The Donna Reed Show

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 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 lasted in the Sixties, this was the typical family Pleasantiville-style sitcom of the Fifties, along with Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, My Three Sons, and Father Knows Best. Reed's career was on a downturn, so this series was designed as a vehicle for her - and hence the uniquely egocentric title! Can you imagine "Beaver" being called "The Barbara Billingsley Show"? Donna was, admittedly, in the center of things more, and solved all manner of family crisis. The son, Paul Peterson, is now an advocate for child actors, and Shelley Fabares, who had a hit song during this series' run ("Johnny Angel"), had a career that went from teen idol to mature beauty in "Coach". The father was a doctor - at least he had a job unlike the goofy Ozzie! A somewhat contrived and formula show even by Fifties standards, but still a pleasant and wholesome series - unlike the smutty, cynical, and mean-spirited sitcoms of more recent times of which I have little use.

Many people enjoy poking fun at all the 50s-60s family comedies such as "Ozzie and Harriet", "Leave it to Beaver" and our own "Donna Reed Show" citing how unreal and "perfect" they were.

Well, I suppose they were, however, none were intended to be taken as documentaries. They were there to entertain, and along the way, perhaps sneak in some moral to their stories, a facet sadly lacking from todays TV crop of "family" comedies. I submit that ALL television families lack realism just by virtue of their BEING television families. "Roseanne" and her ilk are no more real than the Donnas and Junes or yesteryear. And, I'd much prefer living next the Stones than I would the Connors.

Also, to those of us who were the only child, or members of a family who yelled instead of discussing, such programs provided surrogate siblings and a look at rational parenting. Being an only child, I sort of bonded with these video families who came to visit once a week, and felt better for it.

For those who've never seen it, "The Donna Reed Show" presented the Stone family: Donna, former nurse, now a typical suburban wife of the era, her husband, Alex, a pediatrician whose office was in their home, at least for the first 7 seasons, their teenage daughter Mary, whose life revolved around school dances, boys, and fashion and who could be a bit self-absorbed and selfish (no perfection there) and their younger son, Jeff, who got into minor trouble at school occasionally (once he was even suspended! - hardly perfection there, either), enjoyed sports, and driving Mary to distraction as younger brothers are wont to do. During the last couple of seasons, Mary had gone off to college, and the Stones adopted pre-teen daughter Tricia, who was the sister of Jeff in real life as well as "reel" life. Alex was played by Carl Betz, Mary by Shelley Fabares, Jeff by Paul Petersen, and Tricia by Patty Petersen.

The program ran for eight seasons 1958-66, on ABC and was enjoyable enough, though hardly as "perfect" as it seemed on the surface. Parents Donna and Alex were involved in their children's lives and usually patient and understanding with them, reasoning through problems, though Alex sometimes raised his voice to a very un50s type bellow. As a child, I watched every week, and had a slight crush on Mary, and would recommend the show to those not completely jaded by our "modern" age.

I too would rather live next door to the Stones and not the Conners! I've heard people say that this show was "syrupy", "unrealistic", etc. My reply is "have you ever sat and watched an episode?" Anyone who watched the show knows that Donna and Alex had their quarrels and so did Mary and Jeff. They even quarreled with their parents. But in the end, they all made up with one another, and kept the family unit in tact. Having come from a terribly unstable "dysfunctional" family, I loved to watch this show; I always believed that when I had a family of my own it would be like the Stones. Friends told me that this was unrealistic and I said why? If other families can live trashy, unstable lives, then why can't I have a stable, moralistic life? Why can't I have a stable family that I love, and take care of? They had no reply to this. Anyway, when times are difficult, and the world seems so chaotic & cold, I put in a tape of the Donna Reed Show, and things don't seem quite so bad-it gives me hope. I still believe in the family unit and I most certainly do not believe that we have to live like Roseanne. I know that life does not have to be like the Conners or the Bundy's--and anyone who thinks that these shows are normal and funny needs to take a long hard look at their own lives. These are not funny--they are sad.