Wendy and Me - Synopsis

Synopsis

"Connie Stevens plays Wendy, and I play "me", quipped the cigar-puffing George Burns in advertising for his unsuccessful Wendy and Me situation comedy series on ABC, 1964-1965.

In the series (a slight variation of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show), Burns plays a somewhat fictionalized version of himself. He is the owner of an apartment building, while Stevens plays his tenant, Wendy Conway. Episodes typically revolved around Wendy pulling Burns into comedic situations mostly involving her husband, played by Ron Harper, and other people in the building. As a regular part of its format, Burns would often break the fourth wall to comment directly to the audience about the episode's events. Burns as landlord would watch his attractive young tenant on what appears to the modern eye to be a surreptitious closed circuit television transmission with hidden cameras (he also accomplished this with his "TV in the den" in later episodes of The Burns and Allen Show). Viewers of the show, may remember the television was not so much a "surreptitious closed circuit television" but rather a plain old television set where George Burns watched the show "Wendy and Me" along with the television audiences. James T. Callahan appeared in the series as Danny Adams, a playboy friend of Wendy's strait-laced husband. J. Pat O'Malley played the apartment handyman.

Stevens's contract with Warner Bros., Burns agreed to produce another series for her studio, No Time For Sergeants, which appeared before Wendy and Me on ABC's Monday night schedule.

Wendy and Me was followed on the ABC schedule by The Bing Crosby Show, an unsuccessful attempt by Bing Crosby to establish a situation comedy of his own. Wendy and Me faced stiff competition from Lucille Ball's The Lucy Show on CBS and The Andy Williams Show on NBC, and only lasted one season.