In the 70s and 80s it was very common for sitcoms to do at least one episode about a serious issue aka the “very special episode”. Think racism, teen pregnancy,
AIDS, etc. But I don’t really know of any such episodes in the 50s or 60s. Were there any? And do you think any sitcom of the era could pull it off?
A couple of Dick Van Dyke Show dealt gently with racial attitudes. Most notibly one where Rob and Laura died their hands black and had to go to the equivlanet of an NAACP meeting.
It was difficult to do that sort of theme; advertisers didn’lt like controversy. Of coursem, in the 50s, the advertisers ran the shows, but in the 60s, the networks were skittish.
There were a few socially aware dramas in the 60s, like East Side West Side and The Defenders, but comedies usually staye away from it until All In the Family showed it could be successful.
I think this one is a bit more notable: That’s My Boy?
As soon as I read the thread title, that’s what immediately came to mind.
Wrong thread!
It happened in tiny increments. I Love Lucy was, after all, about a mixed marriage. They had a pregnancy subplot one season culminating in the first sitcom birth. The Goldbergs introduced Jewish characters to a goyische audience. Beulah starred a succession of top Black actresses. The Dick Van Dyke Show had a tight office space with a Jew, a Catholic and a Protestant working together peaceably. IIRC, most combat units in 60s war dramas were more integrated than their real-life WWII counterparts. Love American Style (which began in 1969) was pretty edgy for its time.
Mine, too. Another one was the Andy Griffith Show episode where Opie killed a mother bird and has to raise the babies. This was well before there were animal rights activists.
The main reason I chose “Show of Hands” over “That’s My Boy?” was that “Show of Hands” was explicit in social consciousness: Rob had a line to the effect that “Wouldn’t it be great if someday this sort of thing wasn’t important?”
Even more interesting was “Bupkis,” where Sticks Mandalay’s* race was not commented on. It was one of the first times that a black actor portrayed a character whose race was not an issue in some way.
*Played by Greg Morris of Mission: Impossible; he also played the father in “That’s My Boy?”
Dick Van Dyke was as close to a controversial subject as anything I can remember. There wasn’t a lack of socially concious themes, it’s just that none of them would be controversial. All in the Family and it’s spin-off Maude really busted down barriers in the early 70s. But even those were exceptions, sitcoms still avoid controversial subjects, audiences want to laugh at comedy, not learn, which is a shame.
I recall the episode in the 1950s to '60s Danny Thomas series Make Room for Daddy where he hired a black piano player for his nightclub act and who became a regular on the show. I could have sworn it was Rosey Grier, but looking up Grier’s info, it looks like it wasn’t him.
It was nearly the '70s, but don’t forget Diahann Carroll’s 1968 series Julia.
A lot of episodes of ***The Twilight Zone ***(which ran from, what, 1960-64) dealt with social issues, including racism. “I Am the Night- Color Me Black” comes to mind.
Duh- I know that’s not a sitcom. Sorry, folks. Carry on.
Rosey Grier was on Danny Thomas’ sequel, Make Room for Granddaddy, in 1970-71.
Leave It to Beaver, of all shows, had an episode where one of Ward’s friends was an alcoholic and Beaver led him to Ward’s booze.
Would the 1962 episode of The Defenders on abortion count? All 3 regular advertisers pulled support due to the content, as memorably covered in Mad Men in one of the earlier seasons.
Forgive me for not watching, but can anyone summarize what makes that episode a socially conscious one?
Star Trek (OS) delt with it. One episode did it quite comically so… Remember the dudes that where white on one side and black on the other?
I remember another episode of Leave It to Beaver involved Beaver making friends with a kid who was from a poor family.
Defenders and Star Trek weren’t sitcoms. Dramas were regularly socially conscious–not even just 1960s series, but see almost any of the 1950s live telecast original teleplays (such as on Studio One, Philco Television Playhouse, etc.) by Paddy Chayefsky, Reginald Rose, Rod Serling, Robert Alan Arthur, and others.
Sitcoms were pretty distinct from that genre in those days.
There was at least one episode of Family Affair where Uncle Bill and Buffy were caught out slumming. Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester on The Addams Family) was the guest star that week.
There was also an episode of Leave It to Beaver where the Beav experimented with smoking on one of Ward’s pipes.
Hogan’s Heroes was a service sitcom that was unrealistically integrated, both racially and in terms of national origin. The pilot episode had a Russian POW at Stalag 13 (played by Leonid Kinskey, Sasha the Bartender in Casablanca). HIGHLY unlikely that either he or Sgt Kinchloe would have been held there.