Amazon Prime is streaming a lot of old sitcoms from the 1960s: The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, The Lucy Show, Dennis the Menace. I can't wait for them to get around to Hazel (1961-66), with Shirley Booth as the maid for a middle-class family. Not because I loved it. Because it gives me a visceral sense of foreboding and dread, as if something is not right. And I want to find out why.
I was only five years old when the program ended, so I don't recall more than a few snippets of episodes. Maybe the premise itself is not right?
.In the 1960s, middle-class households did not have live-in servants. Single fathers might have a nanny. Hazel is a bizarre throwback to an earlier generation.
There are two types of servants on tv: heartwarming nannies who bring joie de vivre to sullen children (like Fran on The Nanny and "Charles in Charge"); and sarcastic maids who skewer their boss's pretentions (like Florence on The Jeffersons). But Hazel is neither.
Accoding to the episode synopses, Hazel doesn't behave like a servant at all: she gets a job at a department store; she publishes a cookbook and goes on tour; a talent scout hears her musical group perform; she takes a job as a spokesperson for a cake mix. When does she have time for cleaning the house? Why does she stay a maid, instead of embarking on a career as an actress or singer?
Hazel actually works for two families. During the first four seasons, lawyer George Baxter (Don DeFore), his wife Dorothy (an interior designer), and their son Harold (Bobby Buntrock).
I tried to research whether Don DeFore was gay, but only discovered that he was married several times and a staunch Republican who worked on the Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964 ("In your gut you know he's nuts.")
Bobby Buntrock retired from acting after Hazel, and died in an auto accident in 1974, at the age of 21. I couldn't find out if he was gay, either.
In the last season, the network wanted to appeal to a younger audience, so they axed George and Dorothy, sending them off to Iraq (without informing the actors), and gave Hazel and Harold to a younger family: George's brother, real estate agent Steve Baxter (Ray Fulmer), his wife Barbara, and their young daughter Susie.
Ray Fulmer has only a few acting credits on IMDB, notably a 17-episode arc on the soap opera Somerset and the 1963 movie Wild is My Love, about three college boys who fall for a stripper.
None of this sounds very appealing, but it doesn't explain the visceral dread. Granted, the snippets of episodes that I remember would be very scary for a five-year old:
1. Some poisonous mushrooms accidentally ended up in the supermarket. Some worried-looking government guys complain that not all of the packages have been returned; one is missing. Whoever bought it doesn't listen to the radio or read the newspaper. Cut to Hazel, turning off the radio and throwing out the newspaper as she prepares the mushrooms that will kill everyone.
2. Hazel is tied to a conveyor belt that will carry her through a claw machine to her death. Her hunky, much younger boyfriend arrives in the nick of time, stops the machine, and unties her. They hug.
But I have found neither of those scenes in the episode synopses, or in the complete acting credits of Shirley Boothe (in case I made a mistake). Hazel has a boyfriend in only four episodes, and it's the middle aged Mitch (Dub Taylor), not the young hunk of my memory.
Maybe that's the reason behind my dread. I was peering into another universe, where Hazel was an action/adventure series, not an outdated sitcom about a maid.
Must be a millennial thing, growing up with a Democratic Party far to the right of Goldwater. ("It's all an asylum now.") The funny thing is, many Indians liked Goldwater, but yeah, talk about how best to deploy nukes is an instant disqualifier for POTUS.
ReplyDeleteI don't think middle-class families ever had live-in servants. Like, even rich families had a babysitter (employed as needed), a cleaning lady (about an hour or two a day unless you love in a 60-room mansion), a landscaper (four hours a week, tops, seasonal work), a cook (six hours a day, tops, but they are broken up into chunks), a personal trainer (an hour a day), a tutor (an hour and a half a day), and an exterminator (as needed). Then you get really boutique things like personal shopper and dog walker.
I think it was a throwback to the pre-World War 2 years, or even the 19th century, when everything had to be done by hand, so if you were poor, you lived in an extended household, and if you were rich or middle-class, you had servants. The series is based on single-panel comics that appeared in "THe Saturday Evening Post" beginning in 1943.
DeletePop culture is often archaic. Examples:
DeleteBatman has a live-in servant. This has recently been justified by having him be a war buddy of Thomas Wayne, and it's not even a money thing: Alfred was apparently even more loaded than Bruce. Dick, by the way, has moved from Dr facto son to "being adopted would insult my father" under Marv Wolfman to adopted for real. (My headcanon involved "special friends", MI-5, and the Court of Owls. Alfred never stopped pretending to be a servant. You can even have the Court being worried about Thomas singing, so some subtle manipulation and suddenly he and Martha are in Park Row staring down the barrel of Joe Chill's gun.)
Many, MANY things like office romances and twentysomethings dating their professors look awful in the wake of #MeToo.
There are still stories of American boys dreading the locker room shower; schools have legally been unable to force kids to shower since 1990.
Then you have the flip side. Suburbs are not models of racial harmony; real estate agents will still deny a house is for sale. Banks are very racist about lending, or even location. Try to find these things on TV, even a show about black characters.
At the same time, period pieces are selective. Interbellum settings won't have bachelor culture or mentioning circle jerks (common among adolescent boys) or the Princeton rub (common among college boys).
It would make more sense if the family was wealthy
ReplyDeleteGeorge Baxter was a respected lawyer for a respected firm, and I actually wondered why they lived in such a middle class house. In one episode he is on the short list for a judgeship, and I believe in another episode he makes partner. The house in the 5th season is actually more glamorous, with the Ray Fulmer's character owning a small real estate company. Available sets.
ReplyDeleteI watched the bulk of Hazel roughly 10 years ago on Antenna TV, and it never gave me a sense of dread. Antenna TV apparently feels the same way and recently ran a Hazel marathon on Mother's Day. I find it sweet and naive and TV "comfort food".
You must be confusing Hazel with something else. IIRC, the trickiest situation Hazel ever found herself in was when she drove cross country to help a fellow maid whose house was taken over by gangsters. In the end Hazel won by spiking their food with a sleeping agent. They never had a chance.
I'm sure that the two episode snippets I remember were sfrom something else, since I can't find any reference in the episode synopses. But what were they, and how did they get connected to "Hazel"? "Kraft Suspense Theater" and "Run for Your Life" came on immediately after "Hazel." Maybe my parents were watching those, I caught a glimpse when I got out of bed for some reason, and got confused.
DeleteI totally remember Hazel conveyor belt episode. I was five or six, and the scene was indeed frightening. I don’t think I ever saw the mushroom episode. But you definitely were not imagining Hazel tied to a conveyor belt headed for a rotating saw with “death claws” and getting rescued at the last minute. Such an odd idea for a sixties sitcom!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only person who remembers the conveyor belt scene. Near-death situations were indeed rare on 1960s sitcoms. The only other one I remember is when Mr. and Mrs. Howell on Gilligan's Island have been captured by savage Pacific Islanders, who raise their knives to kill them just as Gilligan comes to the rescue.
DeleteHow old was Bobby Buntrock when the show ended?
DeleteI don't know, I never saw it . Early teens, maybe?
DeletePerhaps you are remembering the 1963 show 'Grindl', with Imogene Coca as somone doing temp domestic work for different employers each week It was a half hour comedy, but the plots involved crime elements. The plot synopses on Wikipedia do not mention mushrooms, though.
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. I turned 3 in November 1963, so I don't remember anything. Well, the assassination of President Kennedy, but that might be retconning from later descriptions.
DeleteIt is tragic that Bobby Buntrock died at such a young age. I, to, have wondered if he was gay.
ReplyDelete