I Married Joan

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I Married Joan, a 1952-1955 television situation comedy on NBC, starred veteran vaudeville, film, and radio comedienne Joan Davis (1907-1961) as the scatterbrained, manic wife of mild-mannered community judge Bradley Stevens (Jim Backus), whose court sessions weren't quite as absurd as the situations presented by his wife, who got the couple into and out of numerous whacky jams, with or without the help of her younger sister (played by Davis's real-life daughter, Beverly Wills).

The show announced itself each week, during a lull in its a cappella opening theme (sung by the Roger Wagner Chorale), as "America's favorite comedy show, starring America's queen of comedy, Joan Davis, as Mrs. Joan Stevens." The episodes usually began with Backus as Judge Stevens recalling yet another merry mishap, followed by the unfolding of the mishap, and ending with Stevens summing it up.

I Married Joan aimed at the same audience making a hit out of I Love Lucy, a year older and already the top-rated situation comedy in television. Davis was a gifted physical and verbal comedienne, but the show never rated higher than third in any significant television market. It lasted three full seasons in first-run production before it falling victim to weakening ratings.

Various retrospectives of the show have suggested Joan Davis did it as much to help secure her daughter's as well as her own financial future; Davis herself did very little show business work after the series ended, beyond shooting an occasional television pilot, before her unexpected death of heart failure in 1961. In a bizarre postscript, Wills, her children, and Davis's mother were all killed in a house fire two years later.

In the early 1980s, American cable television viewers were slightly surprised to see I Married Joan once again: the CBN cable network bought the old episodes and began showing them, in 1982-83, in a late-night block that included another ancient TV sitcom, Gale Storm's legendary My Little Margie. This resurrection of I Married Joan remained on the air almost as long as the show had lived in the first place.

The show is now said to be seen in scattered viewings on small, localised television stations, while copies of Davis's radio work of the 1940s remain in circulation among collectors. The PAX network airs this program on its secondary over-the-air digital feed along with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

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