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I recently caught six episodes of this series based on the adventures of the much beloved Nelson family on one of the Treeline multi-packs (100 TV Episodes) and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Sure everything was 50s style squeaky clean corn syrupy sweet but it was also surprisingly fun and engaging viewing. The first episode focused on Dave Nelson returning to work after his honeymoon and not finding anytime thereafter to see his bride. The second featured Dave trying to get some work done at home as repairs were being done at his office and finding himself constantly distracted by his a little too well-meaning wife. The third episode was focused on the Nelsons neighbors Joe and Clara (played by Lyle Talbot! and Mary Jane Croft) and Clara trying to make a contribution for the local ladies Bazaar - Ashtrays so ugly they eventually prove more useful as shooting target clay pigeons. The fourth was I felt funniest of all as Ozzie decides to spend a day in bed but is constantly being interrupted and disturbed by a whole bunch of outside distractions. The fifth story focused on Rick's fraternity friend Wally discovering a sure-proof study method involving sardines and standing on one's head while the last episode had the Nelsons visiting a Western ghost town presided over by a character good at spinning yarns named Grubstick Morgan.

The stories about Dave were kind of sweet and amusing yet they are very much also a product of their era yet there's something about them that for their time is also surprisingly realistic and believable (although that could just be that the people here remind me of many typical Newfoundlanders I know in terms of their great friendliness). To me, the stories focused on Ozzie were funniest of all as he plays a big part in the one about Clara's contributing to the Bazaar as well as the day in bed one which had him quoting Wordsworth "The World is Too Much With Us"...I found these episodes to be at times laugh out loud funny while the stories about Wally were just kind of goofy and silly. Still it's all innocent, charming fun from a bygone era. I even liked Ricky Nelson singing performances believe it or not :buggedout:. Especially when he sings "You're Kind of Loving is my Kind of Loving".

An underrated and often very funny show.  I remember watching the reruns when I was a kid in the late 60s and early 70s.  There was a somewhat risque episode where Ricky (I believe it was Ricky . . . but maybe it was David or Ozzie) has a dream about a beautiful girl who performs a sultry dance for him.  Pretty tame stuff actually, but I thought it was a bit suggestive for the time period.

During the 1970s, there was a spin-off called OZZIE'S GIRLS.  It involved Ozzie and Harriett renting rooms in their house to two college girls.  It didn't last very long.  All I remember about it is one episode where the guest star was David Doyle and he was eating some pot roast that Harriett had made (looked delicious and gave me a craving for pot roast) and another episode where Harriett encouraged Ozzie to read a mystery book . . . Ozzie said he didn't like mysteries, but once he started reading the book he couldn't put it down.  I have no idea why I remember these obscure moments from the show.

I have vague recollections of Ozzie & Harriet. I do remember watching it as a kid.  I must have had a Ricky Nelson crush ... sigh.   I remember he pretty much always sang some song at the end of the show.

Along the same idea, I remember watching Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, and  Leave It to Beaver.  The shows were all in black & white and all the "mothers" were housewives who seemed to do their house cleaning wearing dresses and pearl necklaces. the "dads" wore suits and sweaters and everyone smiled a lot.

 Leave It To Beaver is still around in reruns, and actually, the episodes are pretty funny sometimes.  Clean, wholesome, and innocent.  Refreshing! :smile:

Leave it to Beaver is still one of my all-time favorite shows and definitely my favorite 1950s sitcom.

I like Eddie Haskell-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atr4yRv27IQ

After doing a bit more research, I discovered this series (Ozzie & Harriet) is still actually the longest running live-action TV sitcom with 14 seasons from 1952-1966. The episodes named above are David Goes Back to Work (Season 10, Episode 5), Dave's Other Office (Season 14, Episode 24), Women's Club Bazaar (Season 11, Episode 23), A Day in Bed (Season 4, Episode 21), The Nelsons Revisited (Season 14, Episode 6) (actually I'm not 100 % certain that this is one about Wally's study method) and The Ghost Town (Season 14, Episode 13).

Hey!  I believe it!  Watch what you're saying!  I'm a huge RICK NELSON fan, and his contribution to Rock n' Roll is too often underrated and overlooked (though the later "My Kind of Lovin'" is not one of his best efforts.  I don't remember the exact title - surely have it on vinyl, but alas, not on CD).  Reruns of that show were not a part of my growing years (new episodes ceased being produced in 1966 - an extremely long run from 1952 and that's not counting their radio years preceding TV and for 2 or 3 years in tandem with TV!!)  However, I went thru a big '50s craze back in the 1980s and devoured everything ELVIS, RICKY NELSON, EVERLY BROTHERS, FATS DOMINO, BO DIDDLEY, LITTLE RICHARD, etc., and TV shows, movies... I actually subscribed to the Disney channel back then in order to catch the reruns of "The Adventures of OZZIE and HARRIET" a show I'd never seen.  Now, I think I've seen most episodes.  Also, they were briefly rerun on a local PBS station in the past year or so and I caught quite a few, but unfortunately, it quickly disappeared.  I've seen all the episodes you mentioned.  

Jase, you have any questions about this program, ask me.  I am not ashamed to admit a kind of expertise on it.   :smile:

Now "Leave It To Beaver" I do remember from reruns, hated as a kid (I mean hatred) but I love it now.  I have all the episodes a friend burned to DVD for me.  

The last season of "OZZIE and HARRIET" was in color.  

Ozzymandias speaks: I believe a god way to increase a teenagers self esteme is to show him the early episodes of Rickky as a small kid and then show the later episodes when he was a teen idol. He was butt ugly as a kid and became hansome in later episodes.

Later shows of the 60's sucked.

Ozzymandias has spoken!!!

I speak from experience ~ I wasn't bad looking as a kid, I was gross horrible as an adolescent because of very bad acne but I've gotten a bit better looking as I've gotten older. Not handsome, but serviceable at least.  :twirl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZl3gGV4H6c

I once heard that Ricky Nelson was #2 in record sales in the late 1950s behind Elvis Presley.  Not sure if this is true, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is.  He had several big hits that many people seem to have forgotten.  My mother has about 6 or 8 cases of original 45 RPM records from the 50s and at least half a dozen of them are Ricky Nelson.

I was stunned when I discovered Ozzie & Harriet ran for 14 seasons and is still the longest running live-action sitcom. It's definitely not the real world that's being portrayed that's for sure, in fact it kind of reminds me of the film Pleasantville where everyone is always pleasant. It's very much an idealized 50s style family household fantasy. Still there's something about shows like this..where people are actually kind and good to one another that is appealing on some level. And there are still some people like the people in this show (pleasant, good-natured, helpful), but I don't think it's anywhere near the majority anymore, where I live.

You speak out of your "ozzymandiass"  :lookingup:  Use spell check, kiddo.  And RICKY was never "butt ugly" (maybe in yo' dreams) but did have braces.  Now JERRY MATHERS was "butt ugly" particularly as he grew older.   :wink: 
Once again I ask you: Do you know PERCY SHELLEY's poem? 
    OZYMANDIAS

    I met a traveller from an antique land
    Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
    And on the pedestal these words appear:
    "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.[1]

Here's where it started:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y-kQ2JZYyE&feature=related  

Just a few years later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0janfcZ8LUw  

RICKY's greatest moment; that's JAMES BURTON on lead guitar (1959):  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQNkg4dOsRk  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diH71kQNna8