The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet: An Evening with Hamlet

Carradine

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet: An Evening with Hamlet
ABC
April 23, 1954
Sitcom
DVD
B

Not only does this have John Carradine as a traveling Shakespearean actor who coaches the Nelsons and their neighbors on a reading of Hamlet, but the plot ended up being less predictable than I expected.  On another sitcom, the husband would scheme to get out of the house to play poker.  Or on another sitcom, we'd have the Abilene Paradox where no one wants to read Shakespeare but they end up doing it so as not to hurt each other's feelings, and they all regret it.  I wouldn't say the writing is brilliant here, but I like that the reference to "Avon Way" isn't spelled out as much as it could be.  Overall, I enjoyed this glimpse at a long-running sort of corny series more than I expected, with the four episodes averaging out to a B-.

Don DeFore plays Thorny, as he did earlier.  Of the co-writers, Bill Davenport and Ben Gershman also did the '52 Halloween episode, while Uncle Don Nelson worked on all four of these episodes, and over 300 more.  Oh, and David was actually born in '36, but his character was still in college (and perhaps going to high school dances) in '59, while Ricky was born in '40 and seemed to still be in high school in '59, although maybe they were playing younger than they actually were.