Mama (TV series)
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Mama was a weekly Maxwell House-sponsored CBS television dramedy series which ran from July 1, 1949 until March 17, 1957.
Based on the Kathryn Forbes memoir Mama's Bank Account, which inspired the 1944 John Van Druten play and subsequent 1948 film I Remember Mama, it told the ongoing story of a loving Norwegian family living in San Francisco in the 1910s through the eyes of the elder daughter, Katrin Hansen (Rosemary Rich), who was seen looking through the pages of the family album in the opening and closing of each episode.
In addition to veteran stage actress Peggy Wood in the title role, the cast included Judson Laire as Papa, and Dick Van Patten as brother Nels. The youngest child, Dagmar, was portrayed first by Iris Mann, then by Robin Morgan (who later became a radical feminist activist and poet), and finally Toni Campbell. Also featured were Ruth Gates, Carl Frank, Alice Frost, Malcolm Keen, Roland Winters, Kevin Coughlin, and Patty McCormick.
Although earlier incarnations of the material had focused primarily on the relationship between Mama and Katrin, the television series typically dealt with a specific family member's problem and eventually drew all of them into helping with its resolution.
Except for its last half-season, the program aired live, with kinescope recordings prepared for West Coast broadcasts. Consequently, unlike other popular family comedies and dramas of the 1950s and 1960s that have been rerun over the years, it is unfamiliar to later generations of viewers, although reruns have been shown on at least one public access channel.
In 1956, the network cancelled Mama, but public demand returned the show to the air for 13 episodes broadcast between December 1956 and March 1957.
Director-producer Ralph Nelson, himself of Norwegian descent, went on to direct the acclaimed, award-winning film Lilies of the Field.
