What are the best early 1948-60 TV Comedy Series?

2-21-08 | Bender2

[Bender2]

What are your favorite TV variety and situation comedy series from 1948-1960? I am old enough to remember most of them!

[Bender2]

My favorite of all times is... that was originally called "The Bob Cummings Show" that first ran from 1955-1959. I have several video tapes and some DVDs that I still watch and find very, very funny even after nearly 50 years!

Schultzy, Grandpa, Margaret, Chuck, Harvey Helm, Pamela Livingstone, Shirley [WOW!!!] Swanson! Now those are characters that will live forever in Comic Heaven!

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Shirley [WOW!!!]

Hello:

http://images.google.com/images?safe=off&q=joi+lansing

[mdittmar]

The Honeymooners.

[Califreak]

I was born just a little too late(1964), but I used to love this one.

[Bender2]

Any of ya'll old enough to remember any of these?

Of course, had "Futurama" been on in the 1950s... I'd be a much bigger star today. I know that's hard to believe, but it is true!!!

[jdm]

I like old B&W games shows... What’s My Line, I’ve Got A Secret type stuff.

The late Senator Everett Dirksen was on What’s My Line a few nights ago on GSN (the game show network).

It was a great episode.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Huh.

According to IMDB, she died of breast cancer.

Ouch.

[Dysart]

I remember Seinfeld. Does that count?

[Onelifetogive]

There was TV then???

[muir_redwoods]

You'll Never Get Rich

Also Known as

The Phil Silvers Show

[mortal19440]

Sgt. Bilko with Phil Silvers

[exit82]

I loved “Leave It to Beaver” and “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”. They helped me to know what a normal childhood was like.Mine was far from that ideal.

I still catch LITB on TVLand and watch with nostalgia.

[Richard Kimball]

Yeah, but there weren’t any used ones.

[Bender2]

YES! WOW!!!!

[Richard Kimball]

I liked Our Miss Brooks.

[SAMWolf]

The Dick Van Dyke Show & Red Skelton Show

[J40000]

Make Room For Daddy
The Twilight Zone
Car 54, Where Are You?
You Bet Your Life

etc....

[ThomasThomas]

I am running on reruns but was this Red Skeleton, Car 54, The Real McCoys era.

[Adder]

Jack Benny and I don’t care, Amos and Andy was funny.

[LexBaird]

Saw some kinescopes of the Ernie Kovaks show. Really funny stuff.

[South40]

[no more apples]

[Renegade]

I married Joan!
Charley Weaver

[444Flyer]

I was born nearly a decade later but does “The Steve Allen Show” (NBC 1956) count as a series? Precursor to Carson, Steve was the perfect straightman.

[shineon]

Billy Mummy, what a smile.

[ThomasThomas]

When did they start Color TV? Around 1964?

[wizr]

“Our Miss Brooks” with Eve Arden and a very young Richard Crenna.

“Life of Riley”

“George Burns and Gracie Allen”

[fish hawk]

Red Skelton was my all time favorite but also like F Troop and there was a show that was not on for more than about one or two season called “My world and welcome to it”. It was a take off of James Thurber cartoons and drawings mixed with real actors. William Windom played the lead part as a cartoonist who’s cartoons came alive. Loved that show but I have always been a Thurber nut and have several of his books.

[South40]

[tapatio]

Make Room for Daddy.

[Bender2]

Yes, Dy, "Seinfeld" counts for something funny.... however, you don't! Have a beer to drown you troubles. Now, that is one beer, ya hear?

[mathluv]

I have bought the CDs of ‘I Love Lucy” for my grandchildren. The 14 yo just loves them!

[no more apples]

wink wink nudge nudge ;-)

[hosepipe]

Soupy Sales... without a doubt or Rowan % Martin Laugh in..

[InvisibleChurch]

Well, the world came into color about late 61, early 62 and it took scientists to convert that to television late 63, so, yeah, 1964 would be about the time color came to television on a mass scale.

[tapatio]

[South40]

There was TV then???

[J40000]

Woah!!! That does NOT look anything like Billy Mumy to me.

Anybody???

[shineon]

Gran pappy Amos

[pieceofthepuzzle]

Is that 1080p?

[hosepipe]

Amos and Andy without a doubt..
Would be funny even today.. as good as Seinfeld..

[Bender2]

I tell ya, Ralphie boy... all the guys I know are voting for Hillary. She has that sewer smell of success we are used to!

[BunkDetector]

To each his own, but I found ILLucy very unfunny and predictable at the time. Now, in retrospect, it appears unfunny and painfully, embarrassingly dated.

I know the comparison usually goes the other way, but, Lucille Ball is no Carol Burnett.

[South40]

For drama/action I enjoyed Rat Patrol and Combat.

[Radix]

TOPPER was a show that I recall in reruns.

The guy who was in charge over at the “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” was also Topper a guy who could see the ghosts who haunted his house while nobody else could.

I think that it was on in reruns when I was a kid only because of the stature of that Napoleon Solo series.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

I was a teenage Thurbur fan and loved that show too! Great stuff.

Howzabout:

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Hazel
My Living Doll (with Julie Newmar hubba hubba!)
Any variety show with Victor Borge
Anything with Lonesome George Gobel
And the king of them all, Red Skelton! My dad and I never missed his show. Inventive, clean comedy with a heart - they don't make 'em like Red anymore!

[Bender2]

About thst 'splainin', Rick... I'm working on it!

[J40000]

I’d have to disagree with you guys. I seem to remember that 1967 was the year that color became the standard on tv.

Some of the shows that went from B&W in 1966 to color in 1967:

The Monkees, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan’s Island, etc...

[shineon]

You can still watch him now in color on youtube... Red Skelton

[VOA]

“What are the best early 1948-60 TV Comedy Series?”

I’m only old enough to remember seeing re-broadcast airings of some
of the 1948-60s shows.

But I do remember the Dobie Gillis show a bit. Also notable for the
“love interest” of the main character was played by Sheila Kuehl
who became a prominent openly-lesbian state legislator in California.

Additionally, I do remember “The Honeymooners”...a great series about
an “everyman” bus driver and his long-suffering wife, as well as the
wacky neighbor and his sane wife. That series “broke trail” for all
sorts of following sitcoms (although I guess the experts say “I Love
Lucy” was the real trail-breaker).
...and if you go back farther, some of the film/media types say that
Will Rogers started the “everyman” father and nice wife sitcom with
some of his work in Hollywood.

“The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” (1959)
TV series 1959-1963
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052490/

Full cast and crew for
“The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” (1959)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052490/fullcredits

Sheila James Kuehl
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0473861/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0473861/bio