The Tom Ewell Show

Summary

Tom Ewell stars in this half-hour sitcom as Tom Porter, a real estate agent whose entire life, away from the office, was dominated by females:

Wife Fran (played by Marilyn Erskine),

Live-in mother-in-law, Grandma Irene Brady (Mabel Albertson).

Three daughters:

15-year-old Carol (played by Cindy Robbins, stage name for Cynthia Chenault),

11-year-old Debbie (played by former Mouseketeer Sherry Alberoni),

7-year-old Sissie (played by Eileen Chesis)

Family-dog Mitzi

Recurring characters included Norman Fell as co-worker Howie Fletcher, heavy-set actor Barry Kelley as friend Jim Rafferty, and child-actor Vance Meadows as a neighborhood youngster.

Broadcast schedule

The thirty episodes of the show were broadcast 9–9:30 PM (EST) on Tuesday nights in the United States from September 27, 1960 through May 23, 1961 on the CBS network. Eight of the episodes were shown as summer repeats in the same timeslot from May 30, 1961 through July 18, 1961. This series was sponsored alternately by The Quaker Oats Company and Procter & Gamble.

Critical reception

TIME magazine said:

"The Tom Ewell Show (CBS) leads a relentless parade of situation comedies, all designed to show that American family life is as cute as a freckle on a five-year-old. The show, which might also be titled Father Knows Nothing, presents the comic with the excavated face as a bumbler named Potter who is trapped in the customary format: Harassed Man Beaten Down by Wife, Three Daughters, Mother-in-Law. In the opening episode, Ewell could find no better way to outsmart his spendthrift women than closing his bank account and ruining his own credit. For those who may have tuned out early, the women were all set to start spending again."