| The Mothers-in-Law | |
|---|---|
DVD cover, with Kaye Ballard (left) and Eve Arden |
|
| Genre | Situation comedy |
| Created by | Bob Carroll, Jr. Madelyn Davis |
| Directed by | Desi Arnaz Elliott Lewis |
| Starring | Eve Arden Kaye Ballard Herbert Rudley Roger C. Carmel Richard Deacon Jerry Fogel Deborah Walley |
| Theme music composer | Jeff Alexander |
| Composer(s) | Jeff Alexander Wilbur Hatch |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 56 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Desi Arnaz |
| Producer(s) | Al Lewis Elliott Lewis |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 22–24 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Desi Arnaz Productions United Artists Television |
| Distributor | United Artists |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | September 10, 1967 – April 13, 1969 |
The Mothers-in-Law is an American sitcom starring Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard as two matriarchs who were friends and next-door neighbors whose children's elopement rendered them in-laws. The show aired on NBC from September 1967 to April 1969; it was produced by Desi Arnaz after the dissolutions both of his marriage to Lucille Ball and of Desilu Productions. The series was created by Bob Carroll, Jr., and Madelyn Davis.
Contents |
Eve (Eve Arden) and Herb Hubbard (Herbert Rudley) have lived next door to Kaye (Kaye Ballard) and Roger Buell (played first by Roger C. Carmel and later by Richard Deacon) for 15 years. Herb is a successful lawyer, while Roger is a television writer who works at home. The Hubbards are very straitlaced, the Buells off-the-wall and fun-loving. Despite their differences, including an age disparity of about twenty years, they are best friends. In spite of their friendship, though, they do tend to get into more than their share of squabbles.
The Buells' son Jerry (Jerry Fogel) and the Hubbards' daughter Suzie (Deborah Walley) fall in love while in college, marry, and set up house in the Hubbards' garage apartment. The two sets of parents have different ideas of how their children should live their lives, and the constant meddling of the mothers-in-law provides the premise for the series. One of the differences between the two couples is that Kaye allowed Suzie to call her Mother Buell, but Eve wouldn't allow Jerry to call her Mother Hubbard. During the second season, the young couple have a set of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl named Joey and Hildy (from the middle names of Kaye and Eve).
Most of the episodes were written by Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr., who had worked with series producer Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy.
Arnaz would make occasional guest appearances as matador "Raphael Del Gado" from Barcelona, Spain.
This is a rare example of a television series in which all of the principal actors shared the same first names as the characters whom they portrayed. The only exception was Deborah Walley, who played the role of Suzie. (Also, in the second season, Richard Deacon would replace Roger C. Carmel in the role of Roger C. Buell.) As of 2011, all of the main cast, excepting Kaye Ballard and Jerry Fogel, are deceased.
| № | Title | Airdate | Plot |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "On Again, Off Again, Lohengrin" | September 10, 1967 | Kaye and Roger Buell come over to Eve and Herb Hubbard's home to watch one of Roger's TV scripts on their color TV. Kaye and Roger insult Eve and Herb, who are hiding in their closet and overhear everything. The two couples begin to quarrel with one another. To further complicate matters, their children, Jerry Buell and Suzie Hubbard, get engaged. The families then argue about the size of the wedding and how to bring in the Buells' piano during a rain storm. The piano, which Kaye is obsessively protective of, falls into an adjacent neighbor's swimming pool. To top it all off, Jerry and Suzie announce that their engaged friends wanted to make it a double wedding, so they got married as well. (Note: The episode's title refers to the literary character Lohengrin, a knight sent to rescue a maiden.) |
| 2 | "Everybody Goes on a Honeymoon" | September 17, 1967 | The Hubbards and the Buells meet by chance at the same golf resort, much to the couples' mutual dismay. When the kids arrive at the same venue to begin their honeymoon (after their previous honeymoon venue proved to be cold and rainy), the families think that it would help to give the kids one of the rooms. As a result, the parents wind up rooming together in the other room and adding two roll-away beds. Chaos ensues as the close quarters prove unnerving to the couples and an unruly motorcycle gang loudly parties right by their window during the night. |
| 3 | "All Fall Down" | September 24, 1967 | While Kaye and Roger are on a ski trip with the kids, she breaks her ankle by slipping on a throw rug at the ski lodge. The Buells convince a reluctant Herb to serve as their lawyer and sue the ski lodge on their behalf. This agreement leads to Eve breaking her ankle in a reenactment of the accident and then to Herb breaking his ankle when he visits the ski lodge to negotiate a settlement. The action culminates in Roger breaking his hand when he tries to slug the cowardly ski lodge manager. (Note: The episode's title refers to the final line of a well-known nursery rhyme, "Ring Around the Rosie".) |
| 4 | "A Night to Forget" | October 1, 1967 | The husbands forbid Kaye and Eve from constantly interrupting the kids' honeymoon with their unnecessary and repeated telephone calls. While in a local department store later that evening, the wives notice public telephones and seize the opportunity to circumvent their husbands' restrictions and to once again call the kids. Using her last dime, Eve dials a wrong number and connects with bullfighter Raphael Del Gado (Desi Arnaz) in Barcelona, Spain. Due to language barriers, the wives become preoccupied with this phone conversation, lose track of time, and become locked in the department store after it closes for the night. When they are later found by Roger and Herb, the two couples are arrested and jailed for being in the store after hours. (Note: The episode's title refers to the 1958 film A Night to Remember, about the sinking of the Titanic.) |
| 5 | "The Newlyweds Move In" | October 8, 1967 | Eve and Kaye go and get the deposit back on the apartment that the kids had found, and convince the husbands, who are furious at what the wives did, to allow them to move into the Hubbards' garage apartment. Kaye and Eve sneak into the apartment to meddle, and they end up hiding in the newlyweds' shower when they are caught by the kids. Jerry and Suzie, then, have their first dinner party with their friends; fellow married couples Paul and Cynthia and Peggy and John; which the parents aren't invited to; so the indefatigable wives peer through the windows and are trapped on the garage door when it is opened. The husbands catch them, and once again, "Eve and Kaye made fools of themselves!!!" |
| 6 | "The Career Girls" | October 15, 1967 | The wives are told to find something to do, to prevent them from always interfering with the kids, and they become a singing duo at a club called "The Marvys", which the family goes and sees, and are actually impressed with. Rob Reiner (later of All in the Family fame) plays the Club's director, who is, at first amused by Eve and Kaye, but concedes to allow them in the show, which closes, soon after. |
| 7 | "Who's Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?" | October 22, 1967 | After a movie date, the Buells get into a heated argument about whether Roger would date Elizabeth Taylor, and Kaye furiously throws him out of the house, in Italian; Herb and Eve also get into an argument over the same subject, and Eve storms over to Kaye's house. The couples eventually reunite after the boys fake a fight and the girls fake being poisoned, but then, to cause more confusion, Suzie and Jerry get into a similar argument, but not about Elizabeth Taylor, but about Ann-Margret! |
| 8 | "My Son, the Actor" | October 29, 1967 | Jerry takes an aptitude test, and finds that he is good as an actor. Kaye, having been in show business herself, is rather keen on the idea, but Eve bursts into tears at the suggestion. However, they come to terms with it, and then all six perform a musical sketch called Marvin against the Mob, written by Roger, about life in the roaring 20's; with Kaye, Eve and Suzie as flappers; and Jerry, Herb and Roger as mobsters. Despite the successful audition, Jerry doesn't choose Theater as a major, but Political Science. |
| 9 | "How Do You Moonlight a Meatball?" | November 5, 1967 | After Jerry loses his job at the University Bookstore with one more payment to make on Suzie's engagement ring, the wives pawn Herb's and Roger's golf clubs (to get even with them for their cutting off their money and credit cards, while they go hunting), and start a catering business, specializing in Kaye's spaghetti and meatballs, out of the kids' apartment. While making meatballs, Suzie's engagement ring is thought to be lost in the hamburger mix, so the wives try to take their meatballs from a big University function. |
| 10 | "I Thought He'd Never Leave" | November 12, 1967 | Eve is forbidden to order any more magazines by Herb, but that argument is made insignificant when a poetry reciting bank robber (Larry Storch) barges into the Hubbards home and holds the parents hostage. Thanks to Suzie and Jerry's getting the message to call the police in a chocolate cake, the robber is apprehended, but not before Roger gets knocked on the head! |
| 11 | "The Great Bicycle Race" | November 19, 1967 | The couples realize that they are out of shape, and so they join a bicycle club that the kids belong to, which becomes yet another attempt between the Buells and Hubbards to outdo each other. |
| 12 | "Through the Lurking Glass" | November 26, 1967 | Kaye, Eve. and the kids have plans to attend a Children's hospital function, with the wives dressing as insects, a very annoyed Jerry dressed as a kangaroo; and Suzie as an owl. Kaye thinks Roger is having an affair....with Eve, because she spies on him as he takes a walk! Then to make matters worse, on one of his walks, Roger, dressed in a superhero outfit, ends up in jail on loitering charges. Everyone, dressed in costume, comes to try to get matters straightened out, which drives the desk sergeant (Alan Reed) near crazy! (Note: The title was a parody of the title, Through the Looking Glass.) |
| 13 | "Divorce: Mother-in-Law Style" | December 3, 1967 | Eve receives a phone call from Carter Case (Roger Ewing), a wealthy former boyfriend of Suzie's, and conveniently fails to tell him that she had gotten married to Jerry. This angers Kaye and she tells her that they are no longer speaking. Herb is also annoyed with Eve for failing to tell Carter that Suzie was now married. Kaye demands that they want a divorce and retaliates by untruthfully telling Jerry's former girlfriend, Anna Maria DiBello (Adrienne Hayes) that he was no longer married to Suzie. The irate newlyweds (with the help of their fathers and Carter) decide that it's time their interfering mothers learn a lesson. The kids decide to play a gag on Kaye and Eve by announcing they were divorcing and remarrying (Jerry to Anna Maria; and Suzie to Carter). The wives, in an attempt to get the kids back together, sabotage Carter's boat engine with sugar. To pay for the damage they caused to Carter's yacht, the wives lose their clothing allowance for two years. |
| 14 | "The Not-Cold-Enough War" | December 10, 1967 | The Buell's refrigerator has no freezer and doesn't keep anything cold and they are entertaining a television star who is coming to dinner to talk over a script that Roger wants to sell to him; Jerry and Suzie have only a small refrigerator, which they are lending to their friends, John and Cynthia; and the Hubbards get a new refrigerator from a client as barter for a case. Kaye and Roger attempt to steal the Hubbards new refrigerator after the one they were given by Eve and Herb breaks down. This causes the in-laws to engage in more bickering and utter confusion when the police are brought into the insanity. |
| 15 | "You Challenge Me to a What?" | December 17, 1967 | It's another round in the Hubbards vs. the Buells feud. During a barbecue at the Hubbards, Roger's script for Eve's garden club gets insulted by both Eve and Suzie. Roger, furious at this insult, plays on his script's musketeers theme and demands satisfaction by challenging Herb to a duel, and even wrangling Jerry and Suzie as their seconds! It is up to Kaye and Eve to stop their headstrong husbands from dueling. |
| 16 | "Everybody Wants to Be a Writer" | December 31, 1967 | Eve and Kaye want to learn how to write stories, as yet another diversion to get them away from bothering the children and their marriage, so they enlist Roger's help, who at first declines, but decides to help out. He savages their first attempt at writing, to the wives fury, but their second script was very well done (unknown that they committed forgery). The wives attempt to get the forged script back from Terrence Archibald, a writer that Roger knew, and both of them wind up playing singing extras on their favorite soap opera. |
| 17 | "The Kids Move Out" | January 7, 1968 | Fed up with their mothers continual interference, Jerry and Suzie move out from the garage and into a ramshackle apartment which was sublet by friends of theirs. One of the big features was a borrowed big wardrobe, in which all four of the parents hide, and are taken clear across town! |
| 18 | "The Hombre Who Came to Dinner: Part 1" | January 14, 1968 | Raphael Del Gado, the Bullfighter from Barcelona whom Eve had called as a wrong number, comes to Los Angeles to meet the rest of the families and, after being humiliated by Roger, who gores him with a pair of Viking horns, stays and stays. |
| 19 | "The Hombre Who Came to Dinner: Part 2" | January 21, 1968 | Jerry and Suzie's drum-playing friend, Tommy (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) meets the Hubbards' houseguest Senor Del Gado, who puts him and the families into a big musical number in Mexico City. |
| 20 | "Don't Give Up the Sloop" | January 28, 1968 | Kaye wins a sloop on a game show, which provokes another fight between her and Eve; which the husbands get dragged in on. After finally agreeing to share the boat, they all discover that the ship winds up having to be assembled. The husbands think that the project will help bond their families; however, Eve doesn't believe it will happen, by saying "I Christen thee, the Fat Chance!" |
| 21 | "I'd Tell You I Love You, But We're Not Speaking" | February 4, 1968 | Suzie and Jerry have their first major quarrel about whether either Eve or Kaye was most interfering, which leads to all three couples engaging in a cold war. Jerry speaking to Kaye and Herb; while Suzie was speaking to Eve and Roger. The husbands were still speaking to one another, while Kaye and Eve were not. Then Professor Hutton, (Brooks West, Eve Arden's real-life husband) Jerry's Psychology professor, comes over to hold a sensitivity training session which reunites everyone. |
| 22 | "Herb's Little Helpers" | February 11, 1968 | Herb's secretary, Elaine, gets the flu, allowing Eve, who had once worked for Herb as a secretary, and an untried Kaye to take her place. They also secretly help a young couple marry, by singing "Because", the song they would have sung at their own children's wedding. Unfortunately, the bride is the daughter of Herb's client, Mr. Hedgyes (Jerome Cowan) who is at first dead set against his daughter marrying, but after being unable to find an argument forbidding it, allows it to occur. |
| 23 | "Bye, Bye Blackmailer" | February 25, 1968 | Roger owes Herb money, and Herb, not wanting to give him another extension, forecloses on his new electric typewriter. When Roger pays him $100, what he owes on the typewriter, Herb is stunned, and then realizes that his emergency funds was broken into by Eve. Eve and Kaye come up with some elaborate (and phony) blackmail to throw the husbands off the trail, but they are exposed. |
| 24 | "The Wig Story" | March 3, 1968 | Kaye borrows Eve's blond wig, and she thinks that Roger would rather be in love with a blond and not her, making her depressed. When Herb and Eve try to help the Buells, with Eve dressing in a red wig, a la Lucy, the situation brings Kaye and Roger back together, but causes Eve and Herb to have the same argument. |
| 25 | "It's Only Money" | March 10, 1968 | Herb becomes annoyed with Roger's splitting the dinner check right down the middle all the time, so he challenges Buell to golf and gin, and loses big time. Desperate to get revenge on Roger, he buys some stock from him, only to lose on that too! |
| 26 | "I Haven't Got a Secret" | March 17, 1968 | Kaye tries to prove that she isn't a blabbermouth, but fails when she blabs about Roger's proposed television soap opera deal to Eve, who shares it with everyone. Sure enough, the deal falls through because "she jinxed it when she blabbed!" (Note: The title is a play on the long-running television game show, I've Got a Secret) |
| 27 | "Jerry's Night Out with the Boys" | March 24, 1968 | Jerry wants to play poker with the guys, but Suzie believe that he should want to spend all his time with her. So, Suzie puts her foot down to Jerry and orders him to cancel his poker night. Egged on by the fathers, Jerry has Poker night anyway; so Suzie and the mothers decide to get a poker night together themselves. However, nobody has any fun, especially when Jerry is thinking of Suzie and vice versa. |
| 28 | "The Long, Long Weekend" | March 31, 1968 | The families congregate at a rented cabin in the mountains, after telling the others that they wouldn't be there, and immediately everyone begins to get on one another's nerves, made all the more worse with a snowstorm, which closes the road, and when they shoot a hole through the roof, they cause an avalanche to snow over the just cleared road and gets them in trouble with a park ranger. |
| 29 | "Jealousy Makes the Heart Grow Fonder" | April 7, 1968 | Eve becomes jealous of Herb's old girlfriend, Audrey Fleming, who is visiting them. So, Kaye and Roger help Eve pretend that she has a new lover...in Roger disguised as her French teacher. (Note: the title is a play on the old adage, "Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder".) |
| 30 | "How Not to Manage a Rock Group" | April 28, 1968 | Jerry and Suzie manage a band called the Warts (played by The Seeds) and convince their parents to help back them. The parents meddle in everything and nearly ruin the deal, but the Generation Gap was spanned, with the aid of a Salvation Army-esque band, and the Warts accompany the band to play "Some Enchanted Evening". Joe Besser guests as the leader of the Salvation Army-esque band who helps everyone. This was the final episode with Roger C. Carmel as Roger Buell. |
| № | Title | Airdate | Plot |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | "Here Comes the Bride, Again" | September 15, 1968 | Jerry's great grandmother Gabriela Balotta (Jeanette Nolan), from Italy, known for fainting when she doesn't get her own way, comes to town to see Jerry and Suzie get married (remarried), which gives Herb reason, although reluctantly, to throw a wedding at the Hubbard's home. This also finally allows Kaye and Eve to sing their song, "Because" for the kids, although this time, they sing it in Italian. Jerry and Suzie then discover that they are going to be parents. First episode with Richard Deacon as Roger. |
| 32 | "The Match Game" | September 22, 1968 | Jerry's job at a match maker agency, which is in jeopardy, due to lack of people needing to be matched up, brings the families into more trouble, when the girls are matched with the other's spouses! Paul Lynde guests as Jerry's boss. |
| 33 | "A Little Pregnancy Goes a Long Way" | September 29, 1968 | Kaye and Eve once again try to interfere with Suzie and her pregnancy; plying her with stories about their cravings and queasiness (which Suzie herself picks up on, not to mention her emotional outbursts). The wives also begin to argue about what sex the baby would be (Kaye wants a grandson; while Eve wants a granddaughter). This causes Jerry to explain the situation to the fathers, who put their foot down to the wives once again in an attempt to stop their constant interfering with Suzie and her pregnancy. When their neighbors, the Cornells go on a cruise to Hawaii with the Trumbulls, another set of neighbors, Kaye and Eve think the husbands (who really want to take them to a cabin called Ho-No-Lulu, which is owned by their friend, Homer) are going to do the same thing, but once again the wives are caught in a web of their own devising. They are allowed to go on the cruise, only on the condition that they stop interfering in Jerry and Suzie's lives, but they refuse to do so. |
| 34 | "Love Thy Neighbor...if You Can't Make Them Move." | October 6, 1968 | Eve and Herb remember, via flashback, the first time that they met Kaye and Roger almost 15 years previous; and how the stage was set for their current interactions. Kaye and Roger drive Eve and Herb near crazy with their incessant borrowing; and Herb and Eve insult Kaye's heritage and Roger's writing. However, at the end, Jerry and Suzie mention that no matter what had happened, the two of them would have found their way to one another. |
| 35 | "I Didn't Raise Myself to Be a Grandmother" | October 13, 1968 | Kaye and Eve set off Suzie into another bout of tears with their being overbearing about the baby's names, which upsets Jerry, Herb and Roger. After their argument, the couples are faced with the realization that they will be grandparents. At their annual talent show, the parents do a wonderful rendition of "You Make Me Feel So Young", with their heads in a backdrop with puppet bodies. |
| 36 | "Even Mothers-in-Law Have Mothers-in-Law" | October 20, 1968 | Jerry and Suzie, after more unwanted interference from their mothers, are fed up enough to call in their paternal grandmothers to help them keep busy and to leave them in peace. Eve and Kaye, unhappy that their mothers-in-law are visiting and keeping them away from interfering with Jerry and Suzie, try to make the best of it showing their in-laws the sights of Los Angeles, but they scheme to bring their garden club band in to drive them out. After their in-laws leave, Kaye and Eve go right back over to the kids apartment, as usual. |
| 37 | "The Matador Makes a Movie" | October 27, 1968 | In Desi Arnaz's last appearance as Raphael Del Gado, the matador comes to town to make a movie called The Sheik of Araby, and the families are hired into the movie. |
| 38 | "It's a Dog's Life" | November 10, 1968 | Both Eve and Kaye deny the fact that they need glasses after they continually crash the family cars; whilst Jerry and Suzie decide to choose a dog that they can raise with the baby. The newlyweds wanted a cocker spaniel, but, once again, the mothers interfere and Eve gets a yorkie named Ellsworth and Kaye gets a basset named Lasagna. John Byner guests as an animal control officer. |
| 39 | "The First Anniversary Is the Hardest" | November 24, 1968 | Jerry is depressed that he can't get Suzie a first anniversary gift, so the parents, unknownst to one another, help him out with Forty dollars, hidden in an old coat of his; but Suzie gives it to a thrift shop, (after getting the money out for Jerry, of course) and Kaye and Eve wind up getting arrested after trying to pick the pocket of a bum who caught the coat! |
| 40 | "The Birth of Everything But the Blues" | December 1, 1968 | Suzie becomes a pet sitter; to earn some extra money to buy a crib, but after bringing in too much business, the girls are hauled into the business for themselves. Complications arise when the pets themselves all give birth. |
| 41 | "Nome, Schnome, I'd Rather Have It at Home" | December 8, 1968 | The husbands both find jobs for a jobless Jerry, but Jerry has a friend who gets him a job at an air freight agency. The trouble is that the job is in Nome, Alaska, to the mothers dismay, and both Kaye and Eve have nightmares of their children living in an igloo near Nome. |
| 42 | "Hail, Hail, the Gang's Still Here" | December 15, 1968 | When Roger's scripts for the fictitious soap, "Green Valley, USA" is shown on TV, everyone in the neighborhood descends on the Hubbards to watch it on their color TV set which infuriates the Hubbards. |
| 43 | "Didn't You Use to Be Ozzie Snick?" | December 22, 1968 | Herb invites Owen Sinclair, a former band leader to do a variety show, and it shocks Kaye to discover that he is Ozzie Snick, with whom she had sang with, for all of ten days. Ozzie Nelson guest stars as Ozzie Snick, and Kaye and Eve sing his song, "North Dakota Moon". |
| 44 | "Make Room for Baby" | January 5, 1969 | The couples try to build a room onto the Garage Apartment for the baby which they eventually do, despite all the arguing the couples do. |
| 45 | "Haven't You Had That Baby Yet?" | January 12, 1969 | The Buells finally graduate from college, and at the same time, Suzie goes into labor and prepares to give birth to her child. During the confusion, in which the mothers would be taking her to the hospital, they run out of gas in the car. Dr. Butler, Suzie's OB/GYN comes to check on her, and drives her to the hospital himself! |
| 46 | "And Baby Makes Four" | January 19, 1969 | Suzie gives birth to fraternal twins, Joey (after Kaye's middle name) and Hildy (after Eve's middle name). Which gives the wives what each one wanted. A grandson for Kaye to spoil and a granddaughter for Eve to spoil. But not before the wives try everything humanly possible, even going so far as to disguising themselves as two nuns and two doctors, to see her. Alice Ghostley guests as the harried maternity nurse, Mrs. Wiley, charged with the unenviable task of keeping Kaye and Eve out of Suzie's room. |
| 47 | "Nanny, Go Home" | January 26, 1969 | A Scottish nanny named Annie MacTaggart (Jeanette Nolan in her second guest starring role), who was hired by the husbands to keep Kaye and Eve from their continual butting-in, does her job well. Perhaps a bit too well. She keeps everyone away from the newborns, including Jerry and Suzie. The families scheme to get her to go back to Scotland, by staging something for a made-up show, and then, fortuitously, a real show is set up for her to work in, which allows the grandmothers to dote on their grandchildren. |
| 48 | "Double Trouble in the Nursery" | February 2, 1969 | After convincing a worn-out Jerry and Suzie to take a weekend vacation, the parents decide to take care of the twins, which also sparks an argument of whether the husbands or the wives could take care of the twins better, especially when the husbands are getting ignored by the wives. |
| 49 | "Void Where Prohibited by In-Laws" | February 9, 1969 | The couples argue about where the twins could end up going to college, and then they also begin to argue about the costs. Jerry informs the mothers to stay out of it, since he and Suzie are the ones who will help the twins with their college education when it comes to that time. Of course, Kaye and Eve choose not to listen and enter a contest to count the pieces of Blimpo cereal. While doing that, the wives fix the plumbing and do some painting, while their husbands go golfing! In the end, disaster ensues, when all they win for their pains was a lifetime supply of Blimpo (the grand prize went to two little old ladies who used a Ouija board to get the right total)! (Note: The title is a parody of the commonly used phrase "Void where prohibited by law.") |
| 50 | "Guess Who's Coming Forever" | February 23, 1969 | When the kids threaten to move out again after more interference, Kaye and Eve call their bluff, by putting the place up for rent, with an African American lawyer (Scoey Mitchell) very interested in renting. (Note: The title is a parody on the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?") |
| 51 | "Every In-Law Wants to Get Into the Act" | March 2, 1969 | Jimmy Durante guests with the Hubbards and the Buells at the Garden Club show. (Note: The Title is a play on Jimmy Durante's frequently used catch-phrase, "Everybody wants to get into the act!") |
| 52 | "Two on the Aisle" | March 16, 1969 | The parents argue about two play tickets given to them by a friend. The two couples are fighting over the aisle seats, which gets them into trouble, and thrown out, but that is only the beginning, because whilst the couples are out, the Hubbards are robbed! |
| 53 | "Take Her, He's Mine" | March 23, 1969 | Roger hires a beautiful secretary whom Herb wants to work with as well; and Eve and Kaye try to convince her not to work with either one of them. |
| 54 | "Show Business Is No Business" | March 30, 1969 | Herb and Roger bring a surprise guest to host their lodge show, and Kaye and Eve are surprised at who it is. They then try to worm their way into the act. Don Rickles guests as himself. |
| 55 | "The Charge of the Wife Brigade" | April 6, 1969 | After Kaye and Eve are confronted on their rampant charging by their irate husbands who destroy their credit cards, they are told to get jobs. (Jerry also scolds Suzie for charging a wiglet and false eyelashes with her mother's card) The girls gain employment at the local department store, Young and Robbins, but are fired on their first day for goofing off. The girls decide to pawn their beaver coats as a cover for being fired, but the husbands discover the pawn tags and their duplicity. (Note: The title is a parody of the famous poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade") |
| 56 | "The Not-So-Grand Opera" | April 13, 1969 | The Annual Ladies club Opera is German, for a change of pace, and not Italian. This fact really irks Kaye who vies with Eve for the leading role. Marni Nixon guests as a hopeful for the lead role. |
Despite being sandwiched between Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and Bonanza, the show never garnered the ratings NBC had hoped for. NBC considered canceling the show after the first season, but agreed to renew the show for the same price as the first season (after sponsor Procter & Gamble had announced plans to move the series to another network). All cast members agreed to do the second season for the same money except for Carmel. The producers let him go and replaced him with Richard Deacon.
The second season did even worse than the first and NBC opted not to renew again. On The Doris Day Show DVD Set-Season 4, Kaye Ballard, who was in her second and last season as Doris Martin's landlady and friend, Italian restaurant owner, Angie Pallucci on that series, which would end the next season, remarked that the network and sponsor wanted Cosby (referring to The Bill Cosby Show) to replace The Mothers-in-Law during the 1969-70 season.
When the cast was being chosen, Executive Producer Desi Arnaz had approached his old friend, Ann Sothern, who had worked on seven episodes of The Lucy Show as Lucy's old friend, the Countess Framboise (née Rosie Harrigan), to play the role of Eve Arden's next-door neighbor. Eve Arden was also an old friend of Desi's and his ex-wife, Lucille Ball, with whom she worked at RKO in the 1930's, but NBC had found Ann and Eve's styles of comedy too similar for the way the show was written. Singer-comedienne Kaye Ballard, herself an old friend of Desi's, auditioned for and then got the part of the neighbor (now named Kaye Buell) that would have gone to Ann Sothern.
As noted above, in "Ratings", Roger C. Carmel, who had played Roger C. "Cutes" Buell, had left in a salary dispute with NBC at the end of the first season; he was replaced by The Dick Van Dyke Show alumnus Richard Deacon.
Actress Kay Cole (who later went on to work on Broadway in A Chorus Line) had played Suzie Hubbard in the original pilot; when the series began, Cole was replaced by actress Deborah Walley.
The series was a co-production of Desi Arnaz Productions and United Artists Television for NBC. Until recently, the rights to this series have been complicated in terms of distribution outside of home video. A number of entities, among them Desilu, Too (successor to Arnaz Productions), Eve Arden's estate, MGM (which is a majority owner of UA, which syndicated the series to local stations after its cancellation), and CBS Television Distribution (successor to the original Desilu company), have been believed to have some involvement in the rights, and many different companies (including The Samuel Goldwyn Company, whose holdings are, in part, also owned by MGM) have re-issued the series in syndication, mostly in scratchy 16MM prints. Whatever the case, both the copyright and the underlying rights to the series now stand with Desilu, Too.
MPI Home Video (under license from Desilu, Too) released the complete series of The Mothers-in-Law on DVD in Region 1 on July 27, 2010.[1] This new release includes a new introduction from Desi Arnaz, Jr., who appeared in two episodes as Tommy, a drum playing friend of Jerry and Suzie Buell; an interview with Kaye Ballard; the original unaired pilot episode (similar to the first episode "On Again, Off Again, Lohengrin"); original sponsor tags; cast commercials; scripts for unproduced episodes; The Carol Channing Show, a comedy pilot which starred Carol Channing, Jane Dulo, and Richard Deacon; and Land's End, a dramatic pilot starring Rory Calhoun. The latter were two other failed pilots from Arnaz Productions.