Pete and Gladys

Pete (Harry Morgan) was a regular on the long running "December Bride" TV series playing a henpecked husband. On this series, Gladys was only mentioned and never seen. She was portrayed as a nagging terror by her husband Pete.

When this series debuted in 1960, we met Gladys for the first time. The only problem: Gladys is a totally likeable charactor and does not come across as a nag. She is a normal '60's housewife. They live in a modest home.

The only other December Bride regular is the wonderful Verna Felton as Hilda Crocker. She often has the best lines in the show.

December Bride had a neighbor Pete Porter played by Harry Morgan (later featured in Dragnet and M*A*S*H) but Gladys, his nagging and sloppy wife, was never seen. Here she was featured as well as some of the supporting cast from Bride, as that show had just ended. Gladys proved to be neither nagging nor a slob but was kind of wacky in the Lucy vein. This was probably Morgan's funniest role, as audiences loved his sarcastic humor on Bride that fueled the spin-off. Morgan and Cara Williams were veteran actors from TV and movies so they performed well together and the comedy chemistry clicked. Williams had a short-lived show of her own (The Cara Williams Show) after this one ended.

"Pete & Gladys" was also seen on reruns on CBS-TV Daytime on Weekdays from October 1, 1962 to October 4, 1964. The Daily portion was joined with "The Real McCoys" that same day as well as "The Lucille Ball Show" and later "The Lucy Show" was debuted on prime time.

Pete and Gladys gave the American public finally a look at just what Harry Morgan had been complaining about lo these past five years. On December Bride where Morgan was a regular, we never got to see Gladys, all we knew about her is Morgan's regular one liners about her. She was the distaff equivalent of Phyllis Diller's never seen husband, Fang.

Anyway the Pete and Gladys show opened the year after December Bride shut down with Peter Porter moving away from the neighborhood where he lived next to Dean Miller, Frances Rafferty and Spring Byington. And we finally got to meet Gladys who was played by Cara Williams.

Desilu Productions had split the way Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had split, but creators Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf who wrote I Love Lucy and December Bride created another kookie wife to get into constant trouble to the annoyance of her harried husband.

Cara Williams was very funny as Gladys Porter, but the cycle had really run its course by the time Pete and Gladys made its debut. Harry Morgan was an Americanized version of Ricky Ricardo. Later on we saw how exasperated he could get with the 4077 MASH unit.

Still I wouldn't mind seeing some of those today.

The thing I remember most about this show is that the character I loved so much from December Bride, Pete Porter (played hilariously by Harry Morgan), was not featured enough in the spin off. "Pete and Gladys" was almost all Gladys (played by a very funny Cara Williams.) Sadly, when Pete did appear, he wasn't the same wacky guy from December Bride. He seemed frustrated, serious, somewhat somber. It was disappointing since the point of the show was not only to reveal Gladys but to capitalize on Harry Morgan's wonderfully comic Pete. Not necessarily a bad situation comedy from the era but disappointing and a letdown to Pete fans.