Ethel and Albert

Last updated
Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce, 1953. Alan Bunce Peg Lynch Ethel and Albert television 1953.JPG
Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce, 1953.

Ethel and Albert (aka The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert) was a radio and television comedy series about a married couple, Ethel and Albert Arbuckle, living in the small town of Sandy Harbor. Created by Peg Lynch, who scripted and portrayed Ethel, the series first aired on local Minnesota radio in the early 1940s before a run on the NBC Blue Network and ABC from May 29, 1944, to August 28, 1950. It co-starred Alan Bunce as Albert.

Contents

Radio historian Gerald Nachman (in Raised on Radio) called the show "insightful and realistic... a real leap forward in domestic comedya lighthearted, clever, well-observed, daily 15-minute show about the amiable travails of a recognizable suburban couple" which combined "the domestic comedy of a vaudeville-based era with a keen modern sensibility. Lynch made her comic points without stooping to female stereotypes, insults, running gags, funny voices or goofy plots." [1]

The show began as three-minute filler between a pair of Minnesota KATE station programs, then expanded to 15 minutes, and finally became a half-hour show during its last years on radio. Like Easy Aces , the humor on Ethel and Albert was low key; like Vic and Sade , it was constructed around such simple, often mundane household situations as efforts to open a pickle jar. Often Ethel or Albert attempted to prove the other wrong over some inconsequential matter. For example, one entire script centered on Ethel's disputing Albert's claim that he could see her using only his peripheral vision. "I realized that I didn't have to sit down and knock myself out every minute to try to think of something funny," Lynch told critic Leonard Maltin years later. "All I had to do was look around me."

Two film stars had a presence in the show. Richard Widmark, who portrayed Albert in 1944, left after six months and was replaced by Alan Bunce.[ citation needed ] Margaret Hamilton, famous as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz , played Aunt Eva. Ethel and Albert's daughter Suzy (Madeleine Pierce, born in 1946) was the only other voice heard on the original series.

Television

Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce in the television version of the show, 1954. Ethel albert 1954.JPG
Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce in the television version of the show, 1954.

Peg Lynch brought her series to television as a continuing 15-minute segment on The Kate Smith Hour during the 1952–53 season. Lynch admitted years later that she wasn't happy with the move. "Ethel and Albert was a quiet show," she told Nachman, "and I was not a stage person who was accustomed to performing in front of an audience, as comedians are. And I always felt it spoiled my timing. I would have to hold up for the laugh." [1]

The radio program about peripheral vision was only one of the radio scripts that Lynch rewrote for television. The Ethel and Albert television series was launched on NBC (April 25, 1953 – December 25, 1954). It moved to CBS (June 20, 1955 – September 26, 1955) as a summer replacement for December Bride and ended its television life on ABC (October 14, 1955 – July 6, 1956).

Scripts, kinescopes, financial documents and correspondence from the show are contained in the Peg Lynch Collection at the Knight Library at the University of Oregon. [2] Several episodes of the television version also survive at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

The Couple Next Door

The Couple Next Door was a similar Peg Lynch radio series which aired on CBS Radio during the waning days of network radio, (December 30, 1957 – November 25, 1960) with Margaret "Peg" Lynch and Alan Bunce as the married couple. Essentially, it reprised Ethel and Albert, but the new name was necessitated because Lynch had lost the rights to the original title. The CBS iteration was named Best Daytime Radio Program for 1959 by The National Association for Better Radio and Television.

Lynch and Bunce brought the program to NBC's weekend programming block Monitor in 1963, performing three- to four-minute vignettes not unlike the original 15-minute shows. Their presence continued a Monitor tradition of offering new material from classic radio favorites (including James and Marian Jordan of Fibber McGee and Molly fame, until Marian Jordan's death). Lynch returned again in the 1970s. In 1973, she revived Ethel and Albert on National Public Radio's Earplay with a 16-episode run. Karl Schmidt, the creator of Earplay, played Albert in this incarnation. In 1976, she wrote and starred in a syndicated radio feature known as The Little Things in Life, again with Margaret Hamilton and with Robert Dryden as the husband. The Little Things in Life was part of a four-series block syndicated under the umbrella title Radio Playhouse.

Very few of the original Ethel and Albert radio programs are known to have survived, but almost all of the CBS Couple Next Door episodes exist. Lynch authorized a CD release of 12 Ethel and Albert vignettes from Monitor.

The theme music for The Couple Next Door is "Miss Melanie" by British composer Ronald Binge.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gracie Allen</span> American actress (1895–1964)

Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was an American vaudevillian, singer, actress, and comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns, her straight man, appearing with him on radio, television and film as the duo Burns and Allen.

<i>Fibber McGee and Molly</i> American radio comedy series

Fibber McGee and Molly (1935–1959) was a longtime husband-and-wife team radio comedy program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Weaver</span> American television executive (1908–2002)

Sylvester Laflin "Pat" Weaver Jr. was an American broadcasting executive who was president of NBC between 1953 and 1955. He has been credited with reshaping commercial broadcasting's format and philosophy as radio gave way to television as America's dominant home entertainment. His daughter is actress Sigourney Weaver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob and Ray</span> American comedy duo

Bob and Ray were an American comedy duo whose career spanned five decades, composed of comedians Bob Elliott (1923–2016) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990). The duo's format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as though it were a serious broadcast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Reed</span> American actor (1907–1977)

Alan Reed was an American actor, best known as the original voice of Fred Flintstone on The Flintstones and various spinoff series. He also appeared in many films, including Days of Glory, The Tarnished Angels, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Viva Zapata!, and Nob Hill, and various television and radio series.

<i>The Life of Riley</i> American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s

The Life of Riley is an American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, as well as two different television series, and a comic book.

<i>Father Knows Best</i> American television program 1954–1960

Father Knows Best is an American sitcom starring Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin. The series, which began on radio in 1949, aired as a television show for six seasons and 203 episodes. Created by Ed James, Father Knows Best follows the lives of the Andersons, a middle-class family living in the town of Springfield. The state in which Springfield is located is never specified, but it is generally accepted to be located in the Midwestern United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard McNear</span> American actor

Howard Terbell McNear was an American stage, screen, and radio character actor. McNear is best remembered as the original voice of Doc Adams in the radio version of Gunsmoke and as Floyd Lawson on The Andy Griffith Show (1961–1967).

Earplay was the longest-running of the formal series of radio drama anthologies on National Public Radio, produced by WHA in Madison, Wisconsin and heard from 1972 into the 1990s. It approached radio drama as an art form with scripts written by such leading playwrights as Edward Albee, Arthur Kopit, Archibald MacLeish and David Mamet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Morgan (humorist)</span> American comedian (1915–1994)

Henry Morgan was an American humorist. He first became familiar to radio audiences in the 1930s and 1940s as a barbed but often self-deprecating satirist. In the 1950s and later he was a regular and cantankerous panelist on the game show I've Got a Secret as well as other game and talk shows.

<i>The Bickersons</i> Radio and television comedy sketch series (1946–1951)

The Bickersons was a series of radio and television comedy sketches which began in 1946 on NBC radio. The show's married protagonists, portrayed by Don Ameche and Frances Langford, spent nearly all their time together in relentless verbal war.

<i>The Big Show</i> (NBC Radio)

The Big Show was an American radio variety program featuring 90 minutes of comic, stage, screen and music talent, that was aimed at keeping American radio in its classic era robust against the rapidly growing television tide. For a good portion of its year-and-a-half run, the show's quality made its ambition seem plausible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arch Oboler</span> American dramatist (1909–1987)

Arch Oboler was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, producer, and director who was active in radio, films, theater, and television. He generated much attention with his radio scripts, particularly the horror series Lights Out, and his work in radio remains the outstanding period of his career. Praised as one of broadcasting's top talents, he is regarded today as a key innovator of radio drama. Oboler's personality and ego were larger than life. Radio historian John Dunning wrote, "Few people were ambivalent when it came to Arch Oboler. He was one of those intense personalities who are liked and disliked with equal fire."

<i>Monitor</i> (radio program)

Monitor was an American weekend radio program broadcast live and nationwide on the NBC Radio Network from June 12, 1955, until January 26, 1975. It began originally on Saturday morning at 8am and continued through the weekend until 12 midnight on Sunday. After the first few months, the full weekend broadcast was shortened when the midnight-to-dawn hours were dropped since few NBC stations carried it.

<i>My Little Margie</i> American TV series or program

My Little Margie is an American television situation comedy starring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955. The series was created by Frank Fox and produced in Los Angeles, California, at Hal Roach Studios by Hal Roach Jr., and Roland D. Reed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al Pearce</span> American singer

Albert Pearce was an American comedian, singer and banjo player who was a popular personality on several radio networks from 1928 to 1947.

<i>December Bride</i> American television series

December Bride is an American sitcom that aired on the CBS television network from 1954 to 1959. It was adapted from the original CBS radio network series of the same name that aired from June 1952 through September 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peg Lynch</span> American actress

Margaret Frances "Peg" Lynch was an American writer, actress, and sitcom creator. The BBC dubbed her, “the woman who invented sitcom”.

Pepper Young's Family is a daytime drama series, with various format and title changes during its long run from 1932 to 1959. It was created and written by short story author and playwright Elaine Sterne Carrington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Bunce</span> American actor (1900–1965)

Alan Coe Bunce was an American radio and television actor.

References

  1. 1 2 Nachman, Gerald. Raised on Radio. New York: Pantheon, 1998.
  2. "Other Events | Event Categories | Cinema Studies | Page 9". Archived from the original on 2015-06-20. Retrieved 2015-07-31.

Sources

Listen to