Zorro
03-19-2005, 06:34 PM
Boy, I thought I was pretty knowledgable about the early years of American television. I would have thought you could have thrown me the name of any series from the 1950s and that I would have at least recognized the title - even if I had never actually seen the show. It's a rainy Saturday here and I was channel surfing and came across a George Reeves Superman episode on The Good Life Channel (about to change it's name to The America Channel apparently). The obvious demographic for this network is aging boomers and they show everything from Combat! and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in the evening to old Our Gang and East Side Kids shorts in the afternoon. Anyway, I enjoyed the Superman episode while I was cleaning the house, and then an episode of "It's a Great Life" came on. B&W, obviously mid-Fifties, here's the IMDb synopsis below:
"Two ex G.I.'s Denny (Michael O' Shea) and Steve (William Bishop) return home and take a room at the boarding house of the doting Amy Morgan (Frances Bavier). Also in the house are the young and beautiful Cathy (Barbara Bates), and Amy's irrasciable, penny-pinching chisler brother Earl (James Dunn). The series follows "the boys'" exploits as they try to get rich quick and meet the girls of their dreams while working as vacuum-cleaner salesmen."
Apparently, this series premiered in 1954 and was eventually syndicated with 78 episodes under the title "The Bachelors". It's bad. I mean really bad. The two leads are very unlikeable characters but you can tell they are supposed to represent what "hip" was in the year before Elvis. O' Shea has a sort of tough guy borscht-belt schtick going, and Bishop comes off as the kind of creep you would never want your sister going out with. I don't recognize either one of these guys from anything even though they both have pretty long film resume's on the IMDb. I also don't recognize the pretty, blond Bates and only vaguely recognise Dunn as a character actor. Only Bavier was truly familiar to me. Anyway, I thought the episode I saw was absolutely awful. None of the characters have any chemistry, none of the "humor" was the least bit humorous, and I was amazed when I checked my watch that the show had only been on for about 10 minutes when I was sure that it was about to end - it was that slow. Has anybody else on this board ever seen this series?
"Two ex G.I.'s Denny (Michael O' Shea) and Steve (William Bishop) return home and take a room at the boarding house of the doting Amy Morgan (Frances Bavier). Also in the house are the young and beautiful Cathy (Barbara Bates), and Amy's irrasciable, penny-pinching chisler brother Earl (James Dunn). The series follows "the boys'" exploits as they try to get rich quick and meet the girls of their dreams while working as vacuum-cleaner salesmen."
Apparently, this series premiered in 1954 and was eventually syndicated with 78 episodes under the title "The Bachelors". It's bad. I mean really bad. The two leads are very unlikeable characters but you can tell they are supposed to represent what "hip" was in the year before Elvis. O' Shea has a sort of tough guy borscht-belt schtick going, and Bishop comes off as the kind of creep you would never want your sister going out with. I don't recognize either one of these guys from anything even though they both have pretty long film resume's on the IMDb. I also don't recognize the pretty, blond Bates and only vaguely recognise Dunn as a character actor. Only Bavier was truly familiar to me. Anyway, I thought the episode I saw was absolutely awful. None of the characters have any chemistry, none of the "humor" was the least bit humorous, and I was amazed when I checked my watch that the show had only been on for about 10 minutes when I was sure that it was about to end - it was that slow. Has anybody else on this board ever seen this series?