1.15.2018

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Burns and Allen Show" from CBS (Jul. 17, 1952)



Posted to YouTube by user 'Shokus Video'
Length - 29:32

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

George Burns and Gracie Allen were a comedy team (and a marital team) that lasted for decades through vaudeville, radio, and television. By the time their TV show--a pioneering situation comedy--premiered in 1950, their act and their appeal had been long established. George was the straight man, calm and bemused in the face of ditzy Gracie's hijinx. Although in the episode above George strays further than usual into wackiness, this division of comedic labor held for the most part in "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show", which aired on CBS from 1950-1958.

Like most TV programs from this earliest period, "The Burns and Allen Show" was originally aired live. We see here many of the trappings of that mode of presentation, including an actual curtain that raises at the beginning of the story. Also like most programs from this earliest period, it had a single sponsor, in this case Carnation Evaporated Milk, featured in the opening and closing as well as in an ad at the very end of the program.

The plot in this episode (from July 1952) is a version of one that would become a sitcom staple: mistaken identity. George thinks that everyone else thinks he's a great singer, when they actually think the opposite. This leads to some comic moments throughout the episode, as George and Gracie banter with friends at home and then as they become mistaken for another couple (one with a husband who can sing well) by a record producer.

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