The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is an American sitcom, airing on ABC from
October 3, 1952, through March 26, 1966, starring the real-life Nelson family.
After a long run on radio, the show was brought to television, where it
continued its success, initially running simultaneously on radio and television.
The series stars Ozzie Nelson and his wife, singer Harriet Nelson, and their
young sons, David and Eric "Ricky" Nelson. Don DeFore had a recurring role
as the Nelsons' friendly neighbor "Thorny".
Currently, reruns of the show are broadcast on Retro Television Network.
Background = Early radio days=
In the early 1930s, a booking at the Glen Island Casino gained national
network radio exposure for Ozzie Nelson's orchestra. After three years
together with the orchestra, Ozzie and Harriet signed to appear regularly on
the radio show, The Baker's Broadcast, hosted first by Joe Penner, then by
Robert L. Ripley, and finally by cartoonist Feg Murray. The couple
married on October 8, 1935 during this series run, and realized working
together in radio would keep them together more than continuing their
musical careers separately. = 1941: The Red Skelton Show=
In 1941, the Nelsons joined the cast of The Red Skelton Show, also providing
much of the show's music. The couple stayed with the series for three years.
They also built their radio experience by guest appearances, together and
individually, on many top radio shows, from comedies such as The Fred Allen
Show, to the mystery titan Suspense, in a 1947 episode called "Too Little to
Live On". = 1944: The Adventures of Ozzie and
Harriet radio show= When Red Skelton was drafted in March
1944, Ozzie Nelson was prompted to create his own family situation comedy.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet launched October 8, 1944 on CBS, it
moved to NBC in October 1948, then made a late-season switch back to CBS in
April 1949. The final years of the radio series were on ABC from October 14, 1949
to June 18, 1954. In total 402 radio episodes were produced. In an
arrangement that amplified the growing pains of American broadcasting, as radio
"grew up" into television, the Nelsons' deal with ABC gave the network the
option to move their program to television. The struggling network
needed proven talent that was not about to defect to the more established and
wealthier networks like CBS or NBC. The Nelsons' sons, David and Ricky, did
not join the cast until the radio show's fifth year. The two boys were played by
professional actors prior to their joining because both were too young to
perform. The role of David was played by Joel Davis from 1944 until 1945 when he
was replaced by Tommy Bernard. Henry Blair appeared as Ricky. Other cast
members included John Brown as Syd "Thorny" Thornberry, Lurene Tuttle as
Harriet's mother, Bea Benaderet as Gloria, Janet Waldo as Emmy Lou, and
Francis "Dink" Trout as Roger. Vocalists included Harriet Nelson, The King
Sisters, and Ozzie Nelson. The announcers were Jack Bailey and Verne
Smith. The music was by Billy May and Ozzie Nelson. The producers were Dave
Elton and Ozzie Nelson. The show's sponsors included International Silver
Company, H.J. Heinz Company and Lambert Pharmacal's Listerine.
= 1952: Here Come the Nelsons feature film=
In 1952, the Nelsons starred with Rock Hudson in the Universal-International
feature film, Here Come the Nelsons. The film depicted Ozzie as an advertising
executive assigned to a campaign promoting women's underwear. The film,
produced in the summer of 1951 while the radio show was on hiatus, opened
theatrically on February 23, 1952. It also doubled as a pilot for the
television series, as Ozzie wanted to see if his family would be accepted on
film as they were on radio. The success of Here Come the Nelsons convinced him
that Ozzie & Harriet's future was on the small screen, while continuing their
weekly radio show. Television show
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 on perfection in the show's
production paid off in the show's remarkable longevity.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet premiered on ABC on October 10, 1952,
staying until September 3, 1966; in 1962, it became the first prime-time
scripted series on American television to reach the 10-year milestone. 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, the series focused mainly on the Nelson family at home, dealing
with everyday problems. As the series progressed and the boys grew up,
storylines involving various characters were introduced. Many of the series
story lines 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. 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 included Don
DeFore, Parley Baer, Lyle Talbot, Mary Jane Croft, Skip Young, Gordon
Jones,Jimmy Hawkins, James Stacy, Joe Flynn and Jack Wagner.
By the mid-1960s, America's social climate was changing, and the Nelsons,
symbolizing the 1950s values and ideals, were beginning to seem dated. Ozzie, who
wrote and directed all of the series's episodes, attempted to alter the show to
fit the times, but most viewers associated the show with a bygone era.
The series cracked the top thirty programs in the Nielsen ratings for the
first and only time in its eleventh season, when it ranked in 29th place. It
made the transition from black-and-white to color in the 1965–66 season. That
year, Ozzie tried to recapture the series's early success by introducing
9-year-old Joel Davison and other young children to relate to younger families.
Although Davison appeared in three episodes, the show's Nielsen ratings
continued to decline and ABC cancelled The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in
1966. Having run for a total of fourteen
seasons, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet remains the longest-running
live-action American television sitcom. = Springboard for Ricky Nelson's music
career= The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet made
the Nelsons' younger son, Rick, into a music teen idol. Ozzie realized the
impact his musically gifted son could bring to the series, and went on to
write storylines featuring Rick singing. Rick first sang in the April 10, 1957,
episode, "Ricky the Drummer," performing a version of Fats Domino's hit, "I'm
Walkin", and later signed a recording contract with Domino's label, Imperial
Records. Subsequent episodes that aired after Rick became one of the nation's
most successful musicians were some of the show's highest-rated episodes.
Syndication In the decades since the show's
cancellation, the series has been continuously shown on stations in public
domain prints. Between 1985 and 1994, The Disney Channel aired the show as
remastered from original 35 mm film elements, with new introductions by
Harriet Nelson. The series was also aired on the
Nostalgia TV Network and currently airs on the Retro Television Network at 7:30
p.m. EST Monday-Friday. PBS member station KVCR-TV in San
Bernardino, California aired the show as late as May 2010, connected to the
station's nostalgic television series, I Remember Television.
Home video releases Most of the pre-1964 episodes of the
television series are in the public domain in the United States, except for
the musical performances of Ricky Nelson included in the episodes. Many episodes
have been unofficially released on home video, including VHS and DVD, on many
different low-budget company labels. Sixteen DVDs containing episodes from
the show are available from Alpha Video. One hundred of the episodes in the
public domain have been released on DVD by Mill Creek Entertainment as part of
the Essential Ozzie & Harriet Collection.
The Rick Nelson Company, LLC, currently owns the rights to the original film
elements. An officially released video version of The Best of the Adventures of
Ozzie and Harriet was released May 1, 2007, by Shout! Factory under license
from The Rick Nelson Company. Both the Nelson company and David Nelson's trust
hold copyright ownership for any new material derived from the film elements.
Rick Nelson's son, Sam Nelson, currently heads a project to digitize all 435
episodes from the original 35mm network negatives and will include the show's
original commercials. The collection's release on DVD/Blu-ray is scheduled for
December 2014. Episodes of the television series have
been screened at the non-profit Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention held
annually in Aberdeen, Maryland. 16 mm prints were used.
Collector/historian Martin Grams, Jr., presently owns the production materials,
scripts, casting call sheets, contracts, telegrams, letters and other materials
significant to the radio and television series.
Author Jim Cox addressed the radio program's cultural significance in an
article that appeared in SPERDVAC's Radiogram in early 2008.
Ozzie's Girls In 1973, David Nelson produced a
short-lived, syndicated spin-off entitled Ozzie's Girls, in which Ozzie
and Harriet rented the boys' old room to two college students, portrayed by Susan
Sennett and Brenda Sykes. Story lines centered around the Nelsons' attempts to
solve the problems of two girls after having raised two boys. The series's
pilot episode was shown on NBC in September 1972, but the network passed
on a weekly series. The unsold pilot, however, generated enough interest for
Ozzie to bypass the network in favor of producing the show for syndication.
Ozzie's Girls premiered on local stations, including New York's WABC-TV,
in September 1973, but was cancelled in September 1974 after one season.
The Nelsons' post-TV lives = Ozzie=
Ozzie Nelson continued to work in show business after the failure of the short
lived sitcom Ozzie's Girls. He took on the role of producer and director for
some of TV's popular shows, most notably: Adam-12, The D.A., and Bridget
Loves Bernie. In 1975, Ozzie Nelson died of liver cancer at the age of 69.
= Rick= In the years after Ozzie and Harriet was
cancelled, Rick Nelson's career and personal life changed drastically. Rick
never regained the momentum of his early career, though he continued to record
and perform music. He shied away from his teen idol image and sound, forming
the rock and roll/country-fused Stone Canyon Band. Rick and the Stone Canyon
Band had success with the 1972 single, "Garden Party". Ironically, Rick and the
Band wrote the song in response to having been booed off the stage at a
rock and roll revival concert at Madison Square Garden after having refused to
play his old hits. Throughout the 1970s, Rick was riddled with debt. In 1981, he
and wife Kristin Harmon divorced. While touring the United States, Rick Nelson
was killed in a plane accident on December 31, 1985, in DeKalb in Bowie
County near Texarkana, Texas in northeast Texas. He was 45 years old. He
was en route to a New Year's Eve concert in Dallas. In 1987, Rick was inducted
posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
= Harriet= Following Ozzie's death in 1975, Harriet
grew reclusive. In 1989, she made her last onscreen appearance in her
granddaughter Tracy Nelson's TV series, Father Dowling Mysteries. Harriet never
fully recovered from Rick's death and died of congestive heart failure and
emphysema in 1994 at the age of 85. Ozzie, Harriet, and Rick are interred
together at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery, in Los Angeles, California.
= David= David Nelson continued to produce
feature films and television commercials and owned his commercial production
company until his death at age 74 from colorectal cancer in January 2011.
Legacy The series attracted large audiences and
became synonymous with the 1950s ideal American family life. Although it was
never a top-ten hit, it remains, as noted above, the longest-running
live-action sitcom in US television history.
References External links
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet at the Internet Movie Database
Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet on Way Back When
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet at TV.com
Encyclopedia of Television The Nelson Brothers