''The Eve Arden Show'' is a 26-episode American

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

which aired during the 1957–1958 season on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, alternately sponsored by

Lever Brothers Lever Brothers was a British manufacturing company founded in 1885 by two brothers: William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). They invested in and successfully promoted a new soap-making p ...

and Shulton, Inc. (

Old Spice Old Spice is an American brand of male grooming products encompassing aftershaves, deodorants and antiperspirants, shampoos, body washes, and soaps. It is manufactured by Procter & Gamble. Old Spice was launched as Early American Old Spice by W ...

Overview

The show, starring Eve Arden, centers on Liza Hammond, a

widowed A widow (female) or widower (male) is a person whose spouse has died. Terminology The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed ''widowhood''. An archaic term for a widow is "relict," literally "someone left over". This word can so ...

mother of her twin daughters who works as writer and lecturer. It features actress

Frances Bavier Frances Elizabeth Bavier (December 14, 1902 – December 6, 1989) was an American stage and television actress. Originally from New York theatre, she worked in film and television from the 1950s until the 1970s. She is best known for her role o ...

(the future

Aunt Bee Aunt Bee is a fictional character from the 1960 American television sitcom ''The Andy Griffith Show''. Played by Frances Bavier, the character migrated to the spinoff ''Mayberry R.F.D.'' (1968–1971) when ''The Andy Griffith Show'' ended its run ...

of ''

The Andy Griffith Show ''The Andy Griffith Show '' is an American situation comedy television series that aired on CBS from October 3, 1960, to April 1, 1968, with a total of 249 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons—159 in black and white and 90 in color. The ...

'') as Hammond's mother, Nora, who lives with the family. In eight of the 26 episodes, Allyn Joslyn portrays George Howell, Hammond's agent and potential love interest. The series was produced for Arden's Westhaven Enterprises by

Desilu Desilu Productions () was an American television production company founded and co-owned by husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. The company is best known for shows such as '' I Love Lucy'', ''The Lucy Show'', ''Mannix'', ''The Untouchab ...

. The show was filmed with three cameras in front of a live audience, although a

laugh track A laugh track (or laughter track) is a separate soundtrack for a recorded comedy show containing the sound of audience laughter. In some productions, the laughter is a live audience response instead; in the United States, where it is most common ...

was used for sweetening purposes. The show was based on author Emily Kimbrough's book ''It Gives Me Great Pleasure''. Eve Arden had enjoyed a very successful run on radio in the CBS program ''

Our Miss Brooks ''Our Miss Brooks'' is an American sitcom starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high-school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television (1952–56), it became one of the medi ...

'' from 1948 to 1957. When it premiered as a television series in the fall of 1952, it was very popular with audiences and ran for four years on CBS. During its final season, the ratings fell and the show was canceled in the spring of 1956. In the fall of 1957, Desilu Studios, which had produced ''Our Miss Brooks'', attempted to resurrect Arden's television career with ''The Eve Arden Show'' and CBS scheduled it for Tuesday nights. With this new program, Arden was not able to duplicate the success she had with ''Our Miss Brooks''. Despite the fact that it followed ''

The Phil Silvers Show ''The Phil Silvers Show'', originally titled ''You'll Never Get Rich'', is a sitcom which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1959. A pilot titled "Audition Show" was made in 1955, but it was never broadcast. 143 other episodes were broadcast – all half-a ...

'' (which during its first two years had been one of the top 30 programs on television), both sitcoms failed to beat its competition on ABC - ''

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enr ...

'' (with ''

Sugarfoot ''Sugarfoot'' is an American Western television series that aired for 69 episodes on ABC from 1957-1961 on Tuesday nights on a "shared" slot basis – rotating with ''Cheyenne'' (first season); ''Cheyenne'' and ''Bronco'' (second season); and ...

'' on alternate weeks) and The Life and Times Of Wyatt Earp. After the 1957–1958 season, ''The Phil Silvers Show'' was renewed for one more year but ''The Eve Arden Show'' ended its one-year run after its 26th episode. For the next several years, Arden continued to work on television as a guest star on several programs. Then, in 1967,

Desi Arnaz Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986) was a Cuban-born American actor, bandleader, and film and television producer. He played Ricky Ricardo on the American television sitcom '' I Love Lucy'', in which he c ...

brought her back to weekly television in an ''

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

'' sitcom co-starring singer-comedian

Kaye Ballard Kaye Ballard (November 20, 1925 – January 21, 2019) was an American actress, comedian, and singer. Early life Ballard was born Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, one of four children born to Italian immigrant parents, Lena (née Nac ...

called '' The Mothers-In-Law''. The series was only moderately successful and lasted two years.

Cast

* Eve Arden as Liza Hammond * Allyn Joslyn as George Howell *

as Nora (six episodes) * Gail Stone as Jenny Hammond (seven episodes) * Karen Greene as Mary Hammond (seven episodes) * Willard Waterman as Carl Foster (four episodes) Guest stars include

Philip Ahn Philip Ahn (born Pillip Ahn (), March 29, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was an American actor and activist of Korean descent. With over 180 film and television credits between 1935 and 1978, he was one of the most recognizable and prolific Asi ...

Mary Jane Croft Mary Jane Croft (February 15, 1916 – August 24, 1999) was an American actress best known for her roles as Betty Ramsey on '' I Love Lucy'', Miss Daisy Enright on the radio and television versions of ''Our Miss Brooks'', Mary Jane Lewis on '' ...

Bill Goodwin William Nettles Goodwin (July 28, 1910 – May 9, 1958),Palm Spr ...

, Mary Beth Hughes, Kathryn Card and Danny Richards, Jr., as Liza's nephew, Melvin.

Episode list

DVD release

Four episodes of the series were released on Region 1

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

on February 26, 2008 by Alpha Video.

External links

"The Eve Arden Show" Old Time Radio
*
Episode of ''The Eve Arden Show''
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

References

1957 American television series debuts 1958 American television series endings 1950s American sitcoms Black-and-white American television shows CBS original programming English-language television shows Television shows set in New York (state) Television series by CBS Studios Television series about widowhood Television shows about writers Television series based on books {{US-comedy-tv-prog-stub