The Donna Reed Show

I watched It's a Wonderful Life last week and missed watching The Donna Reed Show playing on Nick at Nite in the 80s. I grew up on old shows from the 50s through 70s when television was still admirable and CLEAN.

Although it only lasted eight seasons on ABC, The Donna Reed Show was your typical sitcoms with all the trimmings. Unlike it counterparts back then(like "My Three Sons", "Ozzie and Harriet", "Leave It To Beaver") this show was about a housewife who was always into something and usually helps out and usually solve all situations within a half-hour(even within a family crisis along with her husband Dr. Stone to help out around the house). The show did have two of it stars to make it big: Paul Peterson(who is now a advocate for child actors)had a hit record back in the early 1960's with "My Dad"(for which he sang that song on one of the episodes),and Shelley Fabares who had a #1 hit record with "Johnny Angel",which stay on the top-ten charts for a record five weeks back in 1963,and had two more hit TV series after Donna with here own sitcom back in the 1970's("The Shelley Fabares Show"),and again in the 1990's with "Coach" opposite Craig T. Nelson. However,the show did manage to make the transition from black and white to color in the show's final season(those color episodes are rarely seen),and afterwards it's re-runs usually appear on TV's Nick-at-Nite if you get the chance to see them. A TV classic.

I remember watching this show sometimes when it was on Nick at Nite back in the 80s. I was a kid at the time and I remember Donna Stone just being so nice. She always solved any problem in such a sweet, wholesome and sensible manner. Sure it's another example of that 'perfect picturesque fifties family lifestyle' but it's part of television heritage. Just like those messages imbedded in the show telling you to have good manners, drink more milk and marry a doctor. Still, the theme song brings back memories that are warm and endearing. Donna Reed will always be there to give us our milk and cookies.

Like a lot of stars of the big screen as their careers wound down, so many turned to television where probably they secured their reputations for posterity. Donna Reed is a case in point.

I don't think Donna Reed ever thought that Donna Stone was anything challenging, not to a woman who had won an Oscar for playing a very different type in From Here to Eternity. She was certainly better prepared to play wife, mother, and homemaker Donna Stone after having played Mary Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life.

Donna was always beautiful and wise and ever helpful with the problems of her kids and her husband. Carl Betz was not an idiot, he was a pediatrician who had his office attached to the house. Talk about the man being ever ready in a crisis.

Though this was the Donna Reed Show because Donna's husband at the time, Tony Owen produced it. Yet it lasted as long as did because of the popularity of the two children, Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen. Fabares had that best selling teen record Johnny Angel which she introduced on the show. She successfully made the transition to adult star, most known for her role in Coach as Craig T. Nelson's wife.

But Petersen was a bubblegum teen idol back in the day. The Donna Reed Show dare I say got most of its viewers because of him. It's forgotten now, but Petersen also had a best selling record, My Dad. Didn't do half as well as Johnny Angel.

Now Paul Petersen runs a support group for former child stars like himself. So many of them end so tragically, it's good work that he's doing.

The Stone family was the quintessence of Middle America. They lived in a suburb near Chicago, they led wholesome lives. Mom and Dad were always there for the kids. Of course the problems they had usually were nothing more than breaking curfew.

It's this series I believe was the model for the TV town of Pleasantville where Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon are sucked into.

I have pleasant memories of The Donna Reed Show. Easy to take, but not too seriously.

While I agree this was a 1950s sitcom, I don't feel it was "typical". Firstly, Donna Reed was a STRONG woman, unlike the regular 50s sitcom moms. She made a stand for women's worth and equality (remember the episode where the TV announcer says "just a housewife") and Donna stands up for all women do and represent, especially those that don't work outside the home? And when the women rebelled against something in the series, it was not something trivial...it was always something to show that women have the right to be treated with the same respect as men. Remember, Donna Reed was married to the show's producer, so she had much more input into making hers a more powerful character.

The children were intelligent, but not precocious. They were normal kids. And they could ACT.

Something else that made Donna Reed Show stand out was not only did the children LOOK like their parents, but you could feel the chemistry between all the actors in the real life situation, which then came out in the characters. Shelly Fabares and Paul Peterson have often written and remarked that they were treated like the children of Donna Reed and Carl Betz, and that the adults were fiercely protective of the child actors, and treated them accordingly. Donna and Alex also had somewhat of a sexual chemistry that wasn't seen on the other family shows. And the characters could be flawed, and in major ways, and yet, accepted for the flaws and mistakes. These were not super parents that did no wrong and had no emotional highs and lows. They were normal people acting as normal people.

Women's rights, drug abuse, child abuse, single fathers, poverty, children who need good health care but can't afford it...it was all shown on this show. Pretty groundbreaking for the era.

Donna Reed show didn't last for eight years without a reason. And it could have possibly endured, had it not been for Tony Owens and Donna Reed divorcing.

This show is highly underrated and should be shown so that other generations can appreciate quality.

In summary, I agree with the original poster, who obviously cares for the show, but I think that the Donna Reed show has SO much more to offer than casual entertainment.