Ozzie and Harriett

One of the first TV shows--and one of the best. Still.

Don't call me Sis.

Yes, I grew up with it; what was kind of weird was it was on in reruns after dinner every weeknight (roughly when David and Rick were in high school and college), then one night a week there was a new episode on the network (ABC?) where the boys were married. I remember very well sitting on the couch in the den with my dad watching Ricky singing at the end of the show.

I don't think they showed the much older shows when David and Rickey were young kids.

)Good show with storylines that didn't seem like the usual sitcom stuff.)

The entire show has been remastered and is available on Tubi. It wasn't available except in bootlegged poor quality until the past 2 years. Rick's son played an active role in getting it done.

I think it was last shown on Disney in the 80s. It didn't have the same life as Leave it To Beaver and Lucy in syndication

There was something like a Shout Factory edition with about 20 episodes--but some of these were missing footage. Then there was a bigger bootleg box. I hope they're being shown in the original aspect ratio.

Original title- Here Come the Nelsons

I think Here Come The Nelsons was the 1950s movie based on the radio series, that preceded the TV show (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet).

The radio series preceded (1944) and then ran concurrently (1952-1954) with the TV series. Other actors played the sons for the first four seasons of the radio series.

But the show was never called Here Come the Nelsons.

It was a gentle, good-natured comedy and the main cast and the continuing characters were all good.

Value of the house today

In real life, easy going dad Ozzie was an insufferable task master and both Dave and Rick grew up to despise him.p

[quote]The radio series preceded (1944) and then ran concurrently (1952-1954) with the TV series. Other actors played the sons for the first four seasons of the radio series.

What crazy luck Ozzie and Harriet had in giving birth to a son who was movie star handsome and could sing.

Girls are so much easier.

[quote]What crazy luck Ozzie and Harriet had in giving birth to a son who was movie star handsome and could sing.

Ozzie was a bandleader and Harriet was a singer.

It was an era of no humor. See Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason. This show and "Father knows best" projected a norm of WASP family life that didn't exist for many people.

Yeah, shows like Ozzie & Harriet, Leave It to Beaver and Donna Reed gave a generation of Baby Boomers terrible inferiority complexes that their family life was nothing like what they watched on TV.

Ricky, birth name Eric, was born at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, New Jersey when Ozzie and Harriet lived in Ridgefield, next town to the south. My sister graduated from their Nursing School. Hospital still here. Harriet, then Hilliard, was a singer in Ozzie's band before they married.

"Yeah, shows like Ozzie & Harriet, Leave It to Beaver and Donna Reed gave a generation of Baby Boomers terrible inferiority complexes that their family life was nothing like what they watched on TV."

As if The Cosby Show never existed. How many black families are headed by a doctor and a lawyer? For that matter, how many white families are headed by a doctor and a lawyer.

Harriet Hilliard appears in the RKO Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical Follow the Fleet as Ginger's bff and Randy Scott's gf. Lucky girl!

r20, yeah, but the difference to my generation was that back then, there were NO realistic portrayals of suburban American families. Even on1950s sitcoms like The Life of Riley, the working class mom wore pearls and high heels as she vacuumed and ironed.

Well, I guess there was The Honeymooners but no one wanted to live in that hovel with Ralph Cramden.

In the 50s, there were ethnic shows: Amos N' Andy, The Goldbergs (Jewish) and Mama (Norwegian)

Ozzie once said the reason why they never mentioned his job on TV was because he owned an adult bookstore.

Rick was so dreamy!

The whole family was good looking but Ricky was extraordinary. He also could sing very well so I think that kept the show alive much longer than justified.

"Leave It To Beaver" was more realistic than most, in a subtle way. Fat pal Larry Mondello had a middle-aged frumpy mom who constantly threatened him "Wait until your father gets home!", which I found somewhat sinister even at my age of 11. And of course Eddie Haskell (my favorite character) was an obvious con artist in the making. But my mom never wore pearls & heels & pretty dresses for housework, nor did any of my friends' moms.

In real life Rick’s zany crush was a bulldyke Harvard Law grad.

[quote]But the show was never called Here Come the Nelsons.

I stand corrected. Because the feature film was basically the pilot for the series, I forgot it was a film, and not on tv.

Can you imagine going out on a Saturday night movie date and paying money to see "Here Come the Nelsons"? Somebody must have, the show ran forever!

[Quote] Sis anyone here grow up with it?

Not me gurlfren.

Never old enough to be around to watch it in first run or in syndicated repeats, but I do remember the “Ozzie’s Girls” syndicated “reboot” they did during the fifties-nostalgia-obsessed early 1970s, with Oz and Harr renting out their grown boys’ now-vacant bedrooms to a couple of young women in, I think recalling, college.

Wanted to add that the stilted line readings and character reactions always reminded any clips I’ve seen of the original show, as being comparable to the comedic sitcom version of the “Dragnet” police TV show.

“Leave It To Beaver,” in its albeit WASPY-ish reality, at least was relatively truer to watching little kids growing up, because the writers purposely wrote the stories and dialogue from a kid’s perspective—joys, hobbies, wishes, fun, mischief and all. The parents and kids and their relatives/families and their kids played to their foils and weaknesses and faults often, funnily so, at least during the several first seasons when everyone was still relatively younger. In comparison, “Donna,” “O&Z” and Father KB,” et al., often are across as more Hollywood studios-ish and too glossy/melodramatic.

Ricky was a doll until he exploded on New Year’s Eve.

Until just a few years back the old Ozzie Nelson house was the home of Christopher Meloni and his family.

They got a good price for it as I recall, maybe it's in a great location?

The house was NOT originally called "Here Come the Nelsons"!

I remember that reboot, R31, and even as a little kid I couldn't believe how bad it was.

In the late 70s I saw Rick Nelson one summer very close up when he was down and out making appearances and singing his old hits at county fairs. His jeans were even tighter than those in the link.

r36, r32 - see r15

I meant r36 and r31, not r32.

I saw R15, R37/R38. And I commented on what a terrible show the reboot was.

Not quite "one of the first TV shows, although anything with Harriet Hilliard/Nelson couldn't help but be good.

1947: First broadcast of Howdy Doody, Kraft Television Theatre and Meet the Press; the World Series is broadcast live for the first time; the 1947 Tournament of Roses Parade becomes the first televised parade.

1948: First broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show and Texaco Star Theater; the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade moves from radio to television on CBS.

1949: First broadcast of The Lone Ranger and Mama; 1st Emmy Awards

1950: First broadcast of Come Dancing, Broadway Open House, Your Show of Shows and What's My Line?; Cuba is the first Caribbean country to receive TV; Brazil is the first South American country to receive TV; Nielsen Media Research begins to provide television ratings data; Jack Benny and Burns & Allen move from radio to TV; Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons begin airing on television after previously only being theatrical short films; Bob Hope appears in his first TV special.

1951: The first broadcast of live United States transcontinental television takes place in San Francisco, California during the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference. The first broadcast of I Love Lucy, See It Now, Dragnet, the Hallmark Hall of Fame, Search for Tomorrow, Sua vida me pertence, Love of Life and The Roy Rogers Show; the Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters is first issued.

1952: First broadcast of Today (NBC), I've Got a Secret, This Is Your Life, Omnibus, and Flower Pot Men; Canada begins its television broadcasts; Hockey Night in Canada and The Guiding Light move from radio to TV.

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet premiered on ABC on October 10, 1952.

You do realize how limited tv was in 1947-51, don’t you? Very few people owned a tv at that point.

[quote]Jack Benny and Burns & Allen move from radio to TV

Jack Benny didn't "move," his radio and TV series ran concurrently for several years.

Jack Benny, moving.

You do realize that that is not the point concerning the claim made. It wasn't one of the first TV shows, regardless of how many television sets were up someone's ass or in the nation at the time.

Just a little clarification for anyone with a clear mind.

Otherwise, please do carry on!

R1, please tell R2 she is fat. R2, please tell R3 she is fat. And so on.

You cannot know how influential this show, Leave It to Beaver, and Father Knows Best were to kids in the 50s about what a family should look like. Danny Thomas and Lucy had the hot-tempered ethnic husbands but it was a stereotype. Comparing it to Bill Cosby, which was meant to be aspirational, or The Goldbergs who lived in a tenement..doesn't cut it. This is the media reflection that MAGA longs for.

The "Life of Riley" was the one working class sitcom, unless you count "The Honeymooners".

People growing up wished they had Donna Reed as their Mom or Robert Young as a Dad. In real life, Reed was a very intelligent person with a lot of curiosity who became a peace activist. Also something of a proto-feminist. Young was a mess--alcohol and depression. The Dick Van Dyke Show was the first relatively contemporary family--it took a long time to have suburban people in modern dress like them.

Ozzie had no visible occupation and the show was the original "show about nothing".

r18, in the 1950s-60s my parents hated those shows as being too white bread even though they were upper middle class WASP suburbanites. My Mom worked, which was unusual at the time for the mother of 5 kids. She'd never admit that she was a feminist but was very snarky about Donna Reed, etc.. We kids didn't watch those shows much in reruns, especially after my oldest sister's fiancee was shipped off to Viet Nam.

Ricky certainly was heartthrob pretty, but it was older brother David that stirred my loins. What a hunk! If you've seen the series you know what I mean. Haven't seen the series? Check him out in the scandalous-for-its-time film "Peyton Place." Besides being creamy in the extreme, he just oozed quiet sexuality, especially after they outfitted him in an Army uniform.

I remember watching the show faithfully for many years for the good-natured joking the family did, to enjoying the wonderful supporting cast and of course once Ricky turned into a more than passable singer, those "videos" at the end of many episodes were very entertaining.

Did Ozzie start the "guy in a sweater" thing or was that Perry Como; whatever, it certainly predated Mr. Rogers.

No one ever heard of this David. 😵‍💫.

Ricky & David were both equally gorgeous in different ways. I would rate them both 10s.

My favorite part was at the end when Rick or "Ricky" back then sang a song at the end. I recall Travelin' Man being one of the songs and it went on to become a hit.

Harriet croons...

Traveling Man was considered the first "conceptual music video" and was produced by Ozzie, who was totally controlling despite his avuncular tv persona--he must have been a pretty good actor, after all.

David's first wife was a former Playboy centerfold, so there must have been more to him than met the eye. I think wife #2 made him into some sort of Christian.

Cardigan sweaters were a HUGE fashion trend for men and boys, post WWII and lasting well into the 1960s. I remember as a young teen gayling wearing a classic camel-colored Shetland wool cardigan and an even cooler pale yellow mohair cardigan that had a kind of blouson-like styling. I wore them with Dobie Gillis inspired small print button-down shirts and fairly tight khaki chinos, short enough to show my ankles in my white socks and penny loafers (or, in the winter, desert boots). Our chinos were so tight we all had to wear tighty-whities under them.

But as soon as I got to college in Boston in 1968, I ditched that entire look and bought my first pair of blue jeans - Levi's, of course - and bought everything else at the downtown army/navy store near Filene's. And also started growing sideburns. It all changed so much that year.

When I was little, my mother attributed cardigans to Perry Como, I had no idea who he was.

Ozzie and Harriet wasn't the way it was put before the public:

Ozzie was a control freak. Ricky lost his cool at one recording session because of Ozzie's wanting to run things his way. Ozzie was startled by his cancer diagnosis. "But I didn't do anything", in reference to his nonsmoking lifestyle.

When it started on radio in 1928, Amos and Andy was voiced by white actors. When the show transferred to tv, in the early 1950s, NAACP managed to get it cancelled. The show was 13 in the ratings at the time.

Usually black actors had roles as domestics or maybe even a train porter. In A&A they could be in any walk of life. Also they put a lot of people out of work. This was a big victory.

I really want to see that A&E documentary ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ !!!

If anyone finds a link, please post it here. TIA!

The Nelsons are recognized as the only family to have three generations with #1 hit records.

R57: You probably can find the doc streaming. I've seen it several times. It's quite good. Art Linkletter, no liberal himself, is interviewed and discusses how he found Ozzie to be very dogmatic and conservative. David seems like he was guarded in the doc--no discussion of his first marriage. He was very protective of his mother and toward the younger kids of Rick's.

It’s on YouTube, R58. It seems to be someone’s vhs recording, so not the best quality (and it includes the 1998 commercials!), but here you go. The show proper starts about 5 minutes in.

I grew up with “Ozzie and “Harriet” too, along with “My Three Sons,” “Leave it to Beaver” “The Donna Reed Show” and reruns of “Father Knows Best,” which stopped making first run episodes around 1959.

But I disagree with an early poster above who claims the idealization in these shows gave the rest of us an inferiority complex. My family could not have been more different than these shows: I was an only child, both my parents worked blue collar jobs, we lived in a three room apartment in Queens, NY, and I was a second-generation American in a family that had emigrated to the U.S. from southern Europe at the beginning of of the 20th Century. To me, the people in these shows were what successful people (white people of course, I never thought about any others) could be with their big, clean suburban houses and fathers who made enough money for mothers to stay home. I looked to these shows for clues about how to live and what life could be if I got a better education than my parents had. They were escapism, and a common shorthand for American life that my generation absorbed completely. And then rebelled against a decade later.

Though the Nelsons were a real family, they never seemed relaxed enough around each other to SEEM like a real family, and though David and gorgeous Ricky were easy on the eyes, both were stilted actors who never learned how to read a line of dialogue naturally. This went triple for the whole cast of “Leave It to Beaver,” where everyone was stiff and formal (the kids called their father ‘sir,’ which was distinctly weird) and only the subversive cackle of Eddie Haskell suggested something natural outside the studio soundstages. At least the parents in “The Donna Reed Show” were attractive — prettier than their kids, who were both drips. And I never liked the set of their home.

But my favorite was always “Father Knows Best.” I coveted their house more than the houses in the other series, and I recently caught a couple of episodes on one of those nostalgia cable channels, and the warmth, humor and rapport between Robert Young and Jane Wyatt as the parents was miles ahead of the chemistry between the other TV couples, including Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. Also two of the three young actors playing their kids had dozens of credits under their belt by the time they came to to do the show, so they were much better actors than any of the other kids on any of the other family series.

But the real revolution/evolution in this type of series came with “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which on the surface looks like it could have been as synthetic and conventionally bland as the other shows we’ve been posting about. The great difference was in the more modern, sophisticated sensibility of this series and its humor, which made it seem like a product of the post Kennedy ‘60s rather than an attempt to keep the ‘50s alive.

I always found "Father Knows Best" pretty awful. I wasn't surprised that Billy Gray became something of a burnout for awhile. Elinor Donahue admitted that she spent much of the time crying (in when in character) and "Kitten" was just annoying, who knew she'd grow up to become a prostitute and, of course, a Born-again.

The situations on "Beaver" were based on the producers' kids, so they were somewhat realistic even if their circumstances seemed bougie to the max, with Barbra Billingsley vacuuming in pearls.

The Van Dyke show was very contemporary in its tone--it's doubtful than any other domestic sit com seemed that way until "All in the Family" which obviously had a different tone.

The Dick Van Dyke Show was the first sitcom in which we could believe the parents had regular sex.

LOVED watching that A&E documentary, which seemed to me brutally honest. Thanks for posting!

Great new appreciation for David Nelson (who I always thought was the cuter brother) for his apparent steadiness, modesty, consideration and generosity to his entire family. Sad to read he passed in 2011 at age 75.

Also, pleased to hear how beautifully all of Rick's music, from the early rock n roll to the end of his life, held up so well.

Watching now. Ozzie spent an unusual amount of time with the neighborhood children.i love how so many episodes deal with the women's club and the mens club. there's also a girls club and a boys club,

Lyle Talbot the longtime character actor who occasionally played Ozzie's neighbor began his Hollywood career in the early 1930s was unbelievable hunky back then as a young leading man. He looked like an Ivy League football player. I came across him watching an old Loretta Young pre-code film called She Had to Say Yes about a shop girl who gives in....

Actually, Ozzie was pretty hot himself in the early 1930s as I saw when I watched the A&E doc.

The local UHF channels didn't rerun The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett when I was growing up in the late 60s and early 70s, but they did air Father Knows Best, which seemed ancient less than a decade after it stopped being produced. Still, I recall liking the characters and the show very much.

Our house wasn't quite as nice as the Anderson's and I thought some of their dilemma's were corny, but it was sincere and not played for guffaws. It made me feel warm and happy, I guess.

Poor David and Ricky Nelson must have felt like prisoners on their show. It takes a long time to learn your lines and it's hard for kids to focus for long days. I bet they came to despise it. I wonder if Ozzie kept their paychecks?

There was an attempt at a 1970s reboot, "Ozzie'Girls" with Ozzie and Harriet renting out the now spare bedroom to two female college students, one white, one black. It lasted a year.

I think I once started watching until an older sibling entered the room, said, "YUCK!" And changed the channel.

I think Ozzie and Harriet also did a Night Gallery episode, or some other supernatural anthology show where he murders her or something and buries her in his prized backyard garden. She comes back to life reminding him of how he bragged that everything he plants comes to life or something.

dilemmas, NOT dilemma's!

Sorry!

R64 You didn't believe Lucy and Ricky were a sexually active couple?

I wish people wouldn't make these "the first sitcom to..." claims.

Joey Bishop and Abby Dalton had a sort of sexy relationship, too.

R69, All of Ozzie Girls is on YouTube. It really was a cute show. Brenda Sykes was one of the household name black actresses in the 70s

Apparently it was cancelled due to Ozzie's declining health .

[quote] Brenda Sykes was one of the household name black actresses in the 70s

Household name? I never heard of her.

[quote]Yeah, shows like Ozzie & Harriet, Leave It to Beaver and Donna Reed gave a generation of Baby Boomers terrible inferiority complexes that their family life was nothing like what they watched on TV.

David Rabe got his revenge in his play “Sticks and Bones.”

[quote] Yeah, shows like Ozzie & Harriet, Leave It to Beaver and Donna Reed gave a generation of Baby Boomers terrible inferiority complexes that their family life was nothing like what they watched on TV.

I'm pretty sure most of us could tell reality from fantasy. That seems to be more of a problem for later generations.

David reputedly had a massive schwanzstucker. I always preferred him too. Ricky was pretty, but David was definite boyfriend material. He had a genuine aura of being a nice guy but a titan in the bedroom.

Lyle Talbot had incredibly succeessful offspring.

I watched reruns on ch 5 growing up in LA. I also saw a lot on you tube. When I watched a lot a few years ago - I was surprised how much - and I’m not kidding - Ozzie reminded me of Jerry Seinfeld. He was just easy going took his time - observed things around him - it was like the really early Seinfeld episodes. You could picture Jerry and George spending an entire episode in search of Tutti FRUTTI Jce Cream

Lyle Talbot really was never a "major movie star." I feel I need to correct that, because I'm an old-movie buff. He was starred by Warner Bros for 2 or 3 years but not in any really major role in any major film. Then they dropped him (maybe because he was active in labor issues). He often said he took the first thing offered to him, his entire life. That wouldn't be every actor's way, but I guess it worked for him.

[quote] As if The Cosby Show never existed. How many black families are headed by a doctor and a lawyer? For that matter, how many white families are headed by a doctor and a lawyer.

On the other hand, every woman alive watching the show could at least think, "At least I'm a warmer mother than Claire Huxtable."

R78 Except Ozzie wasn't an ugly evil blood thirsty Zionist that dated high schoolers.

Young Lyle Talbot was a gorgeous hunk of man.

Lyle Talbot, father of Stephen Talbot who played Beaver's friend Gilbert.