The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

I really liked the series- a true American Classic. I agree with another poster about Wally Plumstead- he provided many humorous moments and actually carried the series for many of the episodes. I think I recall that there were some episodes where only Wally appeared and Rick was featured at the end in a separate filmed performance of his band. Also, the episodes with Thorny and the situations with Ozzie were definitely the most humorous in the series. Just one thing on your stats as far as appearances for each of the main characters. It says Harriet, David and Ricky each appeared in 172 episodes, where Ozzie was in 171. How could this be, since there were at 435 episodes total?

This is for the person that says Ozzie and Harriet was dull! It is easy for you too reach back in another time, take something, and criticize it with the futures eyes. Obviously by calling anyone who watches the show "dull, or senior" you are just showing your ignorance!!

This show, brought Rock N Roll into peoples living rooms, AND made it acceptable to their parents!! Did you know the Nelson family is the only family in history to have 3 generations become recording stars and win certain awards. (check it out) Ozzie, Ricky, and the Nelsons.

Anyone can do crude humor like Seinfield......but it really takes talent to make people laugh and to be wholesome and safe for the WHOLE family to watch!!

The Adventures and Leave it to Beaver were two of the best shows ever! And still rank better then the garbage they are turning out now, where whoever can shock the most, and show the most non-family friendly things rate highest.

One of the big jokes about The Adventures Of Ozzie&Harriet was just what did Ozzie do for a living. I think that it was hoped that people would remember from radio and film that Ozzie was a bandleader and crooner coming up around the same time Bing Crosby did. Harriet was also a singer, but now a full time mom raising their two sons.

You have to view Ozzie&Harriet from a longer perspective. They were on radio for a dozen years before the TV series debuted in 1952. The births of David and Ricky were as much a part of our national folklore as Lucille Ball's most televised birth of little Ricky. And on radio it was known Ozzie was a musician.

It's not like there were any gags or routines on the show and Ozzie was not an idiot father being put down by his kids. Harriet certainly was an All American mom. I wish she had sung a little, she was a great singer in 30s and 40s. Just idealized family life in the Eisenhower years.

The show might have died had it not been discovered that Ricky Nelson inherited musical talent from his parents. He became quite the rock and roll king, but he could never be anything more than a good kid with Ozzie and Harriet raising him. No sullen Elvis Presley like rebellion in a Nelson.

Ricky had a string of some pretty good hits for about 10 years with a built in audience to introduce them. It added a whole new generation of fans for the Nelsons until musical tastes changed.

Change it did, the all American home wasn't playing quite so good in the counterculture 60s. But The Adventures of Ozzie&Harriet still has its place in our cultural history.

"Ozzie and Harriet" is often used as a buzzword for white-bread America: Husband runs the family spouting words of manly wisdom, while the wife stays home with the well-behaved kids. Funny thing is, the show really isn't like that. Ozzie is a guy who apparently never goes to work - it's a running gag throughout the show. His "great ideas" usually lead to disaster, and usually it's Harriet who quietly gets everything to turn out all right in the end. The kids, especially Ricky, often shoot off at the mouth. It was even Seinfeld-esque (and I say that as a rabid Seinfeld fan) - most episodes could fairly be described as being "about nothing".

In truth it's one of the funniest shows ever on television. It was even cutting edge, for its time: Ozzie and Harriet slept in the same bed, which was unheard of. Ever see anyone on a TV show "break the fourth wall" (start talking to the camera)? This started on O&H - first with Ricky's end-of-show shrugs, and later with full-blown conversations directed to the camera. My personal favorite example of this is when Ozzie pretended to be a mind-reader (who of course no one recognized because of a cheesy goatee). When he gets exposed at the end, just about every character quips something or other straight into the camera.

Do yourself a favor though. Don't start off with the late episodes where the boys are grown up and married. Those can be quite funny, but the show at times was just coasting on its reputation by then. Watch the earlier stuff from when the boys were little, when Thorny still lived next door. Give yourself time to get to know the characters, and you certainly won't regret it!

I think that The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, not unlike its counterparts (i.e. Leave it to Beaver), were what they were because that's what people wanted at the time. Many accounts of the 1950's are not the most interesting, but that's the way things were-culturally. With out these programs, however mundane you may find them, there would have been no examples for the family sit-com following the cultural revolution of the 1960's. I think that in today's society it is nice to look back, and see a family living together, enjoying life, and running into the occasional plot conflict. To hate Ozzie and Harriet is to hate Americana- after all that's what they were at the time of their program.You'll notice that the show ended in the late 1960's, when due to the cultural unrest in the United States, their brand of entertainment became, sadly enough, obsolete. Conclusion: take it for what it is (or was), it's a glimpse into a bygone era: a time of homemakers, fresh-baked cookies, pipe smoking dads, the milkman, and no use for the modern vulgarities of the medium.