Our Miss Brooks

I was only three when OMB first aired on TV, so I don't remember much of it, but it was a weekly staple at our house. I started watching it several years ago on Decades TV, and was struck by its clever writing and the witty delivery by Ms. Arden. Some of the plots were rather contrived, and I didn't care for the somewhat tame animosity between Ms. Brooks and Mr. Conklin (which came to a head in the show's last season), but it stands out as mostly far better than any other 1950s TV sitcom. Sadly, with the recent passing of Gloria McMillan at 88, they're all gone now.

Heavens, has it really been 70 years since the show first aired? I'm feeling my age now, but the show lives on.

To me this is the funniest TV sitcom ever made. Its type of humor is absolutely unique and can't be found anywhere else, a refined type of camp that produces a ticklish bitter-sweet inner chuckle. One wonders how much Eve Arden had to do with it. The show is unthinkable without her. In other roles she exhibits the same trademark worldweariness. Half the time she seems to be talking to herself, surrounded as she is, by a mass of clueless, shallow, though likable humanity. Miss Brooks inhabits a kind of solipsistic universe in which she seems to be the only one really alive. Yet the deadness of others seems to drag her down to a point where she is just going through the motions of living. Depression was never funnier. All other characters are adorable, particularly the landlady.

"Our Miss Brooks" was one of the first television programs to feature an independent, sharp, strong, beautiful woman who planned on a career and loved her career as a teacher. Eve Arden was a consummate comedienne who took the romantic comedy heroine from 1930's romantic comedy and combined her with a career woman in her portrayal of Connie Brooks. Eve Arden's portrayal pioneered shows starring actresses in roles as bright, career-minded women who were not defined by husbands nor boyfriends.

"Our Miss Brooks" featured one of the most brilliant casts of any television comedy. They played character who were only slight exaggerations of real people found in any American high school of the 1950's. Gale Gordon as pompous, arrogant Principal Osgood Conklin displayed Gordon's talents that made him a star character actor on television. The nerdy characters portrayed by Richard Crenna and Leonard Smith are as hilarious and believable today as they were in the 1950's. Jane Morgan as the befuddled Mrs. Davis was a great foil for Eve Arden. It is singular that so many characters serve as comic foils for the star of a show. "Our Miss Brooks" led the way. The combination of character writing, slapstick, and witty, sophisticated lines has never been equalled. Eve Arden's artistry was never so artfully displayed as it was in "Our Miss Brooks". When one realizes that, for several years, original scripts of "Our Miss Brooks" were written for concurrent radio and television versions of the show, it is astounding the consistent excellent level of script quality that the show's writers were able to produce.

One of the highlights of American television!

Absolutely, an outstanding television show fully realizing the comedic talents of Eve Arden and Gale Gordon-English teacher and principal of Madison H.S. The exchanges between those two are memorable. Teachers of yesteryear may have even had some of those challenges as well.

When the show was first being casted, Miss Brooks was supposed to be a gym teacher. When Arden was cast for the starring role, the writers and director correctly saw that her diction merited the part being changed to an English teacher. How right they were.

With a support like landlady Davis and biology teacher, Mr. Boynton, who Brooks wanted and would go miles to get, a perfect comic imagery of high school life was depicted. Of course, Walter Denton, our favorite student, etched an unforgettable character as played by an excellent Richard Crenna.

This show was certainly indicative of the lay-back 1950s era.

OUR MISS BROOKS was one of the funniest shows on radio and TV, and, amazingly, both the radio and TV show hold up well even today. In an item above, it is mentioned that the show was "one camera." It was not. It was filmed the same way that I LOVE LUCY was, and that is, with three-cameras and a "live" studio audience. I believe the poster above was thinking of the movie version, which was nothing like the TV show, in that there was little interaction with the students. There are bootlegged collections of the series available on DVD, obviously taped on someone's VCR when they were re-run somewhere or other, and the quality is poor, but they're better than nothing at all. Try to avoid collections that have 4th season episodes when Connie moved from Madison High to a private school.