A SERIES WITH THE VALUES WE SHOULD STILL HAVE

Kirasjeri

In an age of tawdry and cynical TV sitcoms filled with double-entendres and self-absorption, this was one of the best of the Fifties family shows. Billy Gray later became bitter that when he was arrested as an adult on some marijuana charge no one from the show helped him (assuming they knew). But that says more about Gray's own family's problems. Of course they were actors; Elinor Donahue was married and divorced in real life while the series was still running. "Kitten" had a dismal real life as an adult that has been well-accounted. But so what? The values of responsible behavior, caring for others, and consideration were there for all to see. I remember the exhausted father one black and rainy night searching with a flashlight for a doll "Kitten" had lost. He found it. The family love was always there. Robert Young eventually quit the show as he had been doing it for a decade including the radio version; he was tired of the role. But it remained very popular into many reruns throughout the Sixties and a few "reunions", the first in 1975. Why is there so much rudeness, lack of civility, and self-concern today? In part because shows like this were replaced by the smutty, cruel, dreck on so much of TV today.

score /10

Kirasjeri 13 August 1999

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0051019/