The Mothers in Law

Premise

Eve (Eve Arden) and Herb Hubbard (Herbert Rudley) have lived next door to Kaye (Kaye Ballard) and Roger Buell (played first by Roger C. Carmel and later by Richard Deacon) for 15 years. Herb is a successful lawyer, while Roger is a television writer who works at home. The Hubbards are very straitlaced, the Buells off-the-wall and fun-loving. Despite their differences, including an age disparity of about twenty years, they are best friends. In spite of their friendship, though, they do tend to get into more than their share of squabbles.

The Buells' son Jerry (Jerry Fogel) and the Hubbards' daughter Suzie (Deborah Walley) fall in love while in college, marry, and set up house in the Hubbards' garage apartment. The two sets of parents have different ideas of how their children should live their lives, and the constant meddling of the mothers-in-law provides the premise for the series. One of the differences between the two couples is that Kaye allowed Suzie to call her Mother Buell, but Eve would not allow Jerry to call her Mother Hubbard without objecting. During the second season, the young couple have a set of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl named Joey and Hildy (from the middle names of Kaye and Eve).

Production

Most of the episodes were written by Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr., who had worked with series producer Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy. Unlike most sitcoms of the era, The Mothers-in-Law was filmed before a live audience; standard practice at the time was to film an episode on a closed set and add a laugh track during post-production. However, a laugh track was still used to fill any gaps in audience reactions or missed punchlines.

When choosing the cast, Executive Producer Desi Arnaz approached Ann Sothern, who had worked on seven episodes of The Lucy Show as the Countess Framboise (née Rosie Harrigan), to play the role of Eve Arden's next-door neighbor. Sothern was a very good friend of Arnaz and his former wife Lucille Ball. In fact, in the late 1930s when Ball was under contract to RKO Pictures, Sothern was already an established star at the studio and was known as "Queen of the B's". When Ball and Sothern were both working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1940s, Sothern continued as "Queen of the B's" in the Maisie films. Eve Arden was also an old friend of Arnaz and Ball, whom she knew from RKO in the 1930s. However, NBC found Ann and Eve's styles of comedy too similar for the way the show was written. Singer-comedian Kaye Ballard, another old friend, auditioned for and got the part of the neighbor (now named Kaye Buell) that would have gone to Sothern.

Actress Kay Cole (who would later appear on Broadway in the original cast of A Chorus Line) played Suzie Hubbard in the initial pilot; however, after the series was picked up, Cole was replaced by actress Deborah Walley. Only the scenes featuring Suzie were re-filmed for the aired version of the pilot, but Cole can be briefly glimpsed in the final shot before the end credits. Walley would remain with the show for its entire two-year run. Ironically, five years prior to The Mothers-in-Law, Walley had unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Lucy Carmichael's daughter, Chris, on The Lucy Show, losing the part to Candy Moore.

As of 2016, Kaye Ballard and Jerry Fogel are the only two surviving cast members.

Characters

Desi Arnaz, who produced and directed the show, appeared in three episodes, using his Ricky Ricardo accent and trademark mispronunciation of words to full effect. He appeared as a matador named Raphael Delgado, whom the wives had called as a result of a wrong number, and became somewhat of a family friend.

This is one of the rare occasions where the characters had the same first names as their portrayers. In the first season, the notable exception was Deborah Walley who played Suzie. In the second season, Richard Deacon played Roger C. Buell and joined Deborah in that distinction.

Ratings

Despite being sandwiched between Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and Bonanza, the show never garnered the ratings NBC had hoped for. The network considered canceling the show after the first season, but agreed to renew it for the same price as the first season (after sponsor Procter & Gamble had announced plans to move the series to another network). All cast members agreed to do the second season for the same money except for Carmel, who was replaced with Richard Deacon. (Officially, Carmel had a salary dispute with producer Desi Arnaz, Sr., although, according to rumors, he was fired because his drug use interfered with production.)

Season 2 performed worse than Season 1, leading to its cancellation. On The Doris Day Show Season 4 DVD, Ballard remarked that the network and sponsor wanted The Bill Cosby Show to replace The Mothers-in-Law during the 1969-70 season.

Home video release

MPI Home Video (under license from Desilu, Too) released the complete series of The Mothers-in-Law on DVD in Region 1 on July 27, 2010. This release includes a new introduction from Desi Arnaz, Jr., who appeared in two episodes as Tommy, a drum playing friend of Jerry and Suzie Buell; an interview with Kaye Ballard; the original unaired pilot episode (consists of the same footage as the first episode, "On Again, Off Again, Lohengrin," except with Kay Cole as Suzie instead of Deborah Walley; only Suzie's scenes would be reshot for the aired version); original sponsor tags; cast commercials; scripts for unproduced episodes; The Carol Channing Show, a comedy pilot which starred Carol Channing, Jane Dulo and Richard Deacon; and Land's End, a dramatic pilot starring Rory Calhoun. The latter were two failed pilots from Desi Arnaz Productions.

Me-TV offers several episodes of the series for viewing online from its Web site.