Pete and Gladys

...my mom and little sister were watching a rerun of "Pete and Gladys" when the local news announcer interrupted the program to deliver the grim news about Kennedy's assassination.

Even today, some 40 years after the event, I can't get my mom to make a comment about the day Kennedy was shot without her prefacing her recollections by first mentioning that she and my little sis were at home watching "Pete and Gladys".

I don't remember too clearly what I was doing that day. I know I was in second grade, and they put the news on the school intercom and we listened to it non-stop until school let out. Then I went home. But I've always wondered what it must have been like to have been watching "Pete and Gladys" only to have the show interrupted by news of the president's assassination.

Here's a blast from the past. This was one of television's earliest spin-offs before spin-offs became a dynamic commodity of television. This show was spun-off from another memorable comedy, December Bride, reruns of which were broadcast in the late 1950's to early 1960's, during the winds of change in American society.

Two of the players, Helen Kleeb and Shirley Mitchell, went on to play The Baldwin Sisters on The Waltons.

Some memories should be left that way. I was born in the mid-fifties, and this is one of the very first shows I remember watching as a very small child. My mom must have liked it, we must have watched it routinely, and it became etched in my memory. I was surprised to learn it was only on for two seasons.

I hadn't seen it until learning on this very site that a full episode had been uploaded to YouTube, titled Garden Wedding.

The show opened with two couples driving, men in front - Pete/Harry Morgan was driving with Bob Hastings, lka "Lt. Carpenter" in McHale's Navy, as passenger - and the women in back - Gladys and a friend, wife of the Bob Hastings character.

You couldn't help but compare the visual of that foursome to the foursome in I Love Lucy and the "California Here We Come" episode. Fifties cars, fifties couples, black and white presentation.

But there the similarities ended. I was astonished at how boring and predictable the Pete and Gladys show was. Bad writing (though I believe written by two of Lucy's former writers), absurd story line, wooden acting, and completely predictable outcome. Clearly not as timeless as Lucy. I can see why this show is no longer shown.

Transitioning from the mother series "December Bride," elements from the original show are sorely missing here: 1. The character of Pete Porter changes from a jocular neighbor to a straight-man husband.

2. The best friend of the character Pete Porter (Matt Henshaw) and his wife, along with Lilly, the mother-in-law, is never mentioned in this show. However, Pete Porter moved to a new home at the beginning of the series, and it is evident that he is in the same neighborhood as the Henshaws. This is indicated by the character Hilda, Lilly's best friend in "December Bride," who still visits Pete and Gladys. However, Hilda does not appear in the second and final season.

3. The character Pete always joked about his lousy mother-in-law in "December Bride." In the spin-off, instead, a father-in-law is introduced sans any mother-in-law.

4. Toward the end of the "December Bride" series, the characters Pete and Gladys Porter have a baby girl named Linda, whom Pete doted on: no nursery, no child, and no mention of the baby in this spin-off series whatsoever.

5. Gladys is portrayed as a bad cook and not very good-looking by the neighbor Pete in "December Bride," although never seen during the series run. Actress Cara Williams is introduced as Gladys, portrayed as anything but homely and a lousy cook.

6. Finally, the laugh track is overused.

In conclusion, "Pete and Gladys" was not the same characters portrayed and talked about in the previous mother series of the 1950s but a brand new couple of the 1960s.

This show is a real blast from the past. Not having seen this show since I was a little boy, I wondered if it would hold up to my memory of it. It did. Cara Williams was very funny playing a housewife not unlike Lucy Ricardo. Harry Morgan plays a sort-of Americanized version of Ricky in this. Why this series has been off the air for so many years remains a mystery to me. Cara Williams was a very talented actress who was not appreciated in her day.I would like to say to her "Thank you" for the wonderful performances she has given us, not only in television, but her film appearances as well. Pete and Gladys is a fun show that unfortunately has not been seen or heard of by the majority of today's television audience.