I only saw the "modern" version for about a minute but I did see a lot of the 1950s short-lived version (a summer replacement)? And somehow I've got a commercially sold tape with one segment. The idea was so good I am surprised it wasn't a big hit. Beginning in grade school the better students (by my standards) were always on the edge of breaking up, and because laughing was a serious crime, keeping a straight face while somebody in the row next to you was trying to crack you up was exquisite torture. (For an inside view of the class clown who delights in getting you in trouble, see George Carlin's posthumous memoir.) Watching my air check of the show one is struck by 1) the cigarette commercials, which are insanely upside down in terms of what cigarettes do to smokers and the role of the American wife, whose vacuuming annoys her husband, who is trying to listen to a cigarette commercial on TV; wife apologetically interrupts her labors and makes nice with hubby and 2) what a generic character Robert Q. Lewis was. (I had seen him on a variety of shows.) A pleasant enough man, he seemed devoid of all talent other than being genial and congenial.
