Sitcoms: Fifties Edition

[ClassyCo]

The first in a series of threads I'm going to start. Let's discuss sitcoms from the 1950s.

Of course, I LOVE LUCY dominated the Nielsen ratings throughout the better half of the decade, coming in at #1 for four of its six seasons. So popular was the show that MY LITTLE MARGIE and I MARRIED JOAN were fashioned in a similar manner by other networks.

In addition to I LOVE LUCY, the decade also gave us THE HONEYMOONERS, which, although only producing 39 original episodes, went on to make future installments on THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW. It is widely regarded as the best of the best, too. There were a host of variety shows, and, naturally, the domestic comedies FATHER KNOWS BEST and THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE & HARRIET.

What's your favorite of sitcoms of the 1950s?

 

[tommie]

Some episodes of Betty White's sitcom Life With Elizabeth are available on Archive.org:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=life with elizabeth

 

[ClassyCo]

Some episodes of Betty White's sitcom Life With Elizabeth are available on Archive.org:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=life with elizabeth

I actually have a handful of episodes of LIFE WITH ELIZABETH on DVD, albeit as a part of one of those discount bundle packages.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I watched I LOVE LUCY and THE HONEYMOONERS -- in reruns, I'd like to point out, and still find the latter to be incredibly touching for some reason, perhaps in part because it lacks the production polish of LUCY and makes it an even more resonant mid-'50s period piece.

I watched FATHER KNOWS BEST, all with its tribal five-seconds-from-midnight vibe of domestic doom, but could never really stomach THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE & HARRIET. And the early years of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER were downright subversive with the kids saying all sorts of indicting things about society that the adults could never have gotten away with at that time.

I liked OUR MISS BROOKS because it's hard to not like Eve Arden, but I never saw it regularly. And all I know about I MARRIED JOAN is its theme song.

I might have liked MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY (THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW) but rarely saw it.

Hated McCALES NAVY. Or was it THE REAL McCALES?, I can never remember.

 

[ClassyCo]

I watched I LOVE LUCY and THE HONEYMOONERS -- in reruns, I'd like to point out, and still find the latter to be incredibly touching for some reason, perhaps in part because it lacks the production polish of LUCY and makes it an even more resonant mid-'50s period piece.

I watched FATHER KNOWS BEST, all with its tribal five-seconds-from-midnight vibe of domestic doom, but could never really stomach THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE & HARRIET. And the early years of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER were downright subversive with the kids saying all sorts of indicting things about society that the adults could never have gotten away with at that time.

I liked OUR MISS BROOKS because it's hard to not like Eve Arden, but I never saw it regularly. And all I know about I MARRIED JOAN is its theme song.

I might have liked MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY (THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW) but rarely saw it.

Hated McCALES NAVY. Or was it THE REAL McCALES?, I can never remember.

Yes, the production values of THE HONEYMOONERS do seem to give it a special place in my mind, even though I haven't watched it a whole lot. In my opinion, it was not as good as I LOVE LUCY, but it does more than hold its own.

I have watched some of FATHER KNOWS BEST and THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE & HARRIET, but I couldn't say that I am a particular fan of either of them. It isn't that I don't like them, it's just I haven't seen enough of them to judge either way.

I'm a casual fan of Eve Arden and her work, but I have yet to see anything significant regarding OUR MISS BROOKS. I've been meaning to look into it more, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I MARRIED JOAN, a rather modestly budgeted NBC comedy, was obviously aimed at Lucy fans, but it lacked the magic. Joan Stevens and Jim Backus, however, were superb as the leads, as they always were.

I've never seen any of the others you mentioned.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

For better or worse, FATHER KNOWS BEST was the archetypal '50s domestic sitcom -- where everyone and everything was in its place, every floor vacuumed and every window pane washed, each problem solved with a smile, each episode concluded with a soothing platitude, an idyllic portrait of an idyllic family in a decade in which idyllic was the ideal. Even the title is unthinkingly chauvinistic.

All wrapped up in a hovering, cozily tribal, post war package where just below the wrapping everything feels so incredibly sad -- almost as if the character are just a moment away from tears, but not really.

It's The Bomb, I guess.