| The Tom Ewell Show | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Situation comedy |
| Created by | Madelyn Martin and Bob Carroll, Jr. |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 30 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Ewell-Carroll-Martin Four Star Productions |
| Distributor | CBS Network |
| Broadcast | |
| Original run | September 27, 1960 – May 9, 1961 |
The Tom Ewell Show is a television situation comedy broadcast in the United States in the 1960-61 television season.
Contents |
The Tom Ewell Show was created by Madelyn Martin and Bob Carroll, Jr. (of Lucy Show fame), and produced by Tom Ewell's own production company (in partnership with Martin and Carroll, and with Four Star Productions). The show was broadcast in the United States in the 1960-61 television season on the CBS network.
Tom Ewell starred in this half-hour sitcom as Tom Porter, a real estate agent whose entire life, away from the office, was dominated by females:[1]
Recurring characters included Norman Fell as co-worker Howie Fletcher, heavy-set actor Barry Kelley as friend Jim Rafferty, and child-actor Vance Meadows as a neighborhood youngster.
The thirty episodes of the show were broadcast 9–9:30 PM (EST) on Tuesday nights in the United States from September 27, 1960 through May 23, 1961 on the CBS network. Eight of the episodes were shown as summer repeats in the same timeslot from May 30, 1961 through July 18, 1961.
| # | Episode Name | Original air date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Tom Cuts Off the Credit" | September 27, 1960 |
| Tom cuts off the wife and daughters from credit cards and the family checking account in order to teach them a lesson about finances. | ||
| 2 | "Debbie Takes Up the Tuba" | October 4, 1960 |
| Daughter Debbie starts taking tuba lessons, annoying the entire family. | ||
| 3 | "The Safety Lesson" | October 11, 1960 |
| Tom, upset at always being the family chauffeur, tries to teach his wife how to drive a car. Junius Matthews (best known as the voice of Rabbit in Disney's Winnie the Pooh movies) guest-stars as an elderly man. | ||
| 4 | "Tom Takes Over" | October 18, 1960 |
| This Pilot episode, in which Tom's wife Fran gets appendicitis, shows Tom taking over the housework. | ||
| 5 | "Tom Puts the Girls to Work" | November 1, 1960 |
| Tom finds part-time jobs for his daughters, who rebel against the idea. Billy Mumy guest-starred as a young boy.[2]. | ||
| 6 | "The Second Phone" | November 15, 1960 |
| Tom is pressured to get another phone for the house. | ||
| 7 | "The Handwriting on the Wall" | November 22, 1960 |
| The daughters behave badly and try to hide the results. | ||
| 8 | "The Spelling Bee" | November 29, 1960 |
| In an episode about his daughters competing in a spelling bee, Tom dreams how it would be to have three sons instead of three daughters.[2] | ||
| 9 | "Site Unseen" | December 6, 1960 |
| Dick Powell guest-star in this episode in which the actual Four Star Studios production lot is used as part of a story involving a important real-estate deal.[2] | ||
| 10 | "The Friendly Man" | December 20, 1960 |
| Ernest Truex and Mildred Dunnock guest-star as Mr. and Mrs. Steckel. | ||
| 11 | "Salesmanship Lesson" | December 27, 1960 |
| Tom and the girls learn a lesson in sales. | ||
| 12 | "Advice to the Lovelorn" | January 3, 1961 |
| Whit Bissell and Ray Stricklyn guest-star. | ||
| 13 | "Try It on For Size" | January 10, 1961 |
| Tom has to explain how he ended up buying something he didn't want in the first place. | ||
| 14 | "No Fun in the Sun" | January 17, 1961 |
| Robert Hastings guest-stars. | ||
| 15 | "Mr. Shrewd" | January 24, 1961 |
| John Dehner and Herbie Faye guest-star. | ||
| 16 | "The Middle Child" | January 31, 1961 |
| Debbie is upset she'd not treated the same as her younger sister or her older sister. | ||
| 17 | "The Trouble With Mother" | February 7, 1961 |
| Mother-in-law isn't satisfied with her life. | ||
| 18 | "A Fellow Needs a Friend" | February 14, 1961 |
| Alan Reed Jr. (son of actor Alan Reed) guest-starred as a teenage boyfriend of Carol who becomes Tom's football-watching buddy.[2] | ||
| 19 | "Out of Left Field" | February 21, 1961 |
| Baseball causes strife. | ||
| 20 | "Storm Over Shangri-La" | February 28, 1961 |
| Tom's pending real-estate deal may leave three elderly ladies (Katherine Squire, June Walker, and Isabel Randolph) homeless. | ||
| 21 | "I Don't See It" | March 7, 1961 |
| Alice Ghostly played eccentric painter Lavinia Barrington, and Robert Emhardt played villainous Orville Bostwick. | ||
| 22 | "The Old Magic" | March 14, 1961 |
| John Emery plays Tom's old college buddy, Jack Hunter, who invites Tom and his wife to a wild Hollywood party. Former "Miss Iceland" Sirry Steffen and character actor Fay Roope also appear as party guests. | ||
| 23 | "Mrs. Dynamite" | March 21, 1961 |
| ? | ||
| 24 | "The Prying Eye" | March 28, 1961 |
| George Fenneman appear as Randy Rambo, and Jean Carson as a girl named Diane, the target of a neighborhood Peeping Tom. But, though it is definite that actress Grace (Gillen) Albertson appears as Sally Gallagher, it is not clear whether Frank Albertson (Grace's husband), or Jack Albertson (brother of series star Mabel Albertson) appears in the role of Sally's husband Al Gallagher. | ||
| 25 | "The Chutney Caper" | April 4, 1961 |
| Alice Ghostley returns in a different role, as Tom's eccentric sister Polly.[2] | ||
| 26 | "Put It On, Take It Off" | April 11, 1961 |
| Eleanor Audley plays Madame Defarge.[2] | ||
| 27 | "Big Brother" | April 18, 1961 |
| Child-actor Pat Close guest-stars as an orphan taken in by Tom for Big Brother Week | ||
| 28 | "Handy Man" | April 25, 1961 |
| ? | ||
| 29 | "Passenger Pending" | May 2, 1961 |
| ? | ||
| 30 | "Never Do Business with Relatives" | May 9, 1961 |
| ? | ||
TIME magazine said:[3]