The Donna Reed Show

The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the middle-class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz co-stars as her pediatrician husband Dr. Alex Stone, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children, Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC from September 24, 1958, to March 19, 1966.
Background.
The series was created by William S. Roberts and developed by Reed and her then husband, producer Tony Owen. Episodes revolved around typical family problems of the period such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, throwing a retirement bash for a colleague, and finding quality time away from the children. Then-daring themes such as women's rights and freedom of the press were occasionally explored.
The show had an uncertain start in the ratings and was almost cancelled, but fared better when it was moved from Wednesday to Thursday nights. In the show's middle seasons, Fabares sang what became a #1 teen pop hit "Johnny Angel", and Petersen had above average success with the song "My Dad", also introduced during the course of the series.
"The Donna Reed Show" was one of television's top 20 shows in 1963–1964. Reed was repeatedly nominated for Emmy Awards between 1959 and 1962, and won a Golden Globe as Best Female TV Star in 1963. She eventually grew tired of the workaday grind involved in the program, and it was cancelled in 1966 after 275 episodes.
The series was sponsored by Campbell Soup Company, with Johnson & Johnson as the principal alternate sponsor (succeeded in the fall of 1963 by The Singer Company). Following first-run, the show entered daytime reruns on ABC and then syndication on Nick at Nite and TV Land for several years. It is currently shown on Decades. The first five seasons have been released on DVD.
This show was the first TV family sitcom to feature the mother as the center of the show. Reed's character, Donna Stone, is a loving mother and wife, but also a strong woman, an active participant in her community, a woman with feelings and a sense of humor. According to many of Reed's friends and family, Reed shared many similarities to the character that she portrayed on screen, implying that the fictional Donna Stone was a near-identical copy of Reed herself.
In a 2008 interview, Paul Petersen (Jeff Stone) stated:
["The Donna Reed Show"] depicts a better time and place. It has a sort of level of intelligence and professionalism that is sadly lacking in current entertainment products. The messages it sent out were positive and uplifting. The folks you saw were likable, the family was fun, the situations were familiar to people. It provided 22-and-a-half-minutes of moral instructions and advice on how to deal with the little dilemmas of life. Jeff and Mary and their friends had all the same problems that real kids in high school did.
Petersen continued,
That's what the show was really about, the importance of family. That's where life's lessons are transmitted, generation to generation. There's a certain way in which these are transmitted, with love and affection.
Plot.
Episodes revolve around the lightweight and humorous sorts of situations and problems a middle-class family experienced in the late 1950s and the early 1960s set in fictional Hilldale, state never mentioned.
Donna, for example, would sometimes find herself swamped with the demands of community theatricals and charity drives; Mary had problems juggling boyfriends and finding dresses to wear to one party or another; and Jeff was often caught in situations appropriate to his age and gender such as joining a secret boys' club, avoiding love-smitten classmates, or bidding at auction on an old football uniform.
Alex was the family's Rock of Gibraltar, but often found himself in situations that tested his patience: in one episode, Donna volunteered him as the judge of a baby contest, and, in another episode, Mary insisted her gawky, geeky boyfriend was the spitting image of her father. Very occasionally eccentric relatives would descend on the Stones to complicate the household situation.
Production.
David Tucker writes in "The Women Who Made Television Funny" that most family sitcoms of the 1950s such as "Father Knows Best", "The Life of Riley", and "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" focus on the father figure with the mother as "adjunct". He points out however that "The Donna Reed Show" "established the primacy of the mother on the domestic front" and notes that "Mother Knows Better" was even briefly considered as the show's title. Though "The Donna Reed Show" did sometimes use recycled "Father Knows Best" scripts that had been slightly altered, such as character name changes.
The series was created by William Roberts and developed by Reed and her then husband, producer Tony Owen (the production company "Todon" is an amalgamation of their first names.) Roberts intended the show to respectfully picture the many demanding roles a stay-at-home woman was expected to master - wife, mom, companion, housekeeper, cook, laundress, seamstress, PTA officer, choir singer, scout leader, etc. - all the while being "effervescent, immaculate, and pretty." Reed stated, "We started breaking rules right and left. We had a female lead, for one thing, a strong, healthy woman. We had a story line told from a woman's point of view that wasn't soap opera." In addition, Reed described her show, accordingly: "I would call "The Donna Reed Show" a realistic picture of small town life - with an often humorous twist. Our plots revolve around the most important thing in America — a loving family."
In its first year on the struggling ABC network, the show was up against Milton Berle's popular "Texaco Star Theater" and "Reed" ratings were low. ABC nearly cancelled the show, but it was renewed and ratings improved when the show was moved from Wednesday to Thursday nights. The series flourished for the next seven years, ranking #30 in 1961-62 and #16 in 1963–64. In a 1964 interview, Reed said, "We have proved on our show that the public really does want to see a healthy woman, not a girl, not a neurotic, not a sexpot...I am so fed up with immature 'sex' and stories about kooky, amoral, sick women."
The opening credits showed Reed coming down the stairs to answer the telephone. She hands the receiver to Alex, then goes to the front door to hand the children their bag lunches and schoolbooks as they leave for school. Alex then leaves, kissing his wife good-bye. On some opening themes, he forgets to kiss Donna good-bye, but returns as she closes the door to give her a quick kiss. She closes the door and smiles happily. A late series variant showed Donna departing after her husband, possibly for shopping, church or community matters, or some other concern. Reed brought personal friends Esther Williams, Jimmy Hawkins, and Buster Keaton to the program in guest spots.
On February 1, 1962, Fabares debuted her single "Johnny Angel" in the episode "Donna's Prima Donna". It rose to #1 and sold over a million copies. Petersen introduced his single "My Dad" eight months later on October 25, 1962. It peaked at #6.
By 1962 Reed felt the writers were running out of fresh ideas and had exhausted plot devices. She also wanted to spend more time with her family and was worn out from producing nearly 30 episodes a year. To coincide with Fabares's plans to leave at the end of season 5 (1962-1963), Reed and her husband decided to end the show. Since the series was still very popular ABC offered Reed a more lucrative contract with an extension of three seasons, to which she agreed. Their new contract called for fewer episodes and other incentives to allow Reed more personal time.
Beginning in Season 6 there was a reduction in the number of episodes produced, and work hours were shortened to please Reed. In the spring of 1966, Reed had grown tired of the weekly grind and wanted to retire. The program was rated #89 during its final season. After 275 episodes and eight seasons on ABC, "The Donna Reed Show" ended its prime-time run. Reed expressed no interest in taking on another series, declined television guest appearances, and shunned films because she thought their depictions of women vapid.
She did express interest in a television reunion for the Stone family at one point, but the concept was discarded after Carl Betz's death in 1978. Tucker writes that women's lib supporters of the 1970s targeted the Donna Stone character as an unrealistic portrait of a modern woman and a stereotype of the impossibly perfect wife and mother. He believes that Reed "gave motherhood a tinge of glamour it usually lacked on TV".
Cast changes.
In season 5, (1963) Mary departed for college, reducing Fabares's appearances, something which continued yearly with her role becoming a minor character. Fabares left the full-time cast to pursue opportunities in films. She eventually returned seven times for guest appearances (Season 6 episodes 8, 11, 14; Season 7 episodes 5, 15, 30; Season 8 episode 13). Following Fabares's departure, Petersen's real-life sister Patty Petersen joined the show as Trisha, a runaway orphan eventually adopted by the Stones. The program achieved its highest Nielsen ratings in Season 6, reaching #16 after Fabares' departure. A possible reason for higher ratings was the addition of new characters, Ann McCrea and disc jockey-turned actor Bob Crane as the Stones' neighbors, Midge and Dave Kelsey. This not only provided both Donna and Alex with best friends, but co-conspirators, as well. So popular were their roles that by the fall of 1964, both McCrea and Crane began receiving billing in the opening credits of the program. Crane left the series in 1965 to star in the CBS sitcom "Hogan's Heroes". As a result, he was written out of the show although his character continued to be referred to and McCrea's character remained with the program. Also, towards the end of the series, actor Darryl Richard was regularly featured as Jeff Stone's best friend, Morton "Smitty" Smith. Richard first appeared in 1962 and "Smitty" became a major character after Season 6. Janet Landgard was a series regular from 1963-1965 as Karen Holmby.
Characters and cast.
Guest stars.
"The Donna Reed Show" featured several celebrity guest stars appearing as themselves during its eight-year run. Baseball player Don Drysdale appeared in four episodes while Willie Mays appeared in three episodes and Leo Durocher once. Musician Harry James and singers Tony Martin and Lesley Gore appeared as themselves. Gore was featured in the series' finale, "By-Line--Jeff Stone", on March 19, 1966. Lassie and film director George Sidney appear as themselves in the 1961 episode "The Stones Go To Hollywood". The episode plugged Sidney's then current feature film, "Pepe", in which Reed made a cameo appearance. Teen heartthrob James Darren guest starred as a pop singer with the measles.
Silent film comedian Buster Keaton guest starred in two episodes, "A Very Merry Christmas" (December 24, 1958) as Charlie, a hospital janitor who brings gifts to the children's ward, and "Now You See It, Now You Don't" (1965). Child actor Charles Herbert also had a recurring guest role in four episodes as David Barker, a runaway child whom the Stones assist. In the 1960 crossover episode "Donna Decorates", Jay North appeared with his "Dennis the Menace" co-star, Joseph Kearns as Mr. George Wilson. Esther Williams guest starred as Molly, a fashion designer and friend of Donna's who is herself about to marry a doctor in "The Career Woman" (1960). In real life, Williams and Reed had been close friends since the early 1940s, when they were rising MGM contract stars.
Several actors guest starred numerous times in different roles including Richard Deacon, Gale Gordon, Harvey Korman, Miyoshi Umeki, Doodles Weaver, and Dick Wilson.
As Fabares co-starred in the Mickey Mouse Club serial before the Donna Reed Show, four other Annette co-stars (Deacon, Cheryl Holdridge, Doreen Tracey & Mary Wickes) would also make respective guest appearances on this show.
Other notable guest stars include:
Syndication.
The series was originally syndicated by Screen Gems, and, later, Columbia Pictures Television and Sony Pictures Television. In 2008, Sony lost the full rights to the estates of Donna Reed and Tony Owen.
Reruns aired on Nick at Nite from 1985 through 1994 and on TV Land from 2002 through 2004.
MeTV began airing reruns of the show (seasons 1 through 5) starting in September 2011.
In 2017 Decades began airing the show as part of their daytime "Through The Decades" lineup.
As at 2018, the first five seasons of the show are available on Amazon Prime Video in the US and Canada and on Tubi.
Home media.
For a limited time in 2004, General Mills offered a DVD of two episodes inside boxes of Total cereal and Oatmeal Crisp. Virgil Films and Entertainment (under license from the estates of Donna Reed and Tony Owen) released the first three seasons of the show on DVD in Region 1. Virgil also released a four-episode "best of" DVD on April 13, 2010.
On December 17, 2010, it was announced that MPI Home Video had acquired the rights to release seasons 4 and 5 of "The Donna Reed Show". Season 4 was subsequently released on December 20, 2011 and Season 5 was released on December 4, 2012.
On September 30, 2014, MPI Home Video re-released the first season on DVD. Season 2 was re-released on March 24, 2015. Season 3 was re-released on June 30, 2015.
The show's sixth, seventh, and eighth (the final) seasons are yet to be released on DVD.