| Ethel And Albert |
Article Index for Ethel |
Website Links For Ethel |
Information AboutEthel And Albert |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ETHEL AND ALBERT | |
| american comedy radio programs | |
| comedy television series | |
|
Radio historian Gerald Nachman (in ''Raised on Radio'') called the show "insightful and realistic... a real leap forward in domestic comedy--a 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." 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 in the last couple of 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 would attempt to prove the other wrong over some inconsequential matter. For example, one entire script centered around Ethel disputing Albert's claim that he could see her using only his peripheral vision. "I realised 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 many 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 (1902-1965); and Margaret Hamilton (famed as '' The Wizard Of Oz '''s Wicked Witch of the West) 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 brought her series to television in the early 1950s as a continuing 15-minute segment on ''The Kate Smith Hour'' during the 1952-53 season. Lynch admitted many years later that she wasn't happy with the move. " 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." The radio program about peripheral vision was only one of the radio scripts that Lynch rewrote for television. An ''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 ). ''THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR'' ]] The Couple Next Door was a similar Peg Lynch series which began in 1953-57 on Chicago's WGN , moving to the Mutual Broadcasting System in the summer of 1957. The married couple was played by Olan Soule and Elinor Harriot. It was revived on CBS Radio ( December 30 1957 - November 25 1960 ) with Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce as the unnamed married couple. Essentially, it reprised ''Ethel and Albert'', but the new name was necessitated because Lynch had long since lost the rights to the original title. That still wasn't the end of the show. Lynch and Bunce brought the show to NBC 's legendary 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 yet again in the 1970s with a syndicated radio feature known as ''The Little Things in Life''. Very few of the original ''Ethel and Albert'' radio shows are known to have survived, but a considerable number of ''The Couple Next Door'' shows have. And, a few years ago, Lynch authorized the compact disc release of 12 ''Ethel and Albert'' vignettes from the ''Monitor'' years. REFERENCES
LISTEN TO EXTERNAL LINK |
|
|