What's So Funny?

 I'm finally feeling better. It's been a long slog the past few weeks getting over the wicked hacking cough and general tiredness I've experienced, but I really do think I'm on the mend. So ... I'm ready to share a post with you.

A few weeks ago I wrote about some of the television shows that were popular in the late '50s and early '60s (when Mystery of the Cave takes place), concentrating on the Westerns, which were my favorites. But now, I want to write about the t.v. shows that made us laugh.

I'll start with what I think is the funniest - I Love Lucy (not the Lucy Show or Here Comes Lucy, but the original with Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley, pictured below). I Love Lucy was on in repeats even when I was a kid, and I didn't think it was very funny - then. My mom watched it and guffawed, but I didn't get the humor to be perfectly honest. However, since becoming an adult I've probably seen every episode a dozen or more time and still laugh out loud at Lucy's antics.
I tried to put a video clip of the best episode (in my opinion), Vitameatavegamin, on this post, but wasn't able to make it work. Go to youtube and look it up ... I think it'll make you guffaw, too.

 

 

Another funny one, and I didn't appreciate this when I was a kid either, was Jack Benny. He was the perpetual '39 year-old', who played the violin very badly and was assisted by his valet, Rochester.  The Jack Benny Program started on radio then moved over to t.v. in the '50s. It had a weekly plot, sort of, but was also a variety show. The picture shows him with one of the funniest and well respected entertainers of all time, Bob Hope (if you haven't seen the Road Show movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (Road to Morocco, Road to Singapore; etc.), you're missing out on some real belly laughs.

 

 

 

Make Room for Daddy was a Danny Thomas vehicle. Back in the day, Danny Thomas was a singer, and is quite famous as the celebrity behind the St. Jude Hospital charity drives. This family show was about an entertainer husband and his long-suffering family. (As an aside, Marlo Thomas, his daughter, was the star of That Girl, a comedy of the 70s, about a single girl in the big city.)

 

 

"You're looking lovely today, Mrs. Cleaver," was a line delivered by the ever brown-nosing, full-of-baloney, and terribly two-faced, Eddie Haskell, best friend of Wally Cleaver, on Leave It To Beaver. Ward Cleaver, played by Hugh Beaumont, was Dad. June Cleaver, Mother, was played by Barbara Billingsley. Wally (the eldest of the two Cleaver boys) was played by Tony Dow *swoon*, and Jerry Mathers was the Beaver

June Cleaver has gotten a lot of flack from the feminist crowd over the years for wearing pearls and a dress to do housework in, but I thought she was a terrific mom and wife. Ward Cleaver, an insurance salesman, was the quintessential patient, understanding but firm father. Wally, *swoon* was, I think, every young girl's ideal boyfriend: athletic, studious, polite and handsome. Then there was Theodore Cleaver, better known as the Beaver: he had a way of getting into mischief, and on Eddie Haskell's bad side (although I'm not really sure Eddie had a good side). The Cleaver's were a normal, typical family of the early 60's, and I watched them faithfully - my boys have watched all of the episodes in reruns, and like them, too.

 

 

The Dick Van Dyke Show! What can I say? HILARIOUS!!!

Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, along with Morey Amsterdam,  Rose Marie, Richard Deacon, and Carl Reiner were a great comedy team.

 

 

 

Take a minute or sixty and watch snippets from these great shows on youtube or maybe even HULU, to see what you might have missed, or to recall some fond and funny memories. You won't find a single Rosanne or Homer Simpson among the bunch ... and you can watch with your kids ... no swearing, sexual innuendo, nudity, or disrepect (What?!)... but I bet you'll laugh out loud, and someone may even ask, "What's so funny?" 

 

Enjoy,

Lynda

 

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