The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (TV series)

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The Ghost & Mrs. Muir
Edward Mulhare Hope Lange The Ghost and Mrs. Muir 1968.JPG
Edward Mulhare and Hope Lange, 1968
Genre Situation comedy
Starring Hope Lange
Edward Mulhare
Reta Shaw
Charles Nelson Reilly
Theme music composer Dave Grusin
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons2
No. of episodes50 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer David Gerber
Producers Howard Leeds
Gene Reynolds
Stanley Rubin
Camera setup Single-camera
Running time30 min.
Production company 20th Century-Fox Television
Original release
Network NBC (1st season)
ABC (2nd season)
ReleaseSeptember 21, 1968 (1968-09-21) 
March 13, 1970 (1970-03-13)
Related
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947 film)

The Ghost & Mrs. Muir is an American sitcom based on the 1947 film of the same name, which was based on the 1945 novel by R. A. Dick. It premiered in September 1968 on NBC. After NBC cancelled the series at the end of its first season, it was picked up by ABC for its second season before being cancelled a final time.

Contents

Premise

The series stars Hope Lange as Carolyn Muir, a young widow and writer who rents Gull Cottage, near the fictional fishing village of Schooner Bay, Maine, and moves into the rental with her two children, a housekeeper (played by Reta Shaw), and their dog. The cottage is haunted by the ghost of its former owner Daniel Gregg, a 19th-century sea captain, who died in 1869, played by Edward Mulhare. Charles Nelson Reilly plays Claymore Gregg, the great-nephew of the captain, who rents the cottage to Mrs. Muir without telling her it is haunted by his ancestor. [1]

The book of the same name, by R.A. Dick, was published in 1945. It was brought to the silver screen in 1947 with Gene Tierney playing Mrs. Muir and Rex Harrison as Captain Gregg. While the movie had been a romantic fantasy combining comic and dramatic elements, the series focused much more on laughs.

Central to the series is the romantic tension between the captain and Carolyn. While they have significant differences, the captain being a 19th-century chauvinist and Carolyn a modern career woman, their mutual attraction enables them to compromise to overcome their differences.

Production and reception

The story was developed as a TV series by Jean Holloway and filmed at the Hollywood Studios. Hope Lange won two Emmy Awards for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for 1968–1969 [2] and 1969–1970. [3] Despite Lange's consecutive Emmy wins, the show struggled in the ratings and only ran for two seasons. During its first year on NBC, it followed Get Smart ; its Big Three competition was My Three Sons on CBS and the first half of The Lawrence Welk Show on ABC.

In spring 1969, NBC cancelled the series. ABC picked it up and scheduled it to be shown on Thursday nights at 7:30 pm in September 1969, [1] followed by That Girl and Bewitched . The series was again unsuccessful in beating out another hit CBS series, Family Affair . It was later moved to Friday nights at 8:30 pm in January 1970, but ratings did not improve. As a result, ABC cancelled The Ghost & Mrs. Muir in spring 1970. The following year, Family Affair was cancelled by CBS after a five-year run because it was in the same time slot as the NBC hit variety series The Flip Wilson Show .

Cast

Episodes

SeasonEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast airedNetwork
1 26September 21, 1968 (1968-09-21)March 29, 1969 (1969-03-29) NBC
2 24September 18, 1969 (1969-09-18)March 13, 1970 (1970-03-13) ABC

Home media

On April 16, 2014, Madman Entertainment released both seasons on DVD in Region 4 (Australia) for the first time. In July 2014, amazon.com started selling both seasons of The Ghost & Mrs. Muir in the United States. [5] [6] On 1 November 2018, Madman Entertainment released the "Complete Collection" [7] box set. This box set contains the same individual Season 1 and 2 sets.

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows 1946 – Present (first edition), page 226, Ballantine, 1979
  2. 1969 Emmy Award
  3. 1970 Emmy Award
  4. Vincent Terrace, Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010, 2d ed., page 388, McFarland, Inc., 2014
  5. "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir: The Complete First Season". Madman Entertainment. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  6. "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir: The Complete Second Season". Madman Entertainment. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  7. "Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The - Complete Collection". www.jbhifi.com.au. Retrieved 2019-01-31.