of The Beverly Hillbillies] plays a highly sophisticated wife of a friend. Judging by these episodes, A Date with the Angels was pleasant but forgettable. Lastly, there's two episodes of yet another program called The Betty White Show [this one aired in the evening] which also has comedy sketches featuring Jimmy Boyd and the wonderful Reta Shaw. I have to confess I didn't like the Olga cleaning woman sketch any better than I did Carol Burnett's later charwoman routine. All in all, this is an interesting collection, however. White exhibited a bundle of comedic talent practically from the first.

Verdict: If you're not into the "fabulous fifties," there's always White in The Golden Girls. **1/2.

HANK

HANK (2009 ABC TV show.) Director: James Burrows.

Kelsey Grammer stars in this new sitcom in which he plays a New York City executive who got laid off due to the economy and has moved back to Virginia with his wife and two children. One can't expect Grammer to play Frasier for the rest of his life, but one can't help but compare every other sitcom the actor does to that jewel he did a few years ago. Grammer is at his best playing sophisticated characters, not middle-class family men, and some of those old Frasier vaguely epicene mannerisms keep creeping in. Grammer is fine in Hank -- in fact, with all due respect to the other actors, he's basically the whole show. One pleasant enough episode had him encouraging his teenage daughter to go to work, and he of the big mouth wound up beside her selling ice cream in a shop with an obnoxious manager. Still, this had none of the bite or wit of the best -- or even the least -- of the Frasier episodes. I like Grammer but I can't see Hank sticking around for long. Someone should put Grammer in a more intelligent and sophisticated program -- Hank isn't it.

Verdict: Hurry up or this will be gone. **/2.

MY LITTLE MARGIE

MY LITTLE MARGIE (1952 - 1955).

Vivacious Gale Storm, who passed away this past June, was the star of this popular fifties sitcom that presented the comedic trials and tribulations of 21-year-old Margie Albright (Storm was actually around 30) and her late forties father Vern (Charles Farrell, who was actually in the mid-fifties). Vern wants Margie to literally stay out of his business at Honeywell and Todd, an investment firm, and Margie wants Vern to let her date whomsoever she wants, and to stay home like the "old man" he is and be a "nice, old father." Others in the cast included Clarence Kolb, as Vern's boss, Mr. Honeywell; Hillary Brooke as his girlfriend, Roberta; Don Hayden as Margie's steady, Freddie (although Margie practically dated a different man every episode); and Willie Best, as Charlie the elevator boy. Everyone on the show was excellent [except Brooke, who never really had much flair for this sort of thing], but Gertrude Hoffman, an actress in her eighties, stole every episode she was in as Mrs. Odets, who was also in her eighties, and was almost as man-crazy as Margie was.

With over a hundred episodes, you have to expect a few clinkers, and in truth, some episodes of the series are so monumentally silly (without being funny) that they are painful to watch. On the other hand, when the script clicks, it clicks. Some of the funniest include a wild business involving a boxing kangaroo; and an episode with Margie impersonating a fat, male opera singer. As noted, any episode with Mrs. Odets teaming up with Margie generally had more than its share of laughs. Vern made an excellent foil for the effervescent Storm, Hayden was appealing, Best was delightfully daffy, and Kolb was perfection as the contrary Honeywell, who seemed to fire Vern on every other episode. The scripts generally revolved around Vern and Honeywell trying to keep Margie away from some client of theirs, not realizing that she has probably already met the person and fouled things up. Margie often screwed things up for her father, but generally worked everything out before the wind-up.

NOTE: Another popular 50's sitcom was I Married Joan with Joan Davis.

Verdict: Appealing cast and quite a few funny moments. ***.

IT'S A GREAT LIFE

IT'S A GREAT LIFE. 1954 TV series. Shown on American Life TV.

Before she was Aunt Bee of Mayberry, Frances Bavier was the mainstay (although supposedly a supporting character) of this lively and often amusing -- and virtually forgotten -- sitcom that has been exhumed by American Life TV. Bavier plays Amy Morgan, a widow who lives with her no-account, generally unemployed brother, Earl (James Dunn). Amy takes in two boarders, girl-crazy ex-servicemen named Denny (Michael O'Shea) and Steve (William Bishop) -- who also seem to lose more jobs than they even get hired for. Barbara Bates, who played the young fan of Eve Harrington at the end of All About Eve, played Amy's daughter Cathy for about a third of the episodes. Good-natured and enthusiastically played, It's a Great Life could be silly but there were several funny episodes, particularly one in which the gang buys a tea house, unaware that it's been used as an illegal gambling den. Bavier has a lot of fun squaring off against the tough lady leader of the gang. In the naive fifties, Denny and Steve sleep together in one bed. Michael O'Shea was married to Virginia Mayo and there are occasional in-jokes relating to the sexy actress.

Verdict: Not a terrible time passer. **1/2.

GREAT OLD TV: I MARRIED JOAN

I MARRIED JOAN. A collection of episodes from this classic fifties sitcom (1952 - 1955) starring Joan Davis has been put together on a two-part four-DVD set. I loved this show when I was a kid, but I wasn't certain how it would hold up after so many years. I must admit that at first it seemed pretty silly, with Davis a deft comedienne on her own terms but not quite a genius on the level of I Love Lucy's Lucille Ball. The scripts seemed even more childish than Lucy's could be on occasion. Then I saw some of the more memorable episodes of I Married Joan and the full magic of the show -- and of Davis -- came through, and I suddenly remembered after all these years why I had enjoyed it so much when I first saw the reruns years ago.

COLLECTION ONE: In “Joan's Haircut” Joan gets one of the hot new “panda” haircuts for her class reunion but then feels like putting a bag over her head when she can't get used to it. In “New House” she and hubby Jim Backus ["Thurston Howell" from Gilligan's Island] put down a down payment on a hew home only to learn that another couple has done the same thing – and both couples are equally determined to move in! Joan and Brad have an argument while showing movies from their trip to Hawaii in “Home Movies.” “Honeymoon” features a flashback to Joan's disastrous honeymoon where her new husband spent most of the trip trapped in a closet. “Alienation” is a slightly risque episode in which Brad believes that Joan has been entertaining a variety of lovers.

COLLECTION TWO: Lee Patrick guest-stars as a tough hospital clerk when Brad gets a couple of “Broken Toes.” To impress a snotty “friend” [played by Adele Jergens] Joan buys a hugely expensive dress she can't afford in “Clothes Budget.” [Fritz Feld marvelously plays the dress shop owner and there are also appearances by Bernard Gorcey and “Clara” from the I Love Lucy “operetta” and other episodes.] At a hat shop Joan gets into a cat fight with a touchy lady that she doesn't realize she'll be having dinner with later in “Acrobats.” Joan finds out that she's apparently allergic to her own husband in “Allergy.” A smooth lecturer with wonderful manners creates “Jealousy” in Brad and other husbands.

I Married Joan could be much racier than I Love Lucy. Joan's daughter Beverly Willis played her sister Beverly in several episodes. Joan's wise Aunt Vera was played in other episodes by the “speed it up!” lady from the chocolate factory episode of I Love Lucy ["Job Switching"]. Two episodes that are not included in this collection but I wish had been: Joan innocently drops a piranha in with Brad's collection of tropical fish. And tries to stuff or do something to a chicken while taking some kind of course in school. Now those I'd really love to see again!

Verdict: Lots of fun! ***.