Television
Before the show aired, Ozzie Nelson persuaded ABC to agree to a 10-year contract that paid the Nelsons whether the series was canceled or not. The unprecedented contract and Ozzie's insistence for perfection in the show's production paid off in the show's remarkable popularity.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet premiered on ABC on October 10, 1952, staying until September 3, 1966. The show strove for realism and featured exterior shots of the Nelsons' actual southern California home at 1822 Camino Palmero Street in Los Angeles as the fictional Nelsons' home. Interior shots were filmed on a sound stage recreated to look like the real interior of the Nelsons' home. Like its radio predecessor (which finally ended in 1954), the series focused mainly on the Nelson family at home, dealing with run-of-the-mill problems. As the series progressed and the boys grew up, storylines involving various characters were introduced. Many of the series storylines were taken from the Nelsons' real life. When the real David and Rick got married, to June Blair and Kristin Harmon respectively, their wives joined the cast of Ozzie and Harriet, and the marriages were written into the series. What was seldom written into the series was Ozzie's profession or mention of his lengthy and successful band-leading career which was infrequent. The popular joke about his career was that the only time he left the house was to go buy ice cream. According to his granddaughter, actress Tracy Nelson, Ozzie went to Rutgers to study law and when pressed would tell interviewers that the TV Ozzie was a lawyer.
Supporting cast members (some appearing in more than 50 episodes over ten years) included Don DeFore, Parley Baer, Lyle Talbot, Mary Jane Croft, Skip Young, Gordon Jones, James Stacy, Joe Flynn and Jack Wagner.
By the mid 1960s, America's social climate was changing, and the Nelsons' all American nuclear family epitomized the 1950s values and ideals that were quickly becoming a thing of the past. Ozzie, who wrote and directed all of the series' episodes, attempted to change with the times, but most viewers related the show to a long gone era. The series cracked the top thirty programs in the Nielsen ratings for the first and only time, during its eleventh season, (1963–1964), when it ranked in 29th place. The show finally made the transition from black-and-white to color in its 1965–66 season. In that season, Ozzie tried to recapture the series' earlier success portraying a young, growing family, by introducing 9-year old Joel Davison and other boys to interact with the Nelsons and create the illusion of a younger family. Joel appeared in three episodes, but it was too late to reverse declining ratings, and ABC canceled Ozzie and Harriet in 1966.
The show ran for a total of fourteen television seasons, and for nearly four decades, held the record as the longest running American television sitcom, live or animated, until the record was broken by The Simpsons in 2004. The show is still the longest running live-action American sitcom in television history.
Read more about this topic: The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“They [parents] can help the children work out schedules for homework, play, and television that minimize the conflicts involved in what to do first. They can offer moral support and encouragement to persist, to try again, to struggle for understanding and mastery. And they can share a child’s pleasure in mastery and accomplishment. But they must not do the job for the children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labour in the same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour.”
—Frederic Raphael (b. 1931)