The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

"Ozzie and Harriet" is often used as a buzzword for white-bread America: Husband runs the family spouting words of manly wisdom, while the wife stays home with the well-behaved kids. Funny thing is, the show really isn't like that. Ozzie is a guy who apparently never goes to work - it's a running gag throughout the show. His "great ideas" usually lead to disaster, and usually it's Harriet who quietly gets everything to turn out all right in the end. The kids, especially Ricky, often shoot off at the mouth. It was even Seinfeld-esque (and I say that as a rabid Seinfeld fan) - most episodes could fairly be described as being "about nothing".

In truth it's one of the funniest shows ever on television. It was even cutting edge, for its time: Ozzie and Harriet slept in the same bed, which was unheard of. Ever see anyone on a TV show "break the fourth wall" (start talking to the camera)? This started on O&H - first with Ricky's end-of-show shrugs, and later with full-blown conversations directed to the camera. My personal favorite example of this is when Ozzie pretended to be a mind-reader (who of course no one recognized because of a cheesy goatee). When he gets exposed at the end, just about every character quips something or other straight into the camera.

Do yourself a favor though. Don't start off with the late episodes where the boys are grown up and married. Those can be quite funny, but the show at times was just coasting on its reputation by then. Watch the earlier stuff from when the boys were little, when Thorny still lived next door. Give yourself time to get to know the characters, and you certainly won't regret it!

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet stands as the longest-running live action sitcom in history. Many people over the years have put down this program as being corny and too "white-bread" for modern consumption. Just like The Donna Reed Show and other "family" shows of that era. O & H is really a charming time-capsule of what we wanted to be back in those days, just like Donna Reed. What sets O & H a tad above the other shows is the fact that the family portrayed here was, in fact, a real family. Ozzie Nelson himself oversaw practically every aspect of production, and let's not forget that, starting in 1957, Ricky was singing genuine "rock and roll" on the show. The plots may be as simple as a late-night search for Tutti-Frutti ice cream, but there is an easy-going flow to the lightweight stories that make them charming. Don De Fore is featured in the early shows as "Thorny" the next-door neighbor, and Lyle Talbot and Mary Jane Croft are in the later ones as the Randolphs. Ozzie and Harriet featured background music taken from the Capitol HiQ music library. This music was used in many shows, cartoons and industrial films of the period. Just hearing this music takes me back to the "old days" and gives me a warm feeling. The performances by the family are all polished and good, especially Harriet with her wise-cracks which always crack me up. The show is in the process of being fully restored, all 435 episodes (!), by Sam Nelson, son of Rick. There has been much said about the quality of the Shout! Factory "best of" set. I own this and I enjoy having 24 episodes which cover the series from the earliest shows to the last. Yes, these are the edited-for-syndication prints, but as I don't remember what was cut from the shows, I don't miss these scenes. In addition, the prints used here are in pretty good shape, better than the ones featured on the public domain DVDs which have been around for many years now. For someone like me, who grew up in the O & H era, it is fine to see this program and relive "the good old days" when situation comedy didn't rely soley on sex jokes and off-color humor. Call me old-fashioned, but I like these classics of early television.

One of the big jokes about The Adventures Of Ozzie&Harriet was just what did Ozzie do for a living. I think that it was hoped that people would remember from radio and film that Ozzie was a bandleader and crooner coming up around the same time Bing Crosby did. Harriet was also a singer, but now a full time mom raising their two sons.

You have to view Ozzie&Harriet from a longer perspective. They were on radio for a dozen years before the TV series debuted in 1952. The births of David and Ricky were as much a part of our national folklore as Lucille Ball's most televised birth of little Ricky. And on radio it was known Ozzie was a musician.

It's not like there were any gags or routines on the show and Ozzie was not an idiot father being put down by his kids. Harriet certainly was an All American mom. I wish she had sung a little, she was a great singer in 30s and 40s. Just idealized family life in the Eisenhower years.

The show might have died had it not been discovered that Ricky Nelson inherited musical talent from his parents. He became quite the rock and roll king, but he could never be anything more than a good kid with Ozzie and Harriet raising him. No sullen Elvis Presley like rebellion in a Nelson.

Ricky had a string of some pretty good hits for about 10 years with a built in audience to introduce them. It added a whole new generation of fans for the Nelsons until musical tastes changed.

Change it did, the all American home wasn't playing quite so good in the counterculture 60s. But The Adventures of Ozzie&Harriet still has its place in our cultural history.

I think that The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, not unlike its counterparts (i.e. Leave it to Beaver), were what they were because that's what people wanted at the time. Many accounts of the 1950's are not the most interesting, but that's the way things were-culturally. With out these programs, however mundane you may find them, there would have been no examples for the family sit-com following the cultural revolution of the 1960's. I think that in today's society it is nice to look back, and see a family living together, enjoying life, and running into the occasional plot conflict. To hate Ozzie and Harriet is to hate Americana- after all that's what they were at the time of their program.You'll notice that the show ended in the late 1960's, when due to the cultural unrest in the United States, their brand of entertainment became, sadly enough, obsolete. Conclusion: take it for what it is (or was), it's a glimpse into a bygone era: a time of homemakers, fresh-baked cookies, pipe smoking dads, the milkman, and no use for the modern vulgarities of the medium.

On screen, Ozzie may have been something of a good-natured fuddle, but off he had to be one sharp cookie. Lawyer, band-leader, producer, director, writer, actor, plus 13-year old Eagle Scout, that perpetual grin hid one talented guy. Then too, those Eagle Scout ideals fit in perfectly with the post-war period. From 1952-66, the show came into a ton of homes, mine included. It was a time when families were getting back together after a bad economy, a big war in Europe, plus a little one in Korea. Family life was treasured, and with any luck it gathered around a new-fangled TV in an expanding suburb. A very different time from now, one of expanding prosperity and opportunity.

One thing you knew when you tuned in, it would be a "wholesome" half-hour. Nothing controversial or serious. For better or worse, never anything about politics, sexual innuendo, or the outside world. Typically, it might be Oz trying to get his lawn-mower back from neighbor Thorny (DeFore) who doesn't want to move his car. True, it was a series basically about nothing. But the entries were nearly always amusing. Maybe not hilarious, but always worth a few head- nodding chuckles. Yes, life's trivial little problems could be entertaining if you were a gifted Ozzie Nelson.

Of course, Harriet was a big part of the humorous situations, always a voice of calm and good sense. Maybe vaguely amused by Oz's latest half-digested scheme. Wisely, I think, the show reserved any ditsy elements for neighbors or friends, a proved formula over the decades. That way the characters could drop in or out as needed. Importantly, however, characters like Clara Randolph (Croft) may be on the ditsy side but they were never exaggerated or mocked. Then too, except for sinister types, it looks like about every supporting player in Hollywood was on the show at one time or another.

At first, the boys-- a reliable David and a wise-cracking Ricky, oops! I mean Rick (as he preferred)-- blended in and out as junior members. But as they grew, the boys became more central, proving adept at the series low-key style. Then, of course, Rick became a teen R&R idol, a real risk for the show, given R&R's controversial influence on teens. Still, Oz proved as adept at handling that touchy phase as any other. In fact, many of us sort of grew up with Dave and Rick. But, I agree with others. Once the boys married, the show had outlived its appeal. Then too, times were changing. By 1966, Vietnam was heating up and so was the youth counter-culture, while a groundbreaking "All In The Family" (1971-79) and a very different kind of TV dad were only a few years off. An era had indeed ended.

Sure, in our own lid-is-off times, the show would likely never fly. For better or worse, it was very much an idealized reflection of its time. I recall even reading about folks who were unhappy because their family was not at all like the Nelsons. In a sense, as entertaining as they were, the TV Nelsons did exist in a societal vacuum, an ideal embodiment of that era. Still, I'm not at all sure that we're better off without it. I do regret, however, that Ozzie never appeared to get the industry recognition his low-key talent deserved. But then that sort of thing never does have a time limit.