Classic TV Christmas Festival: Meet Corliss Archer

Before getting back into the Festival, let me remind everyone of the CBS Christmas Eve lineup we get in primetime tonight: "CSI," followed by "CSI: New York," and concluding with "Blue Bloods." Just the kind of programming to enjoy with the whole family as you whip up some egg nog and trim the tree while waiting for Santa.

We're continuing our own Classic Christmas TV Fest with a look at something much more wholesome, an example of the primitive family sitcoms of early television, "Meet Corliss Archer." This is a show that is easy to find if you're looking for cheap old stuff online (I remember a previous incarnation of FamilyNet was even showing it weekly a few years ago), but I don't think it's very well known these days, though Old-Time Radio fans surely remember the original version of the program.

This series is a great example of what life was like back in the 1950s, or at least what life was like ON TV, and isn't that more important? Back then, married couples (and they were always married) didn't rush back to the boudoir and cook up their 2.5 kids, but rather they waited until they were well into their relationship and their careers--well, HIS career, anyway--and they were good and beaten down by life.

So instead of young whippersnappers raising kids, you had good, steady middle-aged people, if not downright oldsters, dealing with their well-meaning but humorous offspring. Take plucky teenager Corliss Archer. Her parents, played with typical fifties parental amiable condescension by Mary Brian and John Edlredge, look like pleasant enough people...who were BORN middle aged and stayed that way. Same thing with their friends, the Franklins, parents of Dexter, who serves as love interest of Corliss and foil for Mr. Archer.

There's nothing particularly memorable about any of the episodes I've seen, and this Christmas episode is itself rather unremarkable. One thing I kind of like about the series is the gimmick of using as transitions cartoonish gag illustrations while the narrator comments on the action with an amiable chuckle. This installment offers several of those to spice up its simple plot, a story that reflects the basic 1950s-ness of this program.

Mr. Archer has hidden the girls' presents someplace they'll never find them, and it's a good thing, too, because girls can't resist snooping, don't 'cha know? So while the womenfolk are trying to figure out what and where their gifts are, Father gets some quality comedy time with Dexter, who is making his own presents in Mr. Archer's tool shed/workshop. And the biggest tool in the shed is obviously Dexter himself. The guy means well, of course, but he's such a destructive boob in this episode that you figure the women better get those presents soon because Mr. Archer is gonna spend the holidays behind bars after being implicated in a tragic belt sander incident.

I won't dare give away the ending to this pleasantly generic half-hour, but suffice to say it culminates with a classic sitcom twist that makes no sense at all. Archer's hiding place meets Dexter's desire to help in a way that is even more contrived than you would hope an old comedy would be. It's just like the 1950s: Everybody means well, nothing much exciting happens, but you leave it more or less happy. The only thing that could have improved this episode? If Mr. Archer had hidden the presents inside a fallout shelter in the backyard.