Oh Mother!!! No..I mean Mothers-In-Law!

As many of you may know, I am a classic TV junkie; I have thousands of episodes of TV series on DVD. I have the complete series of The Golden Girls, all 11 seasons of Murder, She Wrote that have been released so far...the three season releases thus far of Designing Women, the six season releases thus far of The Jeffersons and numerous others. A few of these releases would fall into the "Cherished" category; extremely rare series that are rarely shown today (the entire H.R. Puffnstuff and The Snoop Sisters series, Season 1 of Hazel and McMillan and Wife, just to name a few). Brand new to DVD this week is another one of these "cherished" series: the rarely-seen but fondly-remembered 1967-1969 sitcom, The Mothers-in-Law. The final television series produced by Desi Arnaz, the NBC sitcom was created and mostly-written by the former writers of I Love Lucy, Bob Carroll, Jr. and Madelyn Davis. If you like I Love Lucy, you'll like The Mothers-in-Law.

A big kudos to MPI Home Video for a superb DVD release of this long-lost sitcom, that has been largely removed from syndication since the mid 1980s. I remember watching reruns of The Mothers-in-Law as a child when I would go visit my grandmother in the early and late 1970s; one of the local TV channels in her area used to air it after dinner...and I can still see her rocking in her rocking chair and shelling butter beans as the episodes unfolded.

Starring Eve Arden (Mildred Pierce, Our Miss Brooks, Grease) and Kaye Ballard (Cinderella, Freaky Friday), The Mothers-in-Law centered around two disparate families: the well-to-do, sophisticated Hubbards and their next-door neighbors. the eccentric and loud-mouthed Buells, who become related by marriage when the Hubbard's daughter, Suzie, (Deborah Walley, the original Gidget) marries the Buell's son, Jerry (Jerry Fogel). The children lived in the Hubbard's garage apartment...too close for comfort from the meddling mothers-in-law. Jerry and Suzy were largely secondary in this series but were a stimulus for the comedy; most of the episode plots featured Eve and Kaye (the character names were the same as the actresses' names) meddling in their children's lives. Since almost all of the episodes were written by former writers of I Love Lucy, watching the Mothers-in-Law today seems as if we are watching a colorized version of Lucy and Ethel.

The series also featured Herbert Rudley as Herb Hubbard, an attorney. The role of Roger Buell was split; the first season featured Roger C. Carmel as Mr. Buell...while Richard Deacon, fresh off six years of The Dick Van Dyke Show, came aboard for the series' second and final season. Roger was a television writer.

The DVD release of this classic series contains all 56 episodes, digitally re-mastered, on 7 disks. There is a plethora of special features on the eighth disk: a "Remembering The Mothers-In-Law featurette, with Kaye Ballard (one of only two surviving cast members; Jerry Fogel is still alive, too); the original show pilot, featuring Kay Cole in the role of Suzie Hubbard; cast commercials; rarely-seen performances by Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard, a long radio interview between Lucille Ball and Eve Arden, an unproduced episode script, and various network promos for the series. All in all, over 9 hours of special features for this series. MPI Video sure does things right. Some of these episodes are perfectly restored; others feature a little bit of noise but the series probably has not looked this good since it originally aired in Prime Time.


It is very exciting to have this long-lost series in my DVD collection. Watching it is like going back in a time machine; psychadelic sets, numerous references during a time when culture and acceptable behavior was much different than things today. It is certainly family friendly; not one naughty word was spoken in the entire series run. Watching it now, as a middle-aged adult, one just gets the feeling that this show would have been a HUGE success had it aired in the 1950s; it really has that 1950s sitcom-feel.


Unfortunately, the show aired in the late 1960s, when television was becoming more sophisticated and the youth movement was in full swing. Shows like The Mod Squad, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Hawaii Five-O, and the #1 show on TV at the time, Laugh-In, were more appealing...while The Mothers-In-Law was more of an innocent sitcom in the I Love Lucy/Donna Reed mold that attracted older audiences. Still, the potential was there for a huge TV smash...but tremendous success eluded the series.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle was its time slot. Airing at 8:30 pm Sunday nights, it was the "bridge" show between The Wonderful World of Disney and Bonanza...and aired opposite the dominant Ed Sullivan on CBS and The F.B.I. on ABC. With nothing in common with either Disney or Bonanza, The Mothers-in-Law struggled to hold onto viewers. Back in those still early days of television, sponsors would often buy time slots, and that was the case here. Proctor and Gamble owned the 8:30 pm slot on NBC...and had owned it since 1961. No series had prospered in this awkward time slot; only Car 54, Where Are You, The Mothers-In-Law and The Bill Cosby Show survived beyond a year and no series between 1961 and 1972, when the time slot was finally eliminated, lasted more than two seasons.

Ratings were anemic in the first year and NBC was slated to cancel The Mothers-in-Law after the first season. Proctor and Gamble liked the show, however, and threatened to take the series to ABC. NBC, in response, agreed to renewal on the condition that there were to be no raise in licensing fees; the cast had to agree to earn the same salary for Season Two as they had for Season One. All cast members agreed to this stipulation except for Roger C. Carmel, who insisted on a raise per his contract. Desi Arnaz was forced to replace Carmel and the actor chosen was Richard Deacon, who played the role in a completely different manner than his predecessor and thus really altered the chemistry with Kaye Ballard. Even the addition of a baby in Season Two could not draw more viewers...ratings fell and The Mothers-In-Law was cancelled after two seasons and 56 episodes. Who knows what could have been had it just aired on a different day; but this could be asked of a lot of cancelled series.


I also wondered why Desi Arnaz didn't try going in a different direction regarding those with writing duties for the series. Viewing these old episodes reminds people a lot of I Love Lucy; it's got that Lucy feel, perhaps because of the main writers and the fact that Arnaz, himself, produced the show and even appeared in four episodes of the series. I also wonder why this series hasn't been a candidate for a remake; it would be EASY to remake The Mothers-in-Law with updated scripts and topics.

MPI Video has released a gem and I, for one, am thrilled to have the entire series. Some of the episodes truly are funny. Young people today might find the show a little bland but fans of classic TV will enjoy this show. Real classic TV fans will get a kick out of the pilot, which opens with the classic NBC stinger, proudly announcing that "the following program is brought to you in living color by NBC," the NBC chimes after the closing credits, and several of the episodes have their original sponsor logos on the background during the closing credits. Because this was a Proctor and Gamble sponsored program, frequently featured products were Camay, Scope and Crest, which had just unveiled its mint flavored toothpaste. I give this set 5 stars with an exclamation point!