Understand that what follows is my personal opinion; your mileage may vary. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet set the standard for television family sitcoms in the fifties -- bland, innocuous, and un challenging. I liken it to the television equivalent of mashed potatoes. Even Father Knows Best was edgier, and at least Leave It to Beaver had its Eddie Haskell. But Ozzie, with his laid-back personality and his gee-whiz conversations with his neighbor Thorny, could not be more monotonous or more like milk toast. I'm sure there were some family misunderstandings and minor crises over the fourteen seasons, but none stick out in my mind. Indeed, the most exciting action that I remember was Harriet searching for the last evening's newspaper to give to a neighborhood paper drive. **sigh** I also do not remember either Ozzie of Harriet singing in any of the episodes.
What we do have is Ricky singing, beginning in 1957, marking the start of a successful singing career, which lasted until his death in a plane crash in 1985. Ricky -- later, Rick -- also had a successful film and television career. Older brother David went on to career in acting, directing, and producing.
From the show's first season, "The Fall Guy," Ozzie tells David not to allow people to take advantage of his good nature, then regrets it. Directed by Ozzie and written by Bill Davenport, Ben Gershman, and Don Nelson (Ozzie's brother), the episode also features Don DeFore as Thorny and Carl Greyson as the show's announcer.
As I said, your mileage may be different from mine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hylGndkt4mE
Not Alice but Todd Mason notes: I was just the right age to miss THE ADVENTURES, which seemed to have a surprisingly limited repeats distribution, but did catch and mildly enjoy the syndicated, "updated" (a bit) OZZIE'S GIRLS, in which the quiet patriarch character is mildly puzzled by the three college-age women he rooms/boards in his house. No more pseudo-hip than the parents in THE BRADY BUNCH making Archie Bunker jokes, and less so than the more self-indulgent lack-of-variety show skits of the time. And, even as a child, I could see how Hanna-Barbera was trying to take in the lessons of Norman Lear/Bud Yorkin and MTM productions, and my favored ROOM 222, with their syndicated WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME...the other mayfly prime-time series I enjoyed considerably in that period was the Thurber-derived sitcom MY WORLD, AND WELCOME TO IT.
ReplyDeleteTHE CAROL BURNETT SHOW, of course, had the better comedic sketches, to my young taste, and wasn't seriously challenged till MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS imports rolled into New England and NBC's SATURDAY NIGHT began (with ABC's SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE WITH HOWARD COSELL doomed project squatting on the SNL title-fom briefly in '75), as the blockbusting CBS Saturday-night prime-time 8-11pm, PYTHON on PBS and NBC'S SNL became an eye-glazing necessary marathon for young me, and not a few others, even after they took ALL IN THE FAMILY and M*A*S*H out of the 8-9pm Sat. "family hour" in '75-'76.
ReplyDeleteAnd I see hazy memory played me a bit in the case of OZZIE'S GIRLS, as there were only two young women staying/renting with Harriet and Ozzie, while Harriet was unsurprisingly less befuddled than Ozzie by them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozzie%27s_Girls
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