Sitcoms
  Sitcoms-The Families
  Sitcoms-The One Parent Families

623 East 68th Street, New York City, Apartment 3-B,the residence of Ricky Ricardo, an orchestra leader at the Tropicana Club and his wife Lucy. Stories depict
the basic, most often copied premise: a husband plagued by the antics of his well-meaning, but scatterbrained wife. In this case, by a wife who longs for a career in show business, but encounters the objections of her husband. Fred and Ethel Mertz were the Ricardo's neighbors, landlords and best friends. The two couples were almost inseparable, whatever the Ricardos did, so did the Mertzs.

Buy "I Love Lucy" items in our Gift Shoppe!!

328 Chauncey Street, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, the apartment residences of the Kramdens and the Nortons, people, fifteen years after the Depression still struggling to make ends meet. Ralph Kramden and Alice Gibson married following his acquiring employment as a bus driver with the Gotham Bus Company. Ed Norton, a sewer worker, and his wife, Trixie, live above the Kramdens. Stories depict the sincere attempts of two men to better their lives and the ensuing frustrations when their schemes to strike it rich inevitably backfire.

Buy "Honeymooners" items in our Gift Shoppe!!
 

The Real McCoys
1957 - 1963
A happy-go-lucking West Virginia mountain family picks up stakes and moves to a ranch in California's San Fernando Valley. Center of the action, and undisputed
star of the show, was Grandpa, a porch-rockin', gol-darnin', consarnin' old geezer with a wheezy voice who liked to meddle in practically everybody's affairs, neighbors and kin alike. His kin were grandson Luke and his new bride, Kate; Luke's teenage sister, Hassie;
and Luke's 11-year-old brother, Little Luke (their parents were deceased). Completing the regular cast were Pepino, their loyal farm hand; George MacMichael, their crusty neighbor and Amos' best friend; and Flora, George's spinster sister who had eyes for Amos.

Grandpappy Amos was an incorrigible codger who was against anything anyone else was for. He had the regulation Heart of Gold stuck away somewhere, but he was cantankerous as all get out. With his shoulders and arms jumping, Amos walked like a chicken with a limp. He bullied, he blustered, he cajoled, he did everything he could to get his own way. His not being able to read or write got him into many predicaments,
for he would never admit to being illiterate to anyone outside the family.

In 1962 the series moved to CBS. Luke became a widower and many of the plots began to revolve around Grandpa's attempts to match him up with a new wife.

Beverly Hillbillies
1962 - 1971

The Clampetts, an Ozark hillbilly family , accidentally struck it rich when patriarch Jed, while hunting, shot the ground and struck oil. At the advice of their family and friends, they moved to Beverly Hills, California where they were moved into the mansion next door to banker Milburn Drysdale, president of the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills. Accompanying Jed to Beverly Hills were his daughter, Elly May, a beautiful young "spinster" tomboy; Jethro, Jed's nephew and the brain of the family (with a 6th grade education); and Granny, Jed's mother-in-law, a mountain healer and matchmaker.

Over the next nine years, several constants emerged...Jed never replaced his old
worn hat or the family truck; Elly May never got a husband; Granny never got to go
back to the hills; and Jethro never got to keep the girl.

The Beverly Hillbillies was an instant hit and ranked as the number one television
series its first two years on-air.

Petticoat Junction
1963 - 1970

A spin-off from The Beverly Hillbillies. The small farming community of Hooterville provided the setting for this highly successful rural situation comedy. Kate Bradley was the widowed owner of the only transient housing in town, the Shady Rest Hotel. Helping her run the hotel were her three beautiful daughters, Billie Jo, Bobbie Jo, and Betty Jo. Also assisting was the girls' lazy Uncle Joe, who had assumed the title of manager. In addition to her involvement with the hotel, the romantic lives of her daughters, and her association with the townspeople, Kate was constantly at odds with Homer Bedlow, vice-president of the C.F. & W. Railroad. Homer was determined to close down the steam-driven branch of the railroad that ran through Hooterville, scrap its lone engine (the Cannonball), and put its two engineers (Charlie Pratt and Floyd Smoot) out of jobs.

Two years after the premiere of Petticoat Junction, CBS added Green Acres to its lineup. This situation comedy was the story of a Manhattan lawyer who gave up big-city life and bought a run-down farm near Hooterville.  For the remainder of their existences there was interplay between the characters of the two shows.

In the fall of 1966 pilot Steve Elliott crashed outside Hooterville and was nursed back to health by the Bradley girls. He later became romantically involved with Betty Jo and eventually married her. They set up housekeeping not far from the hotel, and had a daughter, Kathy Jo. This despite the efforts of Kate's hated adversary, Selma Plout,
to get Steve interested in her daughter, Henrietta.

Bea Benaderet passed away soon after production began for the 1968-1969 season and her absence left the show without a unifying center of attention. To fill the void, the role
of Dr. Janet Craig, a mature woman doctor who became the town physician when old Dr. Stuart retired, was added late in 1968. The chemistry was not there anymore, however,
and the show was canceled in 1970.

One of the best parts of the series was the colorful townsfolk: Sam Drucker, the general store owner; Fred Ziffel, a pig farmer; Arnold, Fred's intelligent pig; Doris Ziffel, Fred's
wife; Orrin Pike, the game warden; Ben Miller and Newt Kiley, farmers; Herby Bates, a friend of the girls; and Boy, the Bradley family dog.
 

Bewitched
1964 - 1972
1164 Morning Glory Circle, West Port, Connecticut, the home of Darrin Stephens, a mortal and advertising executive with the Manhattan firm of McMann and Tate; and his wife, a beautiful witch, Samantha. Episodes relate Samantha's attempts to adopt the role of housewife, and Darrin's struggles to curtail and conceal his wife's powers and cope with his disapproving mother-in-law, Endora, who, when angered, delights in casting spells upon him.

Samantha had a bevy of magical relatives: her father Maurice, practical joking Uncle Arthur, and forgetful Aunt Clara.  Esmerelda the housekeeper, who came along in 1969, who was also a witch, a timid soul whose powers were declining.  Also in the cast were Larry Tate, Darrin's boss, and his wife Louise, and the Stephens' noisy neighbor Gladys Kravitz and her long-suffering husband Abner.

Samantha and Darrin's first child, Tabitha was born in 1966. And their son Adam was born in 1969. Dick Sargent replaced Dick York as Darrin in 1969.

The Adams Family
1964 - 1966

The strange, macabre, but somehow amusing cartoon characters created by Charles
Addams for The New Yorker magazine made their live-action debut in the fall of
1964, one of two almost identical "ghoul comedies" to premiere that year (The
Munsters).  Morticia was the beautiful but somber lady of the house. Her husband
Gomez had strange eyes and rather destructive instincts, as did Uncle Fester.
Lurch, the butler, was a seven-foot-tall warmed-over Frankenstein monster whose
dialogue usually consisted solely of the two words, "You rang?" the children also
had a rather ghoulish quality about them. Grandmama, although a witch, was the most
normal-looking one of the bunch. They all lived in a musty, castlelike home full of
strange objects--such as a disembodied hand, called "Thing," which kept popping out
of a black box--and they scared almost everyone--except viewers--half to death.

 

The Munsters
1964 - 1966

1313 Mockingbird Lane, the creepy, spider-web-covered residence of the Munsters, a family who resemble celluloid fiends of the 1930s: Herman (a Frankenstein-like creature), a funeral parlor employee; his wife, Lily (a female vampire); their 10-year-old son,
Edward Wolfgang (a werewolf); Lily's father, Count Dracula (Grandpa), a 378-year-old mad scientist; their "poor unfortunate" niece, Marilyn, young and beautiful, the black sheep of the family; and Spot, the family pet (a fire-breathing dinosaur who lived under the stairs). The Munsters considered themselves a normal, everyday American family, but to neighbors they were a bit unusual.