Hazel: The Early Years "George's Niece"

It's been a while since we visited the Baxter residence, and I wish I could say we are coming back strong, but, no, George's Niece (November 16, 1961) is a gentle episode. It's nice. It has some very nice moments.

Dadgum it, though, I come to Hazel to see George. Well, Hazel, too, but preferably interacting with George. This episode delves into the extended Baxter family, namely snooty sister Deirdre (Cathy Lewis) and her daughter Nancy (Davey Davison).

Deirdre normally has "go away heat" with me, to invoke a pro wrestling term, but she at least gets some moments of redemption in this episode. Yes, eventually she can stop looking down her nose at Hazel long enough to give George's niece the attention she craves. Hazel even chokes up at this scene:

However, let's go back to the beginning and what is really important: the state of Mr. B's hand. Long-time readers are familiar with my theory that George injured himself in an underground pit fighting tournament. Well, we now see that the right hand is no longer wrapped up, but only that middle finger is bandaged:

Now that we have that out of the way, what else is notable about this episode? Well, it scores a strong 8.3 rating on IMDB, which indicates many viewers enjoy it more than I do. I think the sentimentality of it is appealing. There is a charming scene with Hazel and Mrs. B in which the two reminisce about Missy's own teenage days. It's nice to see them openly show the affection they have for each other and give us a reminder of the bond they share.

Hazel misses interacting with a teenage girl so much she is eager to help out Nancy as she and Deirdre move into town. Ah, the innocence of the 1960s! It's quaint hearing Hazel talk about staying up and listening to Missy talk about her dates...and to then see her do the same with Nancy.

Other highlights for me: Hazel singing fans can enjoy a few bars of "HE'LL Be Coming Round the Mountain." Unfortunately, Deirde's phone call interrupts the staircase serenade.

There's the weird notion of Hazel fixing up her own nephew with George's niece. Can you imagine the two families joining together? I don't mean to be as snobby as Deirdre, but it just seems like an odd possibility.  Worlds colliding!

Nancy will return in Hazel, but I don't think she marries Eddy Burke, even though, gosh, she sure is in love with him in this episode. And, gee, he KISSES her!

Hazel: The Early Years: "A Dog for Harold"

Maybe I missed something. I like to enjoy an episode of Hazel after a long day of work. Maybe my faculties were compromised when I watched "A Dog for Harold," but while it's enlightening to see the ~secret origin~ of Smiley, the Baxter family dog, this story irks me.

Harold brings home an abandoned dog and falls in love with it because of course! See, back in the sixties, kids fell in love with dogs at first sight because they weren't preoccupied with video games about dogs. Or something like that. So Hazel and Missy convince themselves that the boy NEEDS a dog. Not only that, he needs THIS dog.



"I'd better be getting paid as much as Buntrock by next season."

Well, as far as I can tell, the dog seems OK with this plan, though I don't recall a scene in which he shares his direct feelings. So the goal is to trick Mr. B into allowing this.

Here's where the story falls apart. George reminds the ladies that dogs just don't like him. In fact, they tried to adopt a dog before, and the dog beat him at poker--I may be hazy on the details--so now the patriarch of the House of Hazel KNOWS that dogs detest him. He seems amenable to the idea of taking in a pooch otherwise, but he is firm on this.




You know Mr. B is missing the awesome finger-pointing abilities of his right hand.

Well, wouldn't the smart thing be to introduce the dog to the man and see if they get along? That instantly removes the objection. Unfortunately, it also removes 80% of the episode, and so we get Hazel and Missy scheming to hide the dog while they can come up with ways to make George think HE needs one.

"It's such a foolish idea, I can't believe I didn't think of it before!"

For example, they stage a faux break-in to set up a need for a watchdog, but it backfires when Mr. B hires someone to install an alarm system.

Yep, this guy seems reputable.

At the end of the episode, we find out, guess what, the dog (dubbed Smiley, which has a much better ring than "That Shaggy Mutt What Done Got Found by Harold) likes George and George likes the dog.

"Jeez, what does the guy think I am, a cobra?"

Thus endeth A Dog for Harold, an episode about 80% longer than it needs to be. However, there is some value in seeing how the family pet gets his place in the home.

 

OK, now for what we all really care about: The Don DeFore hand injury update. It's still wrapped up in this episode, and Hazel asks him how it's coming along. George is making progress but still doing his Muy Thai one-handed. I am almost disappointed that George doesn't try to tie this into his uneasiness with dogs by trying to retcon a story about a runaway canine biting him.

 

"So then I used a reverse knife edge on him, but the son of a gun had a steel plate on under his jersey."

Hazel the Early Years: "What'll We Watch Tonight?" Part 2

Last week we gave some context for this, the sixth episode of season 1 of Hazel and the only one broadcast in color that season. Now let's get into the story itself. After a cold open in which Hazel tells off a floorwalker at the department store for having the GALL to ask her if she needs help while looking at--GASP--ladies' apparel, we join the Baxters at the dinner table.

George and Hazel have plans to watch the fight together on the living room set, and wouldn't you know, Mr. B.  wants to raise their standard bet from 1 dollar to 5 because he thinks he has a sure thing with his favored guy Davis against Hazel's Tiger Burleson. He has 'inside info" and wants to sucker Hazel into a bigger bet.

Of course, Hazel has inside info of her own--by calling Tiger himself right before the fight! Turns out one of her homemade remedies has helped the injured hand George thinks he has the scoop about. Hazel actually suggests the bet tonight because she has even insidier info. Yep, this is normal behavior between a man and his maid.

(Incidentally, they make reference to George's bandaged hand but don't explain how it happened.)

We get a fun bit of trash talking between Hazel and George as the fight (shown in black and white) unfolds on the Baxters' TV (not to be confused with the puny 10-incher Hazel has in her room).

Do you need me to tell you who wins the bet?

"Now what'll we watch?" Hazel wants to watch TV Courtroom, but George isn't a fan. He wants to see The Caine Mutiny. I have to agree with him on this one. Sure, everyone's seen it several times, but so what? It's a Bogart movie.

Hazel makes a passive-aggressive comment about her small TV before retiring to her quarters to watch TV Courtroom. See, she's afraid the roller derby would be ruined on her set because she couldn't see the "infighting." She also gets flopovers and static and whatnot. George admits it's not even worth fixing:

So they head downtown to get a new set. Check out Walter Kisnella as Mr. Thornton, the slick operator pushing the fancy sets:

Baxter offers to buy the least expensive one in the store, and Hazel maneuvers into getting a color unit by offering to pay the difference between what he was willing to pay.

Hazel's room becomes the place where the action is. Hey, you know what I mean! She has friends over to unveil the new color set by screening Perry Como's show. Even Mr. Thornton from the store comes over.

Here George enters a mini-swoon as he hears Perry singing Dream Along with Me on the snazzy new set in Hazel's quarters:

The show ends with the Baxters enjoying THEIR new set--George was tired of his family watching TV in Hazel's room--and as Missy and Junior decline invites to watch the special in her room, Hazel starts slinking off...until George invites her to sit down and join them. It's a nice note to end the episode.

The novelty of the color makes this stand out in season 1, but it's a solid installment in other ways, with plenty of the light but sometimes slightly sort of resembling edgy confrontations between Baxter and Hazel that we know and love. Not only is it one of the more memorable episodes of Hazel, it sure beats the average episode of TV Courtroom.

Hazel: The Early Years: Episode 6: "What'll We Watch Tonight?" Part 1

Welcome back to Hazel: The Early Years, our journey through the first season of the classic dom-com (my new term for a sitcom centered on a domestic engineer) starring Shirley Booth. We are at episode 6, which is notable for two reasons: 1) It is about TV itself, and I love sitcom episodes about the characters watching television and 2) It is the only episode broadcast in color during the first season.

This episode premiered at 9:30 on Thursday, November 2, 1961 on NBC, presumably airing against short-lived network competitors Margie and The Investigators. Take the lack of competition and the fact it followed hit Dr. Kildare, and it is no wonder Hazel finished the season #4 in the ratings.

NBC was owned by TV manufacturer RCA at the time, and it made efforts to promote purchase of color sets.  For context, this is a mere weeks after the NBC debut of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, which had been an ABC program and black and white (under a different title; it would be odd to have a black-and-white show called Wonderful World of Color). Some of the rest of NBC's lineup, especially Westerns like Laramie and Bonanza, was already in color, and of course Hazel itself would transition in season two. About a year after this episode, NBC promoted a Color Week stunt in which B&W series like Dr. Kildare ran in color.

So what is the theme of this special episode? Well, naturally it's about Hazel Burke getting a new TV set, and not just any set, but a spiffy new color set! Yes, all the better to watch Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, which aired Wednesdays at 9:00 in beautiful living color!

I'll get into the actual episode more next time, but for now enjoy some shots from the opening sequence. It's notable that the producers actually reshot this in color as well. Note that you get a glimpse of  Don Defore's bandaged hand, which I referenced in this post about episode 4, in one shot! We were told it was injured catching a line drive hit by Hazel, but I still prefer to think George Baxter suffered an injury in an underground Muy Thai tournament.

Public Service Announcement: Hazel Season 4 now showing on FETV

Family Entertainment TV, which joined DirectTv at channel 323 just a month or so ago, runs Hazel every weekday at 11:00 and 11:00 A.M. in chronological order. If the comments on this blog are any indication, the final, non-George-and-Dorothy season of the series is not only divisive, but quite provocative.

FETV just started season 5 on Friday, so if you want to get a look at Ray Fulmer and Lynn Borden as the replacements (who wouldn't want to get at least a look at Lynn Borden, really), check out this channel. I can't fully endorse this, though, because I believe the episodes are stretched to fit a full screen, edited, and possibly time-compressed.

Hazel: The Early Years: Episode 5, "Dorothy's New Client"

Conspicuous by his absence in this season 1 episode is Don Defore, AKA Mr. B. We see precious little of him, though Dorothy's desire to pay for the fancy chair she has ordered for him is an important plot point. Can Hazel the show work without Hazel the domestic engineer butting heads (in an amiable, well-meaning way, of course) with her nominal boss? Of course, but the Dorothy-centric episodes are missing something. Well, they are missing Defore, but you know what I mean.

"Dorothy's New Client" is significant for establishing Missy's career as an interior decorator...and that she apparently isn't all that successful at it. She's hurting for clients but doesn't want to be aggressive about hustling for them, nor does she want to mark up cheap items and push them as luxury accessories for would-be clientele. This is admirable but not so good when you need money for a new chair for your hubby, so Hazel butts in as only she can.

Check out the snooty designer who wants Dorothy to work for her. She has no qualms about doing what it takes to get clients:

Hazel's "poker face" at some of her business ideas leaves a bit to be desired:

From a Hazel Burke standpoint, this episode is notable because she actually gets busted in her meddling, proving that she is not the superhuman, infallible force she resembles at times throughout the series. Yes, even Hazel is kind of slow sometimes. She cooks up a scheme n which she cozies up to the new neighbors' domestic and convincing her to give a spiel designed to get her boss to hire a decorator.

The transparent ruse is not one of Hazel's best. Missy figures it out quickly, and Hazel has to haul a-double-crooked-letter back to her place to avoid being caught there in the new place playing puppet master.

It's refreshing to see that rare sign of fallibility, but make no mistake, Hazel is still the queen of the 'hood. When she recruits the new maid for the Sunshine Girls, she makes the group of domestic engineers sound like a bit more than a social group, explaining that they do meetings, lectures (by Hazel herself, natch), minor armed insurrections...OK, I made up the last part of that, but the Sunshine Girls don't mess around, and they prove it by the end of the episode.

 

See, the Sunshine Girls do a welcome wagon kind of deal in which they do a housecleaning and furniture arranging, and wouldn't you know it? They just happen to illustrate the many ways in which one crucial interior decorating decision can wreck a household.

 I look forward to seeing more of the Sunshine Girls. They are like Hazel's own Special Forces, ready to be deployed on short notice in any crisis.

But back to the boss, and I don't mean Mrs. B. So Dorothy gets her new client after all. Once again, game, set, match: Hazel.

I look forward to seeing more of the Sunshine Girls. They are like Hazel's own Special Forces, ready to be deployed on short notice in any crisis.

Hazel: The Early Years #4: A Matter of Principle

There are 3 big takeaways from this episode, and 2 of them are evident in the show's cold open (Is it just me, or does "cold open" feel like too modern a term to use with a 1960s sitcom?). First is whatever is going on with Don Defore's right hand. It's heavily bandaged the entire episode, and we are told that George Baxter injured it catching a line drive from Hazel.

Takeaway #2: Hazel continues to be the Babe Didrikson of her era. The series has already established her prowess at football and bowling, and now we  learn she is a whiz at baseball, too. That's not all, though! One of George's endless parade of pompous clients struggles with his golf swing in this episode until Hazel, eyeballing him for about 2 seconds, diagnoses his problem and gives him a tip that improves his game. She's an expert golfer as well!

Let's go back to George's hand, though. There are several references to the injury throughout the episode, and it seems an odd thing to just write into the story, so I believe Defore hurt himself in real life. The romantic in me likes to think he broke some dude's jaw in a bar fight.

The third big takeaway is that, while Hazel is an expert in matters of medicine, the culinary arts, and of course athletics, Mr. B really is a talented attorney. Even though the scenario that reinforces it in this episode is rather ridiculous, it's gratifying to see that Hazel does respect and appreciate Mr. Baxter's abilities. Plus he is the one who solves the big "mystery" at the heart of the story. Sometimes the show leans so far in the other direction that I love seeing some signs that George is capable of some things and Hazel does need him sometimes.

Hazel gets a parking ticket while shopping despite putting change in ("better safe than sorry") as soon as she and Harold get out of the car. She insists she is innocent, and when George sees how disturbed she is, he offers to take care of it. Only he means he'll pay for it, but she wants him to defend her in court.

So we go to court over a minor parking violation, and not only that, corporate attorney George defends Hazel before a judge against a district attorney who calls witnesses and everything. Amazingly, the judge even permits a field trip in the middle of the trial so that everyone can assemble at the scene of the "violation" for George to make his triumphant conclusions.

Why not? It's not like they have anything more important to do, I'm sure.

This is a fine episode packed with veteran actors like Vinton Hayworth as Mr. Sunderland, who would return several times in Hazel and go on to play General Schaeffer on I Dream of Jeannie;  and Lewis Martin as Judge Rosencrantz.

And, hey, is this a young Victor French telling the judge he can't do anything about the loud jackhammering outside the courtroom?

Larry Haddon (who also returned to the show in a different role years later) has a prominent role as the prosecutor determined to preserve the credibility of the local constabulary by proving Hazel deserves her citation.

Hazel's golf tips, Mr. B's acumen, and the mysterious hand injury make this a highlight of season 1!

Hazel: The Early Years: Episode 3, Hazel Plays Nurse

All you Hazel fanfic writers hoping to see Shirley Booth in a nurse outfit, settle down. That doesn't happen in this episode--Hazel doesn't even get to wear the spiffy new dress she bought for Harold's school ceremony--but we do learn that she is "a licensed vocational nurse." It's not brain surgery, she says, but it's the best you can do with night school.

And you DO get to see Don Defore in flannel pajamas as Hazel (with an assist from the local doctor, who confirms her diagnosis) forces Mr. B to bed with that dreaded calamity known as...A COLD.

Yes, the cold is so feared that it sidelines not just George, but his most valued and most annoying client, the "steamroller" himself, none other than Howard Smith as Mr. Griffin! Yes, episode 3 features the historic debut of the semi-regular, and he's grumpy and irritable from the beginning, though at least this time there's an excuse: Poor widdle baby has a widdle cold.

To his credit, Griffin doesn't want to rest up. He wants to do work, so much so that he barrels into the Baxter household, marches upstairs, and starts going over "important papers" with attorney George...

...which leads to Hazel discovering HE'S sick and confining him as well. One of the best things about this episode is the bluster of the menfolk when confronted with Hazel's strong will. Both George and Griffin declare that if anyone thinks they're going to bed, they're crazy, followed of course by a quick cut to them in bed.

Interesting, though, that even in this first appearance, Griffin does a quasi-babyface turn, relenting on a negotiation George conducts over the phone, then telling George Hazel reminds him of his dear, old mother after putting on her wool socks (Nothing weird about any of this, friends). I kept expecting him to go ape over some homemade soup Hazel whipped up, but he only gets to share the croup kettle she got out for Mr. B, so his intense love of her cooking will be revealed in a future episode.

"Hazel Plays Nurse" is a solid effort, with plenty of patented shots of Don Defore being taken aback by what goes on around him. At the breakfast table, before being diagnosed with that devastating cold, he remarks on the "bedlam" around him, which consists of the school bus (driven by prolific character actor Norman Leavitt) picking up Harold. Whoa, total chaos!

"Spare me your so-called witticisms, Hazel."



"Oh, for crying out loud..."

The subtext of the episode, as it is throughout the series' run is the politics of the working class. Fred the milkman complains to Hazel how he has the longest route of anyone because his boss is trying to make him quit so he can give the job to his brother-in-law. Hazel manages to get a phone extension installed in the Baxters' bedroom, and she does so through her connection to Gordy, who is outside working on a telephone pole.  He's booked on a tight schedule  (by "The Man," no doubt), but he agrees to do the work pronto when Hazel threatens to withhold...bowling lessons (I TOLD you to settle down).

Harold's school presentation will feature his reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, to which I say, big deal. Oh, I am not dissing the Pledge, but why is this such an event? My kids say it every single day, yet Hazel and Dorothy are acting like Harold's recital of it is a State of the Union address. Later, with George in bed, Missy insists that Hazel attend the school event because she can't leave George alone. it's a nice gesture because she knows Hazel bought a new outfit for the occasion, but, jeez, it's YOUR son, as Hazel says in so many words. Thankfully, Hazel overrides her boss' orders--why should this be different than any other time--but I don't see why both couldn't go. George has a cold, not dengue fever.

Somewhere in an old lady's sitting room, a sofa is missing its upholstery

Finally, there's a great cold open with George bragging to Harold about his football exploits. "They used to call me End Run Baxter," he boasts. Well, when he gets Scrap Iron Burke to snap the ball to him, he goes End over Tea Kettle: