The Donna Reed Show

I too would rather live next door to the Stones and not the Conners! I've heard people say that this show was "syrupy", "unrealistic", etc. My reply is "have you ever sat and watched an episode?" Anyone who watched the show knows that Donna and Alex had their quarrels and so did Mary and Jeff. They even quarreled with their parents. But in the end, they all made up with one another, and kept the family unit in tact. Having come from a terribly unstable "dysfunctional" family, I loved to watch this show; I always believed that when I had a family of my own it would be like the Stones. Friends told me that this was unrealistic and I said why? If other families can live trashy, unstable lives, then why can't I have a stable, moralistic life? Why can't I have a stable family that I love, and take care of? They had no reply to this. Anyway, when times are difficult, and the world seems so chaotic & cold, I put in a tape of the Donna Reed Show, and things don't seem quite so bad-it gives me hope. I still believe in the family unit and I most certainly do not believe that we have to live like Roseanne. I know that life does not have to be like the Conners or the Bundy's--and anyone who thinks that these shows are normal and funny needs to take a long hard look at their own lives. These are not funny--they are sad.

I remember watching this show sometimes when it was on Nick at Nite back in the 80s. I was a kid at the time and I remember Donna Stone just being so nice. She always solved any problem in such a sweet, wholesome and sensible manner. Sure it's another example of that 'perfect picturesque fifties family lifestyle' but it's part of television heritage. Just like those messages imbedded in the show telling you to have good manners, drink more milk and marry a doctor. Still, the theme song brings back memories that are warm and endearing. Donna Reed will always be there to give us our milk and cookies.

Although it lasted in the Sixties, this was the typical family Pleasantiville-style sitcom of the Fifties, along with Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, My Three Sons, and Father Knows Best. Reed's career was on a downturn, so this series was designed as a vehicle for her - and hence the uniquely egocentric title! Can you imagine "Beaver" being called "The Barbara Billingsley Show"? Donna was, admittedly, in the center of things more, and solved all manner of family crisis. The son, Paul Peterson, is now an advocate for child actors, and Shelley Fabares, who had a hit song during this series' run ("Johnny Angel"), had a career that went from teen idol to mature beauty in "Coach". The father was a doctor - at least he had a job unlike the goofy Ozzie! A somewhat contrived and formula show even by Fifties standards, but still a pleasant and wholesome series - unlike the smutty, cynical, and mean-spirited sitcoms of more recent times of which I have little use.

I was five when the show made its debut in 1958 and at a later point, was a regular viewer. I remember that I really enjoyed the show, along with "Leave It To Beaver", "My Three Sons", "Ozzie and Harriet", "Dick Van Dyke", reruns of "I Love Lucy", "The Real McCoys", etc. I am now enjoying the first season of "Donna Reed" on DVD and have watched the first two episodes. Donna Stone is shown to be an intelligent, well-mannered, problem-solving, serene, stay-at-home mom, similar to June Cleaver and in contrast to Lucy Ricardo. In episode 2, I especially like how Ms. Reed becomes a surrogate dad, trading in her dress for sweats and boxing gloves, while teaching her son how to defend himself physically against a much larger bully. While none of the mothers in the neighborhood I grew up in, including my own, exactly met the idealistic standards portrayed by Ms. Reed, it is refreshing to see good manners and intelligent decision-making prevail at the end of the day, in contrast to today's accepted standards of vulgarity, selfishness and indifference among one's neighbors. I cannot imagine Jeff and Mary Stone being told by their parents that trespassing in their neighbors' yards is okay, leaving a dog outside to bark all day is acceptable, or telling their mother to "shut up" in a supermarket in front of everyone.

Like a lot of stars of the big screen as their careers wound down, so many turned to television where probably they secured their reputations for posterity. Donna Reed is a case in point.

I don't think Donna Reed ever thought that Donna Stone was anything challenging, not to a woman who had won an Oscar for playing a very different type in From Here to Eternity. She was certainly better prepared to play wife, mother, and homemaker Donna Stone after having played Mary Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life.

Donna was always beautiful and wise and ever helpful with the problems of her kids and her husband. Carl Betz was not an idiot, he was a pediatrician who had his office attached to the house. Talk about the man being ever ready in a crisis.

Though this was the Donna Reed Show because Donna's husband at the time, Tony Owen produced it. Yet it lasted as long as did because of the popularity of the two children, Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen. Fabares had that best selling teen record Johnny Angel which she introduced on the show. She successfully made the transition to adult star, most known for her role in Coach as Craig T. Nelson's wife.

But Petersen was a bubblegum teen idol back in the day. The Donna Reed Show dare I say got most of its viewers because of him. It's forgotten now, but Petersen also had a best selling record, My Dad. Didn't do half as well as Johnny Angel.

Now Paul Petersen runs a support group for former child stars like himself. So many of them end so tragically, it's good work that he's doing.

The Stone family was the quintessence of Middle America. They lived in a suburb near Chicago, they led wholesome lives. Mom and Dad were always there for the kids. Of course the problems they had usually were nothing more than breaking curfew.

It's this series I believe was the model for the TV town of Pleasantville where Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon are sucked into.

I have pleasant memories of The Donna Reed Show. Easy to take, but not too seriously.