The Donna Reed Show

The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the upper middle class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz appears as her pediatrician husband Alex, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC at 10 pm from September 24, 1958 to March 19, 1966. When Fabares left the show in 1964, Petersen's little sister Patty Petersen joined the cast as adopted daughter Trisha.

Bob Crane and Ann McCrea appeared in the last seasons as the Kelseys, friends of the Stones, and Darryl Richard became a near regular as Smitty, Jeff's best buddy. The show featured a variety of celebrity guests including Esther Williams as a famous dress designer, baseball superstars Don Drysdale and Willie Mays as themselves, teen heartthrob James Darren as a pop singer with the measles, canine superstar Lassie as herself, and young Jay North as Dennis the Menace.

The series was created by William Roberts and developed by Reed and her husband, producer Tony Owen. Episodes revolved around typical upper-middle-class family problems of the period such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, throwing a retirement bash for a colleague, and finding quality time away from the kids. Edgy themes such as women's rights and freedom of the press were occasionally explored.

The show had an uncertain start in the ratings and was almost cancelled, but fared better when it was moved from Wednesday to Thursday nights. In the show's middle seasons, Fabares sang what became a #1 teen pop hit "Johnny Angel", and Petersen had above average success with the song "My Dad", also introduced during the course of the series.

The Donna Reed Show was one of television's top 25 shows in 1963-64. Reed was repeatedly nominated for Emmy Awards between 1959 and 1962, and won a Golden Globe as Best Female TV Star in 1963. She eventually grew tired of the work-a-day grind involved in the show, and it was cancelled in 1966 after 275 episodes.

The series was sponsored by Campbell Soup Company, with Johnson & Johnson as the principal alternate sponsor (succeeded in the fall of 1963 by The Singer Company). Following first-run, the show entered syndication and reruns were seen on Nick at Nite and TVLand for several years. The first four seasons have been released on DVD and at least one more season is planned for release.