Pete and Gladys

Pete and Gladys gave the American public finally a look at just what Harry Morgan had been complaining about lo these past five years. On December Bride where Morgan was a regular, we never got to see Gladys, all we knew about her is Morgan's regular one liners about her. She was the distaff equivalent of Phyllis Diller's never seen husband, Fang.

Anyway the Pete and Gladys show opened the year after December Bride shut down with Peter Porter moving away from the neighborhood where he lived next to Dean Miller, Frances Rafferty and Spring Byington. And we finally got to meet Gladys who was played by Cara Williams.

Desilu Productions had split the way Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had split, but creators Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf who wrote I Love Lucy and December Bride created another kookie wife to get into constant trouble to the annoyance of her harried husband.

Cara Williams was very funny as Gladys Porter, but the cycle had really run its course by the time Pete and Gladys made its debut. Harry Morgan was an Americanized version of Ricky Ricardo. Later on we saw how exasperated he could get with the 4077 MASH unit.

Still I wouldn't mind seeing some of those today.

This show is a real blast from the past. Not having seen this show since I was a little boy, I wondered if it would hold up to my memory of it. It did. Cara Williams was very funny playing a housewife not unlike Lucy Ricardo. Harry Morgan plays a sort-of Americanized version of Ricky in this. Why this series has been off the air for so many years remains a mystery to me. Cara Williams was a very talented actress who was not appreciated in her day.I would like to say to her "Thank you" for the wonderful performances she has given us, not only in television, but her film appearances as well. Pete and Gladys is a fun show that unfortunately has not been seen or heard of by the majority of today's television audience.

Some memories should be left that way. I was born in the mid-fifties, and this is one of the very first shows I remember watching as a very small child. My mom must have liked it, we must have watched it routinely, and it became etched in my memory. I was surprised to learn it was only on for two seasons.

I hadn't seen it until learning on this very site that a full episode had been uploaded to YouTube, titled Garden Wedding.

The show opened with two couples driving, men in front - Pete/Harry Morgan was driving with Bob Hastings, lka "Lt. Carpenter" in McHale's Navy, as passenger - and the women in back - Gladys and a friend, wife of the Bob Hastings character.

You couldn't help but compare the visual of that foursome to the foursome in I Love Lucy and the "California Here We Come" episode. Fifties cars, fifties couples, black and white presentation.

But there the similarities ended. I was astonished at how boring and predictable the Pete and Gladys show was. Bad writing (though I believe written by two of Lucy's former writers), absurd story line, wooden acting, and completely predictable outcome. Clearly not as timeless as Lucy. I can see why this show is no longer shown.

Transitioning from the mother series "December Bride," elements from the original show are sorely missing here: 1. The character of Pete Porter changes from a jocular neighbor to a straight-man husband.

2. The best friend of the character Pete Porter (Matt Henshaw) and his wife, along with Lilly, the mother-in-law, is never mentioned in this show. However, Pete Porter moved to a new home at the beginning of the series, and it is evident that he is in the same neighborhood as the Henshaws. This is indicated by the character Hilda, Lilly's best friend in "December Bride," who still visits Pete and Gladys. However, Hilda does not appear in the second and final season.

3. The character Pete always joked about his lousy mother-in-law in "December Bride." In the spin-off, instead, a father-in-law is introduced sans any mother-in-law.

4. Toward the end of the "December Bride" series, the characters Pete and Gladys Porter have a baby girl named Linda, whom Pete doted on: no nursery, no child, and no mention of the baby in this spin-off series whatsoever.

5. Gladys is portrayed as a bad cook and not very good-looking by the neighbor Pete in "December Bride," although never seen during the series run. Actress Cara Williams is introduced as Gladys, portrayed as anything but homely and a lousy cook.

6. Finally, the laugh track is overused.

In conclusion, "Pete and Gladys" was not the same characters portrayed and talked about in the previous mother series of the 1950s but a brand new couple of the 1960s.

Pete (Harry Morgan) was a regular on the long running "December Bride" TV series playing a henpecked husband. On this series, Gladys was only mentioned and never seen. She was portrayed as a nagging terror by her husband Pete.

When this series debuted in 1960, we met Gladys for the first time. The only problem: Gladys is a totally likeable charactor and does not come across as a nag. She is a normal '60's housewife. They live in a modest home.

The only other December Bride regular is the wonderful Verna Felton as Hilda Crocker. She often has the best lines in the show.