Tag: Classic Television

Casey Jones: TV’s First Policewoman

It wasn’t Cagney and Lacey in the 1980s. It wasn’t Police Woman in the 1970s. Rather, the first police police woman to come to television was Casey Jones (played by Beverly Garland.)

Casey Jones (Beverly Garland) in Uniform

The concept of following the adventures of a Policewoman wasn’t new, but it was rarely tried. In 1946, ABC had brought stories from the case files of Lieutenant Mary Sullivan of the NYPD, the nation’s first female homicide police detective and the nation’s first director of Policewomen.

In 1957, Decoy went into syndication starring Garland as Casey Jones, a New York City policewoman.  Some declare the show a female Dragnet. The comparison is not without merits. Decoy not only had the heroine as a narrator, but was often a police procedural, although sometimes it dabbled in crime melodrama. However, Decoy, while having a technical advisor from the NYPD, was not based on real-life cases. It remains unique among police shows of its era because of its powerful female lead.

I’m a Cop Not a Sociologist

In the episode, “Dark Corridor,” Casey goes undercover to investigate the murder of a model inmate in a women’s prison. The warden has been lenient and tried to focus the prison on rehabilitation and is concerned that the murder could undermine her efforts with the state. Casey cuts her off with a simple, “I’m a policewoman, not a sociologist.”

When the show was at its best, Casey kept to that simple code, as she took on gamblers, robbers, murderers, drug dealers, smugglers, and thieves just like her male counterparts. However, Casey also investigated some crimes that targeted women which weren’t ususally dealt with on television such as rape and obscene phone calls.

Casey was a great character. She was tough and intelligent, but also sensitive. Casey cared about people and empathized with them, even some of the criminals. However, Casey’s sensitive nature didn’t stop her from doing her job (with one exception I’ll discuss below.) 

At the end of most episodes, she breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience for a minute with some thoughts on the case just concluded.

The vast majority of episodes have Casey going undercover for at least part of the episode. Casey’s undercover roles included society heiress, nurse, carnival dancer, shop lifter, and junkie. It makes you appreciate the talent of Ms. Garland, who not only had to play her character, but play her character pretending to be someone else in nearly every episode.

Decoy also welcomed a variety of guest stars, many of whom would go on to great things. Larry Hagman, who would go on to fame in Dallas made his first television appearance in a bit part in “Saturday Was Lost.”  Suzanne Pleshette made an early TV appearance in, “The Sound of Tears.” And a young Peter Falk gave a show-stealing guest performance in “The Comeback” three years before getting a best supporting actor Ocsar Nomination and a decade before he would make his first appearance as Lieutenant Columbo.

Peter Falk

While Garland was the only actor to appear in every episode, she had one big supporting player: New York City. If nothing else were good about Decoy, it’d be worth watching for its look at 1950s New York City. The show made New York come alive and the setting was key to the whole story.

The Best of Decoy:

20 of the Public Domain Decoy episodes have made their way online and several of the non-public domain episodes have also made their way onto DVD releases from Timeless Video,  Alpha Video, and other companies. Over the past year, from a variety of sources, I’ve been able to able to watch 31 of the 39 episodes of Decoy. Some of the best of these were:

The Pilot Episode

Also known as Stranglehold. The plot is that a man was strangled and that the police believe that a woman who lives in the building knows who did it. Casey goes undercover to get the woman to spill. This a powerful suspense-filled Noirish episode that sets a great tone for the rest of the series.

The Sound of Tears

Casey investigates the death of an engaged man. Casey does a great job investigating the case, while dealing with old wounds it reopens, as she lost the man she loved to an act of violence.

Saturday Was Lost 

This is one episode where a Dragnet comparison is apt. Casey has to help a teenage girl what happened to her sister, while they were under the influence of drugs. A powerfully done and unforgetable episode that could have been produced by Jack Webb.

Night of Fire

Casey goes undercover in an office to investigate an arson where all fingers of suspicion are pointed at a woman who had been a mental institution. Good mystery and the denoument is dramatic and fitting.

The Comeback

Peter Falk plays a race track cashier who is in cahoots with a criminal making counterfeit parimutuelracing tickets. Casey pretends to be crooked and wanting a piece of the action in exchange for her cooperation, so she can break the racket. However, Falk believes she’s too classy to go crooked, tries to talk her out of it, and then gets beat up for trying to steal the picture that the counterfeiting took of Casey taking his money so that she can get out of it.  Falk is frustrating to both Casey and the counterfeiting boss but endearing at the same time in a TV appearance that foreshadowed a great acting career to come.

Earthbound Sattelite

Casey goes undercover to bust up a gambling ring. The plan is for police to follow her to the location. The problem? The gamblers have such a confusing system of switching cars and making turns, that the police can’t keep up. Inspired by space satellites, the police improvise a high tech solution,  at least for 1958.

Other episodes that are well-worth watching include Fiesta at Midnight, The First Arrest, Tin Pan Payoff, Shadow of Van Gogh, and Ladies Man.  

Who is Casey Jones?

Of course, the episodes weren’t all great. One of the challenges in Decoy was that the portrayal of Casey was uneven. Decoy was definitely trying to reach female viewers, howwever every Decoy script was written by a man who imagined what type of script women might like. In addition, no one wrote more than four episodes of Decoy, so there were differing views of the character that came to bear.

The episode, “Cry Revenge” was bizarre with a young disabled woman marrying a man who was making harassing and threatening  phone calls to her mother in order to get revenge on her mother for her father leaving. Similarly weird, was the episode, “Death Watch” (IMDB link only)  which featured a shoplifting ring that did murder-for-hire as a sideline, and an odd melodramatic plot with a punchy son.

Decoy rarely went more wrong than when Casey went outside of police work and towards social work. In an unforgetably disturbing scene at the end of, “Night Light,” Casey urges a criminal to reject his son (apparently to prevent him from becoming a criminal), and the criminal then proceeds to tell his son that he doesn’t want him or care about him. 

Yeah, that’s the key to a well-adjusted adulthood.

The most egregious example of this was the episode, “Scapegoat” (IMDB only) in which Casey travels out of town to bring back a suspect. The suspect is embarassed by having to wear handcuffs, so Casey feels bad for her and takes the handcuffs off as long as the fugitive promises not to run away. Casey gets distracted for a minute and low and behold, the fugure (“shock”) escapes. The convict is gets her mentally disabled ten year old-son who she plans to throw off a bridge because she’s unable to pay for the private hospital she had him and feels that he’s better off dead than a state institution. Casey talks her out of throwing her son over the bridge by using her own boneheaded move as proof that government employees are capable of compassion and caring.

This episode was a classic case of a writer violating their character. It’s almost shocking that this one made it to air because it contradicts every other episode that shows Casey as calm and thoroughly competent, with emotions in check.  

Across the World” is notable for Casey being knocked out early in the episode and the audience getting to watch three people they don’t know or care about at each other’s throats in an after-school special style show that I guess was trying to urge people not to get involved in international gun-running.

I also didn’t buy the emotional angles in “Eye for an Eye,” but that may have been a matter of taste.

Still, with both its good and bad episodes, Decoy remains a memorable program, that any fan of Classic TV detectives should acquaint themselves with.

 20 Public Domain Decoy Episodes available at the Internet Archive.

The Top 10 1970s Columbo Episodes, Part Three

Part One is here, Part Two is here.

3) A Friend in Deed (1974)

This episode has a good twist in it. For starters, the primary villain is none other than the Deputy Commissioner of Police (played by Richard Kiley). For another, he didn’t commit the initial homicide.

The story begins with a friend of the Deputy Commissioner meets him at a bar and tells him he just killed his wife in a moment of rage and doesn’t know what to do. The Commissioner assures him he’ll take care of it and carefully re-arranges the crime scene to make it look like it was the work of a burgular who had been hitting local homes and arrange an alibi for his neighbor.

Then the Commissioner murders his own wife and uses the occasion of the wake for the first man’s wife to enlist the help of the first killer in covering up his own murder.

This case presents a unique challenge to Columbo. There are several cases when the prominent murderers he hunts will use their connections to pressure Columbo to back off, but this time Columbo is facing off against corrupt superior with more direct authority and control over the investigation. Even as Columbo produces more inconsistencies with “the burgular did it” story, the Commissioner pushes him towards that one answer.

The Commissioner is one of Columbo’s chilling villains, combining his sociopathic nature, an intimidating personality, and the raw power of a high police official.

In the end, Columbo has to get very creative and enlist the help of the real burgular to solve the case in one of Columbo’s memorable endings.

2) Now, You See Him-1976

This episode is the second Jack Cassidy episode on the list. This is perhaps the Columbo episode I enjoyed the most. Cassidy is fantastically believable as the Great Santini, a clever magician with a past that he must keep secret at all costs which leads him to kill his employer who is blackmailing him.

Even though, the music and style of the Great Santini are totally 1970s, there’s a certain edge of coolness even watching this episode 30 years later, and Cassidy plays the murderer with a great deal of charm throughout the episode.

This episode saw the return of Sergeant Wilson (Bob Disky). Wilson had appeared in the 1972 episode, “The Greenhouse Jungle” as a young by the book police sergeant who chafed against Columbo’s unorthodox methods, only for Columbo to be proven right after Wilson arrested the wrong man. In, “Now You See Him,” Wilson has grown a bit and actually is helpful to Columbo on the case. It should be noted that this is the only time that giving Columbo a sidekick worked out well.

With a solid denouement featuring Columbo’s own magic trick with some key help from Sergeant Wilson, this is a fun way to spend 75 minutes.

1) A Stitch in Crime-1973

This episode begins with a fairly clever murder plot in which a Dr. Barry Mayfieldplans to murder his partner by putting temporary sutures where permanent ones ought to go, which will lead to the doctor’s death. A nurse finds out and the Mayfield kills her to stop her from spilling the plan.

As Nimoy is most famous for playing Spock on Star Trek many reviews will reference this as Spock v. Columbo. The comparison is not entirely without merit. Nimoyis cold, calculating, and throughout most of the episode, detached and unemotional. He’s the picture of a perfect sociopath and very menacing. The scene right before he murdered the nurse is perhaps the most startling in the series. 

Like with “A Friend in Deed,” what makes Mayfield a particularly dangerous killer is not just that he’s a heartless murderer, but his position. In this case, as he’s a doctor who is supposed to be a healer, it adds another dimension to the character.

In this episode, Columbo has to work to prevent the original murder that Dr. Mayfield set out commit. This adds some additional tension to the episode that isn’t your ordinary episode of Columbo. This episode is also notable for being one of the occassions where Columbo gets mad at a killer and shows it:

The ending to this episode just can’t be beat. As we get to the end, it does look like Columbo may have lost or more accurately, got a split decision that will leave Dr. Mayfield free. It’s only in the last forty-five seconds that Columbo pulls it out. 

Of course, other fans have their favorites. And it’s a hallmark of Columbo movie reviews that on nearly every 1970s episode, some fans will insist it was one of Columbo’s best and others will insist it was one of the weakest. Your feedback is always welcomed.

The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Moviesseries will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.

UPDATE:

Linked by the Rap Sheet where folks are discussing their own favorites and suggesting substitutions.

The Top 10 1970s Columbo Episodes, Part Two

(For Part One, see here.)

7) Fade Into Murder (1976): This episode of Columbo was far from the most difficult case Columbo had to crack, however the guest murderer made the episode entertaining.

William Shatner plays the role of Actor Ward Fowler. Fowler plays a famous TV crimefighter, Detective Lucerne. Fowler kills the woman who is blackmailing him and tries to put the blame on her husband.

Shatner is perfectly cast as the hammy actor who tries to “help” Columbo solve the case by getting in character as Detective Lucerne. The interaction between Falk and Shatner is fun. The highlight of the episode comes towards the end when Fowler, in character as Detective Lucerne accuses himself of having committed the murder!

6) Murder By the Book (1971): There’s a reason Jack Cassidy played the murderer on Columbo three times. Cassidy makes for a dashing and deceptive villain, and the chemistry between him and Falk made each outing memorable.

The plot centers around a writing team, where one member of the team writes best-selling mysteries and the other. Ken Franklin runs the business end. When the creative genius decides to leave the team, Franklin decides to kill him. The way Franklin commits the murder, it looks like he was miles away from the muder room.

The case presents a serious challenge to Columbo and thinks get even more complicated when someone who could blow Franklin’s alibi tries to blackmail him. “Murder by the Book” was directed by a young Steven Speilberg.

5) Columbo-“Short Fuse” (1972)

Roddy McDowell plays Roger Stanford, a genius and the nephew of the owner of a chemical plant who murders his uncle by turning a box of cigars into a bomb.

Stanford’s scheming doesn’t stop there. He spends the episode trying to manipulate his aunt into giving him control of the factory through a series of cunning moves. Of course, the young genius is dismissive of Columbo which turns out to be his undoing.

This episode, written by radio veteran Jackson Gills, features a fantastic ending on board a gondola lift.

4) Death Lends a Hand (1971):

This was the first of three Robert Culp appearances and the best of the three.  It was a unique story for a number of reasons.

The first one is that the killing was not premeditated. Culp plays Bremmer, the an ex-cop head of a security and investigations firm that lies to a client to tell him his wife wasn’t cheating on her, and then tries to blackmail the wife in hopes of getting some juicy information. When she comes to his door, threatening to tell her husband the truth, Bremmer gets angry and smacks her so hard that he kills her.  He then tries to make it look like a robbery that happened somewhere else.

Bremmer then gets into an even better position to further the cover-up when the grieving husband brings him in to help Columbo investigates. Columbo begins to catch on, and Bremmer tries to get Columbo off the case by offering him a job with his security firm.

Bremmer was one of Columbo’s most worthy adversaries, and in order to get his man, Columbo has to use a good bit of trickery. Sometimes, this can come off as contrived, but the end to this episode is one of the most memorable in the series.

This episode was also well done from a visual and music perspective. The scene when the death occurs and Bremmer hides the body is fascinating viewing. Taken with a nearly unbeatable mix of Peter Falk and Robert Culp, and you can see why this is a classic that helped to put Columbo on the map.

The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Movies series will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.

The Top 10 1970s Columbo Episodes, Part One

Columbo was a unique detective show in that the murderer’s identity was (almost) always known from the beginning. What made the show interesting was how Columbo would solve the crime and where the flaw in the murder lay.

Each episode represented a battle of wits between Columbo and the murderer. Columbo, due to his disheveled appearance and quirkiness, would almost be underestimated by the killer, who would try to lead Columbo down the path they wanted him to follow. Sooner or later, they would realize that Columbo was no fool and they’d move from helpful to hostile.

Columbo in some ways was the opposite of Dragnet. It was almost a police fantasy where a Police Lieutenant rarely supervised any men and didn’t carry a gun, and all of his cases involved the rich and/or famous who committed murder at an alarming rate.

Somehow, it worked. Arguably, it worked best during the show’s original 1970s run. So far, the only Columbo revival movie I’d put in the same category as the best 1970s shows is 1989’s Columbo Goes to the Guillotine. However, I’ve not seen every one of the latter movies, so I’ll limit this list to the 1970s run:

10) The Conspirators (1978):

In “The Conspirators,” Irish poet and undercover IRA agent Joe Devlin (Clide Revill) kills an arms dealer who tried to double cross him and his conspirators.

Revill turns in a charming performance as Devlin with fantastic chemistry with Falk. The show has some fun and relaxing scenes as Columbo and Devlin play darts, make up limericks, and talk about their past.

The show also does have some serious undertones as it deals with the conflict in Northern Ireland. Unlike the 1975 episode, “A Case of Immunity,” the writers didn’t fictionalize world affairs. Devlin had publicly renounced violence and was raising funds for the victims of Northern Ireland, but the money was actually to be used to buy guns to go to Northern Ireland which sadly did happen with quite a few international charities.

Columbo’s challenge is not only to find the arms dealer’s murderer but to stop the arms from going to Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, Devlin has to get the arms without his dealer.

In a series that featured a lot insufferable snobs, the showdown with Devlin was a pleasant change that made for a memorable end to the 1970s run.

9) Murder Under Glass

At the other end of the relationship scale from the chummy Murder Under Glass. Columbo. In the 1977 episode, “Try and Catch Me” Columbo admits to liking people in general, and even some of the murderers he met, and explained his overall positive outlook on life:

It’s rare for Columbo to express dislike for a suspect which makes the ending of “Murder Under Glass” so interesting as both Columbo and the killer express their dislike for each other.

Throughout most of the episode, Columbo and food critic Paul Gerard remain polite, even cordial, however, it’s clear these two have growing contempt for each other. Gerard poisoned a restaurateur who had gotten tired of being blackmailed by Gerard. Gerard then frames a young Italian immigrant for the crime.

The case is fully based in the world of high class dining, and the writers did fantastic research to make the episode come alive. The most notable thing we learn in the episode is that Columbo is a good cook. While this contradicts an earlier episode, seeing Columbo cook was so fun, I don’t really care.

“Murder Under Glass” comes down to a final scene where Columbo and the murderer prepare a meal, with the murderer becoming one of the few Columbo killers to think of killing off the good Lieutenant to evade capture.

8 ) Requiem for a Falling Star (1973)

One became one of the cliche’s of Columbo series was Columbo saying to the murderer, “The wife and I are really big fans.” After a while, I developed the theory that the police could most easily catch murderers by placing anyone Mrs. Columbo is a fan of under police under surveilance.

One of the earliest and most effective examples of this was in “Requiem for a Falling Star.” Here, it really works.

Aging actress Nora Chandler (Anne Baxter) kills off her assistant. Columbo is called into investigate. He is very excited to meet Miss Chandler, so much so that he calls up his family.

Throughout the episode, Columbo remains very kind and respectful towards Chandler, even as her guilt becomes more obvious.  Chandler remains gracious towards Columbo until the end when she really feels him closing in on her.

This episode also features quite a bit more mystery than your average Columbo episode. Oftentimes, both the motive and method of the crime are laid out completely. I have to admit that I was a little confused by how Chandler pulled off the murder, and the motive remained a mystery until the final scene.

Taken together with great chemistry between Peter Falk and Anne Baxter, this is one of the most enjoyable Columbos out there.

Continued next week…

The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Movies series will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.

I Spy: A Cup of Kindness

This doesn’t have anything to do with New Years Day except the title comes from the song, Auld Lang Syne.

I Spy is one of the best action adventure shows from the 1960s, continuing on in the fine tradition of A Man Called X and Dangerous Assignment. It’s a truly underrated classic.

Cos and the Classic Revivals

By the time the 1990s rolled out, Bill Cosby was huge.  He’d had many great efforts in television and other forms entertainment. He was supercool superspy Alexander Scott in the groundbreaking I Spy series. He was producer and host of the award-winning Fat Albert Series. However, his greatest success was the Cosby Show, which provided 1980s family friendly comedies that had gone missing for so many years (and have since disappeared again.)

Cosby in the 1990s brought two classic TV concepts back to the American screen.

The first was Groucho Marx’s classic, You Bet Your Life. Cosby was a huge fan of Marx and considered him one of the four best comedians of all time along with Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, and W.C. Fields. Unlike the other three, Cosby actually got to know Marx a bit. More than anything else, he’d admired Marx for You Bet Your Life.   Cosby had even met the old producers of You Bet Your Life to get a chance to do it and been turned down. In the 1990s, on the heels of the Cosby show and becoming a $90 million man, Cosby could pretty much get any project he wanted and so he got to follow in the footsteps of one his heroes in the 1992-93 version of You Bet Your Life.

The show may have been a little too early. A revival of You Bet Your Life could have gone well in the reality TV era, but alas made it only one season in syndication, and was not widely viewed or known. The only video clips available are from those folks sharing appearances by their relatives on the show. These two clips from the show are priceless comedy, although they go on a little long, it’s worth a viewing:

Cosby wasn’t done bringing classic concepts to a new audience. In the late 1990s, he revived another vintage TV concept. Art Linkletter did his House Party show for 24 years over CBS radio and television, and had been best remembered for its Kids Say the Darnedst Things segment.

Cosby once again revived a classic concept as he took his turn questioning kids and hearing the surprising answers they gave.

The big difference between You Bet Your Life and Kids Say the Darnedst Things is that Art Linkletter was still alive and in fact Linkletter worked with Cosby on the program. When I watched Kids Say the Darnedst Things for the first time, I was very curious as to who Linkletter was. I had no idea, growing up.

Cosby introduced Linkletter to a new generation. Most episodes of Kids Say the Darnedst Things featured some footage of some of Linkletter’s most hilarious moments.  Linkletter, in his mid-80s at the time, appeared frequently on the show. Cosby always showed a warm regard for Linkletter and never illustrated it better than with a touching surprise tribute to the man on CBS:

Those who saw Linkletter and Marx in their prime feel that Cosby’s efforts were not as good. There’s certainly something to it as both Linkletter and Marx performances were definitive. 

I don’t think the point of Cosby’s effort was displace either of these two legends. Rather, Cosby did the shows because he enjoyed and loved the originals, and his efforts helped to bring awareness of the originals back into the public mind. And there’s nothing better for a top entertainer to do than that.

Green Acres on the Radio

PlayPlay

Green Acres

If you mention Green Acres, people think of the 1965-71 Sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. But fifteen years before Green Acres came to TV,  it came to radio.

CBS broadcast Granby’s Green Acres as a Summer replacement series. Granby’s Green Acres told the story of John Granby, a Banker who got fed up with city life and took his wife and family to relocate to a farm.

Sound familiar?

The radio Green Acres were written by a 33-year old writer, who would go on to write 150 of the 170 TV episodes of Green Acres.

There were quite a few similarities between the radio and TV versions of Green Acres. Both featured a scatter-brained Mr. Kimball (although the radio Mr. Kimball ran the county store rather than being the County Agent.) Granby also had a farm hand named Eb. The radio show had some good bits that Sommers would dust off for early TV episodes.

An early Green Acres TV episode where Oliver can’t decide what to plant has its basis in the radio episode, “Mr. Granby Plants a Crop.”

And this great little bit of dialogue also came from the radio show originally:

Oliver: I’d take a seed, a tiny little seed, I’d plant it in the ground, I’d put some dirt on it, I’d water it, and pretty soon, do you know what I would have?
Lisa: A dirty little wet seed.

At the end of the radio run. John Granby (Gale Gordon) told listeners to send letters in to their local CBS station with their thoughts on Granby’s Green Acres.  The show never returned to the air.

There were many reasons the show didn’t make it in 1950. One big one might be that Granby’s Green Acres was not a show that audiences were ready for. Americans had migrated in large numbers to cities like New York and Los Angeles in search of economic opportunities. Granby’s desire to move to the country seemed absurd. When Green Acres appeared on TV, it was a very different world with violence and unrest, crime on the rise, and social unrest. Moving to Hooterville sounded a lot less crazy and made us more sympathetic with Mr. Douglas.

The biggest problem with Granby’s Green Acres may have been that it just wasn’t ready for prime time. Granby is too much of a cantankerous blowhard.  The radio version gives you an appreciation of the talent with which Eddie Albert played the role of Oliver Wendell Douglas, as a complex mix of bombast, idealism, practicality, and romance that made the character a joy to watch.

In the radio version, Sommers only had given real airtime to Mr. Kimball from the store, and a know it all County Agent who always ate Granby’s supper.  Pretty thin gruel.

Not continuing Granby’s Green Acres was a smart decision. Even with great comics like Burns and Allen leaving radio for television, radio comedy was still undergoing a golden age and Sommers creation simply was not in the same league as shows like Our Miss Brooks,  Life of Riley, and Life with Luigi. 

It also had a nice aftermath. Sommers continued to develop as a writer and work the world of television, writing on such shows as Amos and Andy, Dennis the Menace, and Petticoat Junction.  When Green Acres came back, it became one of television’s best sitcoms.

It featured Pat Buttram turning in the role Mr. Haney who was always trying to sell Mr. Douglas something, Eva Gabor as the sweet but often confusing Hungarian Princess Lisa Douglas,  and the Ziffels who treat their pig like he’s their son, and much more.

While the radio show didn’t have these elements, it serves as a rough draft of Green Acres, which makes it an interesting listen.

Related:

IMDB has the first five season of Green Acres available for instant watch.