The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Parke Levy

Theme music written by Eliot Daniel

NOTE: This series was adapted from the CBS radio series of the same name that aired 1952-1953

34-31-30-31-31

• 001. Lily Ruskin Arrives – 10/4/1954
  • Matt Henshaw (Dean Miller) is an architect who works for Gordon & Co. Architects living in Westwood, California, with his wife Ruth (Frances Rafferty). Matt prepares to meet his widow mother-in-law Lily Ruskin (Spring Byington), who is arriving from Philadelphia for a visit. His friend and neighbor Pete Porter (Harry Morgan), who is constantly complaining about his wife Gladys, comes with the Henshaws to train station to meet Lily, and warns Matt that her ‘visit’ could turn into years. Matt hasn’t seen Lily for five years since the wedding, but remembers her as a wonderful person. She arrives with a man named Gus Warner (Harry Cheshire) whom she met on the train and has already proposed to her. Matt takes a disliking to him when he starts borrowing money for Matt and never picking up the check when they go out to eat. When Gus gives Lily an expensive ring, Pete and Matt begin to suspect that he committed a recent jewelry store robbery. Matt starts to question Gus to find out what he does for a living. Before he can answer, he needs to take a phone call, and asks to be excused. In reality he is buying stock in steel, but when Matt, Ruth, and Lily overhear his end, it sounds as if he is trying to unload stolen merchandise. Gus asks Lily for the ring back so he can have it ensured, but Lily steals it back and takes it to Police Lieutenant Morgan (Moroni Olsen), who confirms that it is stolen. However back home, Gus is panicking because the ring is missing, and shows Matt the bill of sale for the ring that cost $3200. Matt and Ruth and Gus meet them at the station. It turns out that it was them that had reported the ring stolen. It all leads to a big fight between Warner and the family, and he and Lily call the engagement off. Matt is apologetic, but Lily says that she could never marry a man with a temper like that. Lieutenant Morgan comes to pick up Lily for a date. Sam McDaniel is the train porter. 1/19/20

• 005. The Veterinarian – 11/1/1954
  • Lily wants to return to Philadelphia, but Matt wants her to stay and thinks that she simply lacks male companionship. He decides to arrange a fancy dinner and invite over a doctor named Dr. Charlie Nelson (Ralph Dumke) who he just met. In order to get Lily out of the house while they prepare, he sends her to the Emporium where she has been frequently shopping without buying anything. Meanwhile at the Emporium, the manager Mr. Wilson (Rolfe Sedan) expresses concern to salesman Mr. Harper (Raymond Greenleaf) that many customers are browsing without buying. This time Lily buys a ten-cent package of pins and asks to have them delivered. Harper decides to deliver them himself. Dr. Nelson turns out to be a veterinarian and tells his assistant Jim (Ralph Montgomery) that he is going to a dinner, but that he refuses to be ‘hooked’ into marriage, but will play along. Before the dinner, Harper arrives with the pins and some flowers for Lily. She invites him in and soon Nelson arrives, and the two compete for her attention. While Matt tries to push for Nelson since he thinks he’s a doctor, Lily seems to prefer Harper and invites him to stay for dinner. Pete offers to feign an arm injury, which gets Nelson to assist him, while Matt tells Harper that the dinner is cancelled. Nelson tends to Pete but treats him like a dog. When Nelson gets a call from his exchange describing a patient, they finally realize that Nelson is a vet. Lily vows to return to the store since one of her pins was bent. 1/19/20
• 010. The Gigolo – 12/6/1954
  • Hilda has been taking mambo lessons from a man named Renaldo Carlos Montez (Fortunio Bonanova), who is currently only giving private lessons but hopes to find an investor to help fund his own school. Much to Lily’s surprise, she learns that Hilda is actually dating him and that he is only forty-one years old. She starts to become even more suspicious when she learns that Hilda is paying for all of their dates. Meanwhile, Matt has entered Lily in a “Mother of the Month” contest in the Westwood Gazette. Matt thinks she is a shoo-in as he is going to be bowling with the editor Dan Winters (Ray Walker). Pete stops by to show Matt and Ruth the sweater that Gladys had been knitting, which is now unraveled completely thanks to the dog. Lily concerns her concerns about Renaldo, and they all agree that he is a gigolo. Pete goes a step further and thinks he might be a fortune hunter after her money to finance his dance studio. Lily goes over to warn her, but she won’t listen and heads out for a date with Renaldo. Before Lily leaves, she sees that Lily has made a note to withdraw $2000 from her account, which is actually to buy bonds. Lily goes and sees the bank manager, Mr. T. Wagner (Tris Coffin) to see if he can stop her from taking out her money. However, he tells her that he would be unable to do so but tells her that she might want to consider investigating the situation further. This gives Lily the idea to take a mambo lesson from Renaldo. She tells Hilda that she needs her to come to the house right away. When Hilda arrives, she is resistant to the idea and thinks Lily is moving in on her man. Nevertheless, she manages get Hilda to hide behind a screen in the living room and listen to Lily and Renaldo. After Lily mentions being filthy rich, suddenly Renaldo starts making passes at Lily. Hilda is furious and chases him out the door screaming, just as Matt and Pete return with Dan Winters, who sees the chaos erupting. Eventually, Lily explains everything, and Dan tells her that he is going to make her “Mother of the Month” after all, as well as enlisting her help him with an article about men who try to con wealthy ladies out of their money. 7/20/24
• 018. The Uranium Show – 1/31/1955
  • As Pete practices his magic, Lily announces that she and Hilda are still trying to decide on their vacation destination, as Hilda wants to go to Palm Springs and Lily would prefer Big Bear. Matt joking suggest that they go to the desert to look for uranium, and to his surprise Lily thinks it is a great idea. Hilda thinks it is crazy as well, but quickly jumps onboard anyway when she realizes how much money should could make. Matt doesn’t think they’ll last all week and tells Ruth that he will buy her a fur coat if they stay the entire week. Pete gets in the action and bets Ruth some money as well. Sure enough the ladies call two days later and announce they are coming home. When they arrive, they shock everyone by telling them that they did in fact find uranium. In fact the plot of land next to their discovery was worth 20 million dollars. Reporter Freddy Sherman (Fred Sherman) from the Westwood Gazette stops by upon their arrival to do a story on them, which Hilda uses to her full advantage to try and find a husband. Lily begins spending money on furnishing the house and buying Ruth a few coat. Matt seems very down about the whole thing, and confesses to Pete that he had always wanted to be able to buy his wife things, instead of relying on Lily’s money. Unfortunately when Mr. Clinton (Tyler McVey) from an investment firm comes to the house, he has to tell them that the amount of uranium on the location wasn’t even worth enough to merit mining it. Lily takes the news in stride and repairs to return everything that she bought. Matt however insists that Ruth keep the fur coat she had always wanted. Lily has to break the news to Hilda, who has already received 18 proposals since the stories hit the papers. 8/15/20
• 019. The Insurance Show – 2/7/1955
  • Lily calls home and tells Ruth she is going to be late because she had some trouble at a jewelry store. She had bumped her head on the low awning outside the store. She wasn’t hurt outside of a small bump, but Hilda, who was with her, was upset that she wasn’t able to use the first aid course in civilian defense that she is taking to help Lily. Since the jewelry store uses Delta Insurance, where Pete works, as their provider, he tells Lily that they will doubtlessly have a man over to issue her a settlement. Lily insists that she doesn’t want any money out of the incident, nor does she want to sign any paperwork. Sure enough, the adjustor Mr. Jenkins (James Todd) comes by, and she tells him the same thing. She also mentions that the last time she signed something that she wound up with a closetful of Spanish novels. She also feels that people should trust each other rather than relying on their signatures. When Pete gets wind of this, he feels that Lily misunderstood what was being asked of her, so he brings the paper back to have her sign it the next morning before he and Matt are scheduled to play golf. Matt insists that if Lily doesn’t want to sign the paper, then she doesn’t have to. When Pete insults anyone using this poor nonsensical judgment, the two get into an argument and stop speaking to each other. Lily feels terrible and says she will sign it if it means they can be friends again. Matt is upset about the fight but thinks that Pete is stubborn and selfish, but when a new fishing rod arrives that Pete had made a special trip to Tacoma from Seattle to buy when he was on a business trip two weeks earlier. Meanwhile, Pete is also depressed over the fight, and his boss Bill Emerson (Frank Wilcox) tells Pete that he shouldn’t have got involved in this case since he was friends and neighbors with Lily and the family. Matt and Pete make up immediately, while Mr. Emerson volunteers to finish out the case. When he calls Lily to make an appointment, telling her that Pete wasn’t the right man for this job, she assumes that Pete might be fired if they think he was too incompetent to get her signature. She has Hilda use her first aid skills to wrap her up in bandages and put her in a wheelchair, so that she can tell Emerson that she had a valid reason not to sign the release forms. Emerson is naturally concerned when he sees this and offers to bring in their physicians to have her checked out. She starts to get worried about this, and then at the same time, Matt and Pete return home and see her all bandaged up. When Pete realizes she had done all of this to try and save his job, he is quick to kiss her on the cheek in appreciation. 11/1/23
• 031. The Line-Up – 5/2/1955
  • During breakfast, Pete stops by to tell everyone how his mother-in-law bought them a freezer. Hilda stops by and tells everyone about the crush she has on her dentist. Lily tells Hilda that she wants to surprise Matt and Ruth by having their furniture reupholstered. Hilda recommends an upholsterer, but since he doesn’t pick up the furniture, they need to arrange to have a mover take it to him. In order to accomplish this, Lily begins trying to get Matt and Ruth to leave town for Coronado for the weekend. She tries to convince Ruth that she looks pale and sickly, but Ruth isn’t buying it. Then she has Hilda offer Lily a trip to San Francisco to visit Hilda’s sister, but Ruth says she can’t go as she will worry about Ruth being ill. Ruth doesn’t want to see her pass on the opportunity, so she tells her mother that she will take Matt to Coronado if it means Lily can go on the trip worry-free. Matt isn’t happy about being forced to take the trip, but Ruth then tells him privately that they will only go for a long drive Saturday morning, and then once Lily is gone, they can return to the house. On that morning, while Matt and Ruth are out driving, Lily arranges to have a moving man (Norman Leavitt) come over and help load up the furniture. When Matt and Ruth return, they find their furniture gone, so they report it to the police as a burglary. An officer (Jack Lomas) picks up Lily and brings her back to the station to face Captain Moulihan (John Gallaudet). Lily tries to convince them that Matt Henshaw is her son-in-law, but she cannot get through to them where she thinks they are in Coronado. Lily tells them to call Hilda since she orchestrated everything, but the police wind up arresting Hilda as an accomplice. Lily is put into a police line-up where a strange poultry shop owner (Lester Dorr) accuses her of robbing his place. They then bring in Hilda, and he fingers her as the accomplice. Finally, Matt and Ruth come to the station to identify their furniture and end up finding out that Lily has been arrested. Pete also shows up at the station and the poultry shop owner then accuses him of being part of the robbery. Once everything is straightened out and everyone is back home, Captain Moulihan stops by the house and tells them that while they were in the lineup, the furniture that they had recovered from Lily was stolen out of their trailer. 3/10/24
• 032. The Other Couple – 5/9/1955
  • Lily is getting ready to deliver a speech to her women’s club on the empowerment of women, which gets Matt and Ruth discussing why she doesn’t have a joint checking account with Matt. He says that they agreed to have him handle the money and for her to get an allowance when they got married, and he doesn’t want to budge on that. Meanwhile, Lily has befriended a new member of the club named Ann Novak (Jean Howell), who has lately been arguing with her husband Bill (Robert Hutton) about the fact that Ann wants her mother to move in with them. Not knowing that Matt and Ruth are fighting, she invites the Novaks to come over for a visit after dinner. Although they are still fighting, when Lily tells them the reason why she asked them over, both Matt and Ruth agree to be as nice as can be to one another. During their visit, Matt and Ruth exchanges a few jabs privately, but to the Novaks, it appears that everyone in the family gets along terrifically. They also spread it on about how much Lily helps them around the house. However, when the subject of having a joint checking account coms up, it is all they can do to not argue. When Pete comes over to tell them something about his mother-in-law, they shove cookies in his mouth to keep them quiet. Once he is able to talk, he tells them that she brought over fifty pounds of meat to put in the new freezer that she bought for them. Bill decides that he and Ann need to leave so that they can go put in a long-distance call to Ann’s mother and invite her to stay with them. After they leave, they all tell Pete what a relief it was that he said kind things about his mother-in-law. However, he thinks she only brought the meat because she felt guilty about giving them the freezer and sticking Pete with the next thirty payments on it. The next morning, Matt gives Ruth a present: a fountain pen with a note that says the pen is to write checks on their new checking account. 7/20/24

SEASON 2

• 038. Ruth Neglects Matt – 10/24/1955
  • Ruth has been spending all of her time working for volunteer opportunities and charity work to the point that Matt is starting to get irritated. Angering him even more is when she tells him she’ll have to skip the movie with him one night because her work has made her too busy. Hilda hears through the grapevine that originated with a manicurist overhearing Pete and Matt discuss his annoyance at the barber shop, and she tells Lily that Matt is planning to leave work. She also tells Lily that Matt is angry at her as well as it is her doing the housework that is enabling Ruth to have the time to do so much work away from home. When Lily hears this, she decides that she might put a stop to everything by pretending that she sprained her wrist so that she can no longer do the housework. However, when Ruth hears about the sprain, instead of coming back home to do the work herself, she tells her mother to hire a housekeeper using her allowance money. Lily decides to hire a model with an attractive figure as the housekeeper in order for Ruth to get jealous and want to come back home. When Matt comes home and finds out that there is a housekeeper in the kitchen who will be making dinner that night for Lily and him, he blows his top and tells Lily that he is going to fire her immediately, then makes arrangements to eat at Pete’s house. However, once she gets a look at this housekeeper named Lily (Joi Lansing), he decides to stay home and eat her dinner. Even Pete now wants to abandon Gladys and have dinner with Matt. Although he finds Linda attractive, Matt still wants Ruth to be back home. He and Pete then figure out what Lily’s plan is, and Matt decides to give the plan a little push. When Ruth stops at home and sees how attractive the housekeeper is, Matt makes sure to decline to go bowling with Pete in front of Ruth, claiming that he and Linda are going to assist with stamping and sealing envelopes that Ruth had asked him to do. Ruth lingers around, too afraid to leave Matt and Linda together, and it is made even worse when Hilda comes over and invites Lily to see a Rudolph Valentino movie. Ruth then suddenly calls one of her committee members and asks that they give her assignments that she can do from home. Matt welcomes her back, secure in the fact that Lily’s plan had worked as expected. Matt later asks Lily what would have happened to her plan had Ruth not decided to stay home, and Lily tells him that she would have been joining them in licking the stamps. 7/2/23
• 039. The Shoplifter – 10/31/1955
  • Matt talks to Fred de Cordova (Fritz Feld) and gets Lily a job as a social director for the Parkside Country Club, but she loses the job before she even stars when she is a witness to a shoplifter at Bentley’s department store and the local newspaper The Westwood Gazette mixes up the names and identifies Lily as the shoplifter. Lily phones the publisher Mr. Black (Roy Roberts) and demands a retraction, and he agrees to let her write her own retraction. In the meantime, Lily is forced out of her social club by Elsie Pringle (Almira Sessions) and Madeline (Gail Bonney), and is told by Mr. de Cordova that she can’t start work until the retraction is published. Lily then realizes that she has inadvertently brought home the hat that she was trying on when the shoplifting incident occurred. Now considering herself a shoplifter, she asks the paper not to make the retraction… and ends up losing her job again. After narrowly escaping being caught with the hat by Bentley’s detective Mr. Flynn (Russell Trent), Hilda grabs the hat and returns it quietly to Bentley’s. Mr. Black visits Lily to try and understand why she doesn’t want him to print the retraction, and when she tells him the story, he finds her and her writing so interesting that he gives her a job with the paper writing her own column Laughing at Life with Lily. 11/20/17
• 044. Family Quarrel – 12/5/1955
  • Matt and Pete each enter an essay contest on the topic What I Think of My Mother-in-Law, but while Matt’s is heartfelt and kind, Pete’s offers only backhanded compliments. Matt sends him on his way to try harder. Hilda discovers the backhanded note that Pete had written and reads it to Lily, which nearly breaks her heart since she thinks Matt has written it about her. She tells Matt that she read the letter, and assuming it was his actual letter, he tells her that he meant every word of it. Lily decides to move out, but knowing the kids won’t hear of it out of a sense of duty, she tries to irritated them by starching Matt’s shirts, and criticizing Ruth’s driving and Matt’s spending, but neither irritates the kids in the silence. Shen then opens their house to housing her friends’ animals for a wildlife exhibit her club is having. Matt is initially irritated but then decides that it might be fun. Lily gets angry about Matt’s kindness and storms out. On her way out she runs into Mr. Flagg (Joseph Forte) from The Daily Tribune to tell her that she has won a trip to Paris because of the essay. She finally reads the real letter and realized that she has goofed. Pete stops by and announces that Gladys thought that Matt’s note was written by him, and talks his mother-in-law to staying another year. Madge Blake is Anita Henderson. 11/16/17
• 045. High Sierras – 12/12/1955
  • Matt and Ruth help Lily and Hilda get ready for their camping trip in the High Sierra mountains. Also vacationing in a cabin in the area is actor Dan Duryea (himself) and his director Charlie (Douglas Fowley), hoping to get away from work, reporters, and fans. Charlie marks their supply as bourbon to prevent the caretake from drinking it. Soon their quiet time is interrupted when Lily and Hilda pitch their tent right near their cabing and come to the door asking to borrow sugar. The men give the false names Horace and Eustice, but the girls think one of the resembles actor Duryea. After the ladies leave, the men decide to run them off by pretending to be gangsters on the lam, recreating a scene from a picture they did. They head out to hunt, and leave the girls behind, warning them to leave and keep their mouth shut. Lily uses the short wave radio to call for help, but she keeps getting mistaken for a ship called the S.S. Lily Ruskin. News of these ‘crank’ calls even makes it back home to Matt and Ruth, who are working with Pete to learn the cha-cha. The ladies discover Duryea’s monogrammed lighter, and realize that his is indeed the actor. They decide to get even by making them some soup, and then telling them that they put the rat poison they found in it. Since the guys know it is actually bourbon, they drink some of it straight from the bottle and pretend that they want their lives to end sooner, but then break down laughing. Based on the short-wave calls, a police officer finally shows up, and the ladies pretend that the men kidnapped them. Lily agrees to tell the truth if Duryea gives her an interview. Once the trip is over, the ladies return home, and Lily is thrilled with her interview. Dan Duryea stops by however and tells her that he feels guilty as he has given her the life story of Richard Widmark as a gag. 5/3/20
• 048. The Trailer Show – 1/9/1956
  • Matt tells Ruth that if he gets his plans for a new supermarket approved, he can take her on a second honeymoon. They can’t agree on where to go however, with Matt wanting to go to Tahoe for some adventure, while she wants to re-create their first honeymoon in Tacoma. That afternoon Lily allows a man named Melvin Cooper (Fred Sherman) and his son Tommy (Ray Farrell) from California to use the phone since their trailer has broken down outside. Lily encourages him to let his wife Marsha (Jean Howell) to come in and wait also, and she brings in their other three boys, Bucko (Garry Stafford), Todd (Todd Farrell), and Ronnie (Ronnie Stafford), all of whom run amok all over the house, including Matt getting an ice cream cone in the face by Todd. Bucko comes down with mumps, and since neither Matt nor Ruth has had it, they go outside to wait. The start to consider using a similar trailer for their next honeymoon, so they go inside and check it out, and are soon joined by Lily and Pete. They wind up getting themselves locked in, and Matt has to bust down the door. Two mechanics (Norman Leavitt, Robert Foulk) show up to repair the trailer, followed by Matt’s client Mr. Bickford (Robert Burton), who has come to look at the prints. A police officer (James Flavin) also stops by to cite them for having the trailer parked illegally, but they leave with him to show them they actually live in the house. An angry Mr. Bickford gets locked inside and is left to look over the plans with Lily, but he enjoys her company so much that he takes a liking to the plans. Although he had originally come to glance at them and then pass, now he wants to build the supermarket after all. Before the Coopers leave, Todd shoves his ice cream cone in Matt’s face a second time. 12/1/20
• 050. The Rudy Vallee Show – 1/23/1956
  • Ruth is able to talk Matt into cutting the grass after he complains he is too tired, even though he is more than willing to golfing with Pete. Meanwhile, Lily and Hilda are out looking for a celebrity to kick off the United Council charity drive. They wind up at an auction of singer Rudy Vallee‘s (himself) belongings, and Hilda wins one of Rudy’s megaphones and a photograph and Lily gets a signed autobiography a record of My Time Is Your Time. Dan does a worthy impression of Rudy while singing My Time Is Your Time through the megaphone. Rudy is performing locally at a nightclub, and his manager (Benny Rubin) tells him about the successful auction. Rudy realizes that the record that Lily ended up with is one that he desperately wants to retrieve. He is able to track down Lily to ask for the record back and he gives her a call. However, Lily initially thinks it is Matt doing an impression of him. Once Matt walks in the room and she realizes it is really him, she offers to give the record back for free, but asks that he pose for some pictures to kick off the auction. Hilda is so excited about the prospect of meeting him, that she collapses onto the couch… and breaks the record in question. In order to ensure that he shows up for the photos, Matt and Pete work on a scheme to record a duplicate record using Matt’s voice, and then slapping on the label from the broken record. When Rudy shows up, he is greeted by Lily, Hilda, Miss Pringle (Almira Sessions), and Mrs. Miller (Cheerio Meredith), all dressed as flappers. They all engage Rudy in performing the Charleston with them. They take their photos for the charity, and then he asks for the record he came to retrieve. Lily is felling to guilty to give it to him, but then he takes it from her and smashes it. The whole reason he wanted it was because he claims he sang flat in that one particular record and hadn’t destroyed it yet. Rudy is happy to stick around and sing some old songs before he returns to his nightclub. Lily and Hilda stop by his dressing room at the nightclub to give him his reward for his help, a certificate from Lily and a kiss from Hilda. Havis Davenport is the cigarette girl. Lee Millar is Joe the photographer. 1/17/23
• 051. The Texas Show: Part 1 – 1/30/1956
  • Pete practices his magic escape act from a straitjacket and winds up stuck in it. After Matt and Ruth leave with him to get the key from his office, Lily’s friend Kitty (Louise Lorimer) stops by the house, fresh from her honeymoon with her husband George, and tells Lily that she met a rich Texan named Bill Jeffries (Lyle Talbot) on the plane, and when he saw a picture of Lily, he wanted to meet her. Lily reluctantly agrees to go on a date with him, and winds up finding him quite charming. Bill talks Lily into investing $1000 in his oil venture. Matt is already skeptical of Jeffries because he talks so big, but when he finds out about the money, he blows his stack and he and Pete pay a visit to the Jeffries’ hotel room. The hotel manager Hal Norton (Howard McNear) has offered to move Jeffries into the penthouse suite, so when Matt and Pete arrives, it looks like Jeffries is leaving. They talk like tough guys and demand Lily’s check back, and call him everything but a crook. Jeffries laughs them off and hands the check back to them. Lily feels bad that Matt thinks she was duped, but still has faith that Jeffries is on the level. Hilda comes over with the paper that has an article about Jeffries oil field venture paying off. Matt and Pete are proud of their actions, but as they hand over her check. she hands them the paper. They can’t be more apologetic, and Lily forgives them for trying to help. Jeffries comes over and insists that he was held at ‘comb-point’ by Pete, so he says he’s responsible for her money just like a bank, and that she should consider her investment still in the kitty. Lily won’t hear of it, so Jeffries insists that she and her family get to know him and come back to Texas and spend a couple of days on his ranch. Lily immediately phones to order some horseback riding lessons. NOTE: This is the first of a three-part episode. 3/25/21
• 052. The Texas Show: Part 2 – 2/6/1956
  • The Henshaws, the Porters, and Hilda are all getting ready to head to Texas along with Bill Jeffries, and Pete and Hilda both dress up as cowboys for the occasion. Matt realizes he might not be able to go, because his associate Charlie Winters, who was going to fill in for him, is expecting his wife to have a baby. Meanwhile, Bill tells Lily that his ranch foreman Steve Farrow might make a great match for Hilda, but he doesn’t like his women on the hefty side. Since Lily half-expects to receive a marriage proposal, she thinks it would be great if Hilda and Steve hit it off so that Lily can still be close to her. She decides to trick Hilda into going on a reducing plan, by telling her that Lily has been ordered to lose some weight or she won’t be allowed to go to Texas. Lily says she’ll do it if Hilda will join her. Hilda goes along with the plan, even though Lily is actually eating whole meals privately, and telling Hilda that she is exercising at home. Hilda loses ten pounds trying to help Lily out, but Lily keeps finding food hidden in Hilda’s house. When Lily leaves, Madeline comes and stays with Hilda to make sure she keeps exercising. However when Hilda finds Lily’s purse left behind containing a bagful of food. Madeline tells Hilda the truth that Lily was only trying to get Hilda to reduce. Hilda thinks that Lily is ashamed of her around Bill’s high class friends. She breaks down in tears and decides not to go. Back home, Matt finds out that Mrs. Winters had her baby, so he is finally ready to pack for the trip. When Hilda calls Lily and tells her that she’s not going and never wants to see her again, Lily feels terrible and sends Bill over to show her the telegrams from Steve to prove that Lily has been speaking highly of her. At the airport, as everyone waits for the Dallas plane, Hilda shows up and tells Lily that she’s moving to Canada to be with her daughter’s family. Lily and Bill try to talk her into coming, but she refuses… but as Hilda starts to board her plane, her suitcase falls open revealing all of her cowboy clothes. She then agrees to go along, telling Lily she was just waiting for her to ask one more time. 7/22/21
• 053. The Texas Show: Part 3 – 2/13/1956
  • Matt and Pete are having fun relaxing in Texas, although Pete is having trouble with his cowboy boots. Lily and Hilda go horseback riding, and Hilda has the ranch foreman Steve Farrow (Dick Wessel) goes riding with her and helps her on and off the horse, but Steve maintains to his boss Bill that he struggles with her weight. Lily starts to wonder about Bill when he keeps accidentally calling her by his late wife’s name Kathleen. He also has a dress sent to her for the reception party on the ranch, which also rouses her suspicion. Meanwhile Bill’s friends Bob Haggerty (Louis Nicoletti), Jim Buckner (Jack Lomas), and Bart Roger (Lou Krugman) , show up early and start playing poker, with the blinds at one and two thousands. Matt and Pete join the game, thinking that the blinds are one and two dollars. The guys enjoy the game up until the end when they are told that each of them owe $50,000. Bill and Pete go into panic mode, and try to figure out how to cover the bet. Lily starts to figure out that Bill hasn’t changed anything at the ranch since his wife died, and then also realizes that the dress he insisted that she wear is just like one that Kathleen wore. When Matt tires to talk to Bart about the misunderstanding, Bart has nearly forgotten that they haven’t paid him yet. Pete blurts out that he’ll toss them for double or nothing, and winds up winning. The boys are so relieved that the begin downing drinks from the spiked punchbowl. As Lily stares at a portrait of Kathleen, she tells Hilda that she realizes that Bill is in love with a memory, and that Bill only wants her because she looks so much like his wife. Lily asks Hilda not to say anything to the kids and spoil the party but ask her to request that the band (The Frontiersmen) play California, Here I Come. 7/22/21
• 055. The Wrestler – 2/27/1956
  • When Matt and Ruth are getting ready to see a movie with Pete and Gladys, Lily warns them that they might want to take Pete’s car because she damaged the bumper while attempting to tow two cars at once for her friends Elsie Pringle and Madeline Schweitzer. Matt comes down on her by always going overboard to help everyone when it always winds up costing him. Meanwhile, Hilda comes over and is upset that her niece Frieda (Sandra Gould) is going to leave her husband, professional wrestler Carl Manheim (Sandor Szabo) because he isn’t making enough money in his current occupation. Hilda wants Lily to talk to Frieda, but Lily tries to resist after her promise to Matt to mind her own business. However, Hilda talks her into it, and when she comes over with Carl, Frieda tells her that she thinks that Carl has other talents, and they get him to sing Hold Me Tight. Lily is so impressed that she offers to call up her movie producer friend Mr. Mosier. In appreciation, Carl gives the ladies tickets to come watch him wrestle. Later, Lily and Hilda break the news to him that Mr. Mosier said that the screen tests are very expensive, and the studio wouldn’t put the money up. However, she has an idea to have him audition on television during his next match. The milkman (Frank Jenks) decides he can’t use the tickets, so he drops them off with Matt, who decides to go see the match with Pete and Ruth. The ring announcer (Jules Strongbow) introduces the match between Carl, who has taken on the name “The Singing Shiek”, and his opponent Tom Rice (himself) as the “Hillbilly Heathen.” Lily and Hilda are in his corner dressed as member of his harem, directing him when to sing Hold Me Tight at the cameras in the middle of the match. As a result of him not paying attention to the match, he is pinned by Rice. Mr. Mosier phones after the match and tells Lily that they are passing on Carl as an actor. However, the wrestling promoters like his novelty performance and sign him to a three-year contract at $1000 per week. After it is all said and done, Hilda vows not to get involved with helping others any longer, but when her friend Madeline calls and tells her that she has had another accident and her car is danger of falling off a cliff, Matt offers to drive Lily to the scene and assist himself. Bennie Goldberg is Carl’s trainer Corky. Frank Creed is the referee. 3/10/24
• 061. Jaywalker – 4/16/1956
  • Matt is expecting to be interviewed to get into the Architect’s League by Mr. Paisley (Howard McNear), but he shows up early while they are cleaning the house, while they are a mess and the house are in shambles. Meanwhile Lily is accused by officer Gabriel Aloysius Wadslowski (King Donovan) of crossing the street against a red light while looking for her lost earring. Lily vows to plead not guilty and expose the incident in the paper. Matt and Ruth plan to attend a membership dance with the League, when Matt finds out about the jaywalking incident. He encourages her to pay the fine, and worries that her raising a fuss will jeopardize his chances to be admitted. Hilda’s nephew Eugene Galvin (Arte Johnson) takes Ruth’s case and intends to fight it all the way. Ruth has an outlandish dream about her day in court with Mr. Paisley as the tyrant judge, Officer Gabriel as an angel, a cardboard jury, Eugene as a seven-year-old lawyer, Hilda as a dancer, and black-balled Matt and Lily as witnesses; she is ultimately sentenced to be hanged by her earrings. After waking up, she decides to just pay the fine. When she goes to phone her lawyer she finds the ‘lost’ earring on the table by the phone. Matt is accepted into the Architect’s League. 8/4/18
• 062. The Beauty Pageant – 4/23/1956
  • Lily and Hilda’s Westwood Women’s Cultural Club prepare for a charity show with their friends Adethia Walker (Marjorie Bennett), Hortense Miller (Cheerio Meredith), and Elsie Pringle, with whom Hilda performs a terrible song. They bounce around a few ideas to spruce it up but can’t agree. Meanwhile Matt’s camera club has a meeting at the Henshaw house, complete with attractive female model Jan Darling (Sandra Spence), which prompts Pete to quickly join the club and Ruth to cancel her plans for the evening. Lily decides to theme the charity show “The March of Science,” but the other ladies are unhappy because they’re not selling any tickets. They agree to let Lily come up with another idea, and when she sees how men are flocking to the camera club meeting to see the model, she decides to re-brand the show as “Scientific Follies” with Girls! Girls! Girls! Adethia does a skit about the invention of the steamboat, Hortense as the spirit of flight, Elsie as Miss Penicillin, and  Hilda as the spirit of television, each accompanied by a swimsuit model. They end up raising $600, and Lily vows that the next show will be about the Seven Wonders of the World… all girls. Lee Millar and Peter Gray are Camera Club members. 10/11/17

SEASON 3

• 066. The Rory Calhoun Show – 10/8/1956
  • Lily, Hilda, and their friend Ellen (Ruth Marea Brewer) are rehearsing playing as a three-piece mission band for a charity show, but when Ellen injures her lip, she has to drop out of the performance. Meanwhile, Matt has found some great plots of land in Palisades Park overlooking the ocean, so wants to put their house up for sale quickly, as he’s put down payment of $1000 on the land with a 30-day option, and Pete does the same. Unfortunately the nearby airport has rerouted flight traffic to fly over their neighborhood for the next six weeks, so they are afraid they’ll be unable to sell their property. Hilda finds out from her friend Elsie Pringle who takes cha-cha lessons with his maid, that actor Rory Calhoun (himself) is looking for a smaller house like theirs, so she and Lily stalk him at the Royal Market grocery store where he does his shopping. They compete for his attention with a grocery clerk (Leo Fuchs), who is trying to become an actor and insists on auditioning for Calhoun. Eventually they annoy him just enough that he agrees to come see the house. In order to mask the sound of the airplanes that are flying overhead every few minutes, Lily and Hilda enlist Pete to join their band, and they disguise themselves as an all-male mission band, playing music loudly whenever a plane flies overhead. Eventually Calhoun has had enough, and leaves after saying that the house is one bedroom shy of the four that he needs… but not before telling Matt that he should call the airport since the planes are only going to be flying over for the next six weeks. Calhoun later returns to buy some tickets to the charity show from the ladies. 3/24/21
• 076. Football Hero – 12/24/1956
  • During a winter trip with Dan and Ruth, Lily, Hilda, and Pete stop by Matt’s alma mater college State University. They visit a diner run by Pop (Burt Mustin), and meet one of State’s male cheerleaders Tommy Hart (Gary Gray) on the eve of their championship game against Upton. Ruth brags that Dan had been an All-American quarterback ten years ago, and that he single-handedly took his team into the championship as the quarterback. One of the cheerleaders Sandy (Yvonne Lime) and students Butch (Joe Conley) also stop in and offer to find everyone a hotel room if they stay in town for the night and go to the game the next day. Matt says he had hoped to make it to Kansas City, but reluctantly agrees to stay. One everyone else leaves the diner, Dan confesses to Pete that he didn’t really win the game, but rather went in at the end when they were already were winning 62-0 and then threw the final touchdown. He asks Pete to pretend that he couldn’t find any tickets for the game. Once they all get to their hotel, Pete returns and tells everyone there isn’t a ticket available all over town. Then Lily and Hilda come in and say that not only found tickets at the box office, but that Dan’s old Coach Anderson (Parley Baer) agreed to meet the after the game. Meanwhile, Sandy and Butch ask Dan if they can hide their team mascot mule in their hotel. Then they capture Upton’s mascot seal, but so hide it in their hotel room as well. Hilda and Lily have their seats in a separate section, and there the run into an older man named Mr. Norris, who claims that his son Red was the real hero of the team, and he has a clipping to prove it verifying Dan’s story. They manage to get by the guard (Ralph Sanford) to get onto the field so they can speak to Coach Anderson. The guard eventually catches them and they are taken off the field. After the game, when Coach Anderson meets everyone, he tells a tall tale about how Dan had the most terrific play he had ever seen, much to Dan and Pete’s surprise. After they leave, Lily thanks him for making it sound like Dan was a hero. The Coach admits that his wife still believes he scored a winning twenty years earlier. When Ruth asks Dan if he played any other sports at State, he says he played baseball, and then starts to tell another tall tale. Pete reminds him that the same baseball coach is also still at Stage, so Dan stops the story dead in its tracks. Leonard Bremen is the grumpy man in the seats with Lily and Hida. Fritz Ford aka Frederick Ford is Dan, one of the players. Joe Brown is the player who knocks down Hilda. 9/20/22
• 077. Royalty – 1/7/1957
  • Pete plans to invest in the chicken business in Chicago, so he brings back a family of baby chicks to the hotel. Meanwhile, Lily and Hilda are still sleeping late since they were up late at their friend Sophie’s party, where Hilda is proud to say that she danced with a Count named Gustav “Gus” Romani (John Qualen). Hilda is surprised when Sophie calls Hilda to get her phone number to give to the Count. Still, she is surprised when he actually calls to ask her to go to the ballet Swan Lake with him. They have a great time and hit it off, and the picture is splashed across the newspapers. The Count stops by the next day and invites her to go out the next night so that she can meet the Duchess, the Count’s Aunt Patricia (Iphigenie Castiglioni). He arrives to get her just as Pete’s chicks make a break for it and escape down the fire escape. The Count tells Hilda that the Duchess would like to learn about her family background. Hilda doesn’t know much about her background and see her family chart, so the Count offers to find a genealogist. After the Count leaves, Hilda weeps because she feels like she has the pedigree of a mutt. The next night at the dinner, the Duchess tells the Count that he will have to cancel his dinner with Hilda because his Uncle Wilhelm can’t go to an important banquet, and she wants Gus to go in his place. Although he puts up a small fight at first, he ultimately tells Hilda that he’ll have to re-schedule their date. Lily brings Pete in disguise who is posing as Professor Schultz the genealogist. Lily puts a stop to it, because she realizes that she’ll never be happy with the County, since he is married to his title, and jumps whenever his aunt cracks the whip. Hilda realizes she has to break it off with Gus, but knows he’ll be crushed. Pete jumps in to ready off Hilda’s ‘chart’, which includes ancestors who helped sneak Benedict Arnold out of the country, and blew up the Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. The Duchess storms out of the room, and Hilda is grateful to Pete for forcing the Duchess’s hand at driving her out of Gus’s life. Back at the hotel, the manager Mr. Harrison calls their room after the maid reads Hilda’s phony chart, and wants to upgrade them to the royal suite. Gordon Richards is the royal butler. 9/20/22
• 081. The Budget Show – 1/28/1957
  • After reading about a person who amassed a small fortune, Matt pushes a reluctant Ruth to go on a budget. The first day Matt sticks to his, even switching to having gum for dessert. However Ruth can’t resist a sale on a green dress she’s wanted from Yvonne’s to the tune of $89. She’s petrified of Matt’s reaction, so she decides to hide it in her closet and wait for the budget to blow over before showing it to Matt. When Matt comes home early and sees the dress, Lily pretends that it is hers. Hilda comes over to invite Lily to a premiere, so Lily has to pretend that she can wear the new dress. Before Hilda can take it for alterations, Ruth and Lily tell her that it is actually Ruth’s dress. They get the idea to have Lily buy a cheap green dress to wear and hope that Matt won’t know the difference. Hilda wears green as well in order to help confuse him. All of this is for naught as Matt finds the dress in Ruth’s closet and confront her about it… then demands that she return it. Ruth knows that Yvonne won’t return sale items, but she tries anyway. When she comes home without the refund, Matt and Pete head to Yvonne’s to try and demand the money back from the head buyer Miss Moore (Ann Doran) and then the manager Miss La Rouche (Genevieve Aumont aka Michele Montau). Matt quickly melts, so then Pete steps in with his tough guy approach. However when Miss La Rouche takes him in the backroom to discuss it, not only does he not get his money back, but he ends up buying a dress for Gladys. Later Lily chats with Hilda and tells her that the kids went off the budget, and now Matt has a huge supply of gum. Millie Bruce is the drink server at Yvonne’s. 12/1/20
• 082. Study Group – 2/4/1957
  • When Lily interviews Professor Thornhill (Joseph Kearns) for The Westwood Gazette, he mentions that many marriages don’t work well because women aren’t able to keep up intellectually with their husbands. Ruth takes it to heart, especially when she can’t answer any of the crossword puzzle clues, and Matt can. She joins a study group about the philosophers, while Gladys takes up sculpting. Meanwhile Lily’s next interview subject is the backstage life of a chorus girl, so Hilda sets her up with the Candy Russell (Joi Lansing), the daughter of her old vaudeville ‘sister’. When they show up on the set of a commercial for Dr. Klibber’s Corn Plasters, they find that Candy is late, so the director (King Donovan) allows Hilda to stand in for her. Matt begins to get irritated with Ruth being out all the time in her study group. Lily suggests that Matt form his own study group comprised of the chorus girls Candy, Barbara Corman (Barbara Stuart), Helen Wills (Gloria Paul), and Jean Bowers (Jan Kayne). The plan works like a charm, and Ruth boils over with jealousy, especially when she finds out they plan to have nightly meetings. Ruth quits her study group, and is later informed by Lily that Professor Thornhill’s wife has left him for always helping fix their marriages and never coming home himself. Lee Millar is Joe. 8/4/18
• 091. Do It Yourself – 4/8/1957
  • Ruth discovers that she doesn’t have enough money to cover all of the bills, with the added burden of having several items around the house in need of repair. Lily gets the idea to enlist Hilda to help her make the repairs themselves. Meanwhile, Matt has submitted architectural plans for a new stadium, but his client Mr. Hornsby (Harry Cheshire) has solicited drawings from every architect in town. Pete hopes that if Matt gets the contract, he might be awarded the stadium’s insurance. Matt hears from his boss Mr. Gordon that Hornsby has narrowed down his selection to his firm and Potter & Son, and Matt is scheduled to have lunch with him to win him over. Lily’s efforts to fix appliances quickly goes awry, as the dishes inside the dishwasher that she fixed are completely shredded. Other failures include the cuckoo clock, the blender, the vacuum cleaner, the sink faucet, the toaster, and the cigarette lighter. Matt’s lunch with Mr. Hornsby goes well and they talk about Hornsby’s favorite topic: sports. Matt gets an invitation to Hornsby’s hotel to talk about the plans, but by the time Matt gets home, Hornsby has cancelled the plans in favor of going with Mr. Potter to the all-star basketball game. Ruth brings in a repairman (Lee Millar) to fix the TV after Matt talks Hornsby into coming over to watch the Lopez vs. Davis boxing match at the house. Not knowing it has already been fixed, Lily and Hilda go to work on fixing the TV. They take out the picture tubes and dust them but can only guess which tube they took from which one goes where. When they turn the TV on, it immediately begins to smoke. When Ruth finds the TV not working, she rents a set to replace it. Lily and Hilda rent them a set as well. When Matt brings home Mr. Hornsby, he is surprised to find three TVs in the house. The rentals aren’t working well either, so the deliveryman (Norman Leavitt) tries to work on the aerial. A watchable TV reception seems to go from TV to TV, so Matt and Hornsby keep switching. This leads to much anxiety from Hornsby, as he has money riding on Davis to win the match, so he winds up leaving to find a TV somewhere. Matt thinks his chances are sunk, but Hornsby quickly returns, having won the bet since Davis won the match. Hornsby invites everyone to go out to celebrate his winnings, and also tells Ruth that Matt designed the best stadium that the town will ever see. Hilda sees the aerial wire come down the chimney, and pulls it – along with the antennae – down into the living room. 7/3/23
• 093. Song Plugging – 4/22/1957
  • Gladys designs a bizarre contraption called the Catch-All for the Lazy Housewife to enter into the hobby show. It includes a cigarette box, lazy Susan, finger bowl, cigar cutter, and a harpoon. Meanwhile there have been some robberies of women in the neighborhood. Hilda comes over and tells Lily about her niece Frieda who has thrown out her husband, famous wrestler Carl Manheim because she doesn’t like him wrestling and wants him to enter into another line of work. Lily and Hilda decide to get involved and have them both meet over at Lily’s place. While Carl is there, Matt asks him to teach Ruth some jiu jitsu self-defense techniques. She is able to demonstrate them on Matt and tosses both him and Carl across the room. When Frieda arrives, she tells Carl that she doesn’t want him to get hurt while wrestling and wants him to become a professional singer. Even though he does have a good voice, no one will hire him as a singer until he records a hit record. Lily and Frida think that he can achieve this if they can find the right song for him, so they head down to the office where a songwriter Hilda used to know once worked, but he is no longer there. In his place are two songwriters named Joe Cooper (Sid Melton) and Lenny Sperber (Fuzzy Knight). After they run a few songs by the ladies, they settle on selling them the song Some Wonderful Day. The ladies bring home a home recorder, and Joe lends his brother’s three-piece band consisting of Boomy (Robert Hoy), Ziggy (Dave Sharpe), and Fingers (Dick Crockett). They begin to record the song but are bothered by constant interruptions such as Hilda clapping, a wrong number, and Frieda crying when she hears the song. The band insists on taking a lunch break, but when Fingers tries to grab some cigarettes from one of the living room’s end tables, Ruth returns and thinks it is a prowler. She manages to single-handedly beat up all three of the band members, who then threaten to sue. Carl decides he’s had enough of all of it, so he tells his wife that he was a wrestler when they got married, and that is what he is going to continue to do, finally laying down the law. Lily later reports to Hilda that Matt talked to the band, and they’ve agreed not to sue. She also says that Pete is now teaching Gladys jiu jitsu, but that she’s not getting the hang of it. However, when Pete walks in all bandaged up and using a cane, she changes her mind and decides she must be getting the hang of it after all. 11/1/23

SEASON 4

• 098. The Golf Lesson – 10/21/1957
  • Ruth is after Matt to teach her golf lessons, but he is adamantly against it, thinking that women merely slow up the game with all of their chatter. Meanwhile Lily’s nephew Jimmy (Joel Grey) is interested in trying out for the play Hands Across the Sea, but is discouraged because the only role available is that of an Englishman. However he is very adept at doing a British accent, so he goes in to tryout for with the show’s casting agent (Hal K. Dawson), pretending to be British, with Hilda posing as his British aunt. It turns out that the agent is British too, and doesn’t fall for it, but is impressed with Jimmy’s accent. Unfortunately they have already cast the British role, but there is still an opening for an American exchange student. The producer Edward Hampton is currently on his way to Las Vegas to see another actor for the role, but will be playing a golf match locally before he departs. Back at home, Ruth decides to take up archery and then skeet shooting, risking the lives of Matt and Pete, so Matt finally agrees to teach her golf. Lily gathers from talking to Pete that it is customary etiquette that men would wait until women play through a hole before moving on, so she and Hilda head to the golf course in hopes of delaying Mr. Hampton so that he can see Jimmy perform. After watching two golfers (Lee Millar, Ross Ford), the spot two more men coming and when they arrive, they delay their game by spilling an entire bag of balls on the green. This gives Jimmy time to get there and put on a performance of singing, dancing, acrobatics, and jokes, which entertains them greatly. However they turn out to be a real estate agent named Bill (Damian O’Flynn) and a spaghetti canner named Harry. Mr. Hampton has canceled, but has gotten the message from the casting agent and called to see Jimmy anyway. He ends up getting the job. Ruth has learned golf and has now broke 100… windows at the clubhouse. 5/3/20
• 105. Ruth Goes Home to Mother – 12/23/1957
  • Matt has been getting on Ruth’s case about the fact that she keeps destroying his newspaper. Meanwhile, Lily is contacted by the American Travel Magazine and commissioned to do an article on the financial plight of the American Indian. She asks if she can move into the room above the garage so she will have more privacy, and not disturb Ruth and Matt. This works out well, because Pete has termites in his house and needs to have it fumigated, so he takes Lily’s room. When Lily’s friend Dorothy Rich (Mary Lawrence) stops over to pick up the Red Cross membership cards from her, she picks up the newspaper and inadvertently destroys it as she browses it. Naturally, Matt blames Ruth, and then doesn’t believer her when she blames it on Dorothy. Ruth gets angry at him and decides to go move in with her mother over the garage. Lily thinks it is a bad idea for them to separate, so she invites Hilda over to move in with her, hoping that Ruth will feel so crowded that she wants to move back. Just as Ruth is getting irritated because the room is too full, Matt’s father Henry (Lewis H. Martin) calls and says he is coming for a visit. They all agree it is a bad time for him to be there, but Hilda also tells Henry about the situation when he arrives. He agrees to stay in the room over the garage, so that Lily and Hilda can move back into her original room, Pete will have to move to the couch, and Ruth will have to stay back in the bedroom with Matt. The two make up initially, but then when Ruth mentions ‘accepting his apology’, he blows his top again. However, cooler heads again prevail when Ruth suggests that they have two newspapers delivered. That too almost winds up being their undoing when Lily spills coffee on one of the copies, and attempts to share the remaining paper between Matt and Ruth causes it to be destroyed. Matt decides to catch the news on TV, and warns Ruth not to ask if she can borrow a channel. 5/28/22
• 108. The Parrot Show – 1/13/1958
  • The Henshaw household does everything possible to avoid annoying neighbor Sam Winslow (Willard Waterman), who always overstays his welcome and continually talks about his the cases he partakes in as a lawyer. Lily gets away from him when Hilda calls and tells her that she is having an emergency regarding her new apartment landlord (Will Wright). It turns out that the new guy has a strict no-pets policy and Lily is afraid that he will force her to get rid of her parrot Wilma (voiced by Mel Blanc). Despite her efforts to hid the parrot, it is unable to keep its mouth shut when the landlord shows up, and he tells her that she can’t keep it. The Henshaws agree to let Hilda keep Wilma at their house, even when it imitates a robber and actually gets Matt and Pete to reach for the sky. When Sam visits again, Lily actually listens to one of his cases in which he relates a case similar to Hilda’s where he kept a case tied up in court by insisting that a boarder’s animals were not his pets, but his business associates since the man worked for a circus. Lily and Hilda then pose as a clown and lion tamer and introduce their ‘associates’, a monkey, a seal, and an elephant to the landlord. He takes the bait and tells them if they give up the ruse, he’ll draw up a new lease so that Hilda can keep her parrot. 2/19/19
• 109. The Antique – 1/20/1958
  • As Lily and Hilda prepare for their antique show, Ruth is anxiously awaiting Matt’s arrival home for their eighth anniversary. Since she has been hinting that if she had a new watch, she wouldn’t burn Matt’s toast, she is hoping that that is the gift he will bring for her. However when he gets home and gives her the gift, it is actually a toaster. She attempts to feign enthusiasm, but expresses her disappointment to her mother. She starts to head out to pick up Matt’s gift of gold cuff links and agrees to drop of her mother’s watch for repair while she is at the store. When Ruth’s friend Phyllis (Frances Robinson) stops by and mistakes the watch for her gift, Ruth doesn’t correct her. But when Matt comes home and overhears them, he realizes that she didn’t want the watch and the two argue over the gift. She goes to get his gift and hides the cuff links in his coat pocket, and instead gives him a window screen for the bathroom. Matt gets angry and tells her to just go out with Phyllis instead of him for their anniversary. When Lily and Hilda realize this, they bring in one of the stocks from the antique show and get Ruth to pose for a picture in it, ‘mistakenly’ losing the key to let her out so that she won’t be apart from Matt for their anniversary. Meanwhile Matt has discovered the cuff links in his coat pocket and heads out to get Ruth a better gift. While locked in the stocks, Ruth receives a singing telegram from Madeline delivered by a very surprised man (Frank Jenks). The ruse works, as Matt returns home with a new watch for Ruth and they make up. Lily describes the crazy events of the kids’ anniversary to her friend Elsie via phone, then after she hangs up, complains how nosy Elsie is. 8/15/20
• 112. Contour Chair – 2/10/1958
  • As Lily is hosting a charity drive for the Youth Center, Matt brings home a reclining ‘health chair’ for himself to enjoy. Ruth doesn’t think the chair goes with anything else in the room, and when it throws her off, she even more adamantly dislikes it. Matt however wants to be king of his own castle, and wants the new chair to be his thrown… even though it nearly throws him off as well. While Matt is gone, Ruth moves the chair to the garage while he has her friend over for a visit. Meanwhile, two guys (Lee Millar, Russell Trent) who offered to help move donations to the Youth Center wind up accidentally loading the new chair onto Hilda’s trailer. On the way, she and Lily run out of gas and lock the key in the car. Lily finds the chair on the trailer, and panics that Ruth will get in trouble with Matt if he comes home and finds the chair gone. They try to get a dime to call home, but end up asking a another panhandler (Norman Leavitt) for the dime. He declines, but then uses their idea of saying he’s out of gas across the street. The ladies then attempt to sell newspapers they picked up off the rack… until the man (Murray Alper) comes to collect for the papers. He suggests that they sing and dance, so Hilda does just that. Pete shows up and helps the ladies take the chair back to the house. Before he arrives, Ruth covers up the chair, and then tells Matt when he arrives home that she has oiled the chair and had to cover it up until it dried. While Matt is out of the room, Pete returns the health chair to its spot. Ruth panics when she sees Matt taking a look at it. While she has turned her back and confessed everything she has done, Matt barely listens as he is too busy reclining in the health chair. Later, Lily tells a friend that Matt has gotten rid of chair since it nearly throws people from it. He has sold it to Pete, who wants it for his mother-in-law. 1/25/22
• 113. The Fred MacMurray Show – 2/17/1958
  • As Matt and Pete try to get permission from their wives to go to a poker game, Lily and Hilda participate in an election for an honorary mayor of Westwood as a promotional tool for The Westwood Gazette. They would like to ask actor Fred MacMurray (himself) to do the honors. Meanwhile, he is at home practicing his gun draw with his maid Marie (Kathleen Freeman), who always seems to outdraw him. They show up at his house to ask him to run, and he reluctantly agree when they tell him that the newspaper will do all of the promotion, and he realizes it will be good promotion for his new Western picture. Fred has no idea who he will be running against, only that it will be sponsored by their rival newspaper The Westwood Star. The celebrity they to run against him turns out to be True Heart the Wonder Dog. Fred is rather embarrassed, and his manager Tom Desmond (Jack Albertson) is even more mortified that he’s running against a dog. Lily warns Fred that the Star will present some tricks for the audience in order to win votes. Fred unsuccessfully tries to play some saxophone and do a song and dance, but the crowd is more interested in True Heart’s tricks. Fred then tries a card trick and an escape trick, but he gets stuck in his restraints and can’t get out. Making matters worse, the Westwood Star editor (Ralph Dumke) introduces True Heart’s wife and kids to an adoring audience. Somehow though, when the election results come back 1242-1243, with Fred the winner. Bennett Green is the audience wrangler. Henry East is the dog trainer. 5/28/22
• 114. Baby Rehearsal – 2/24/1958
  • Matt is down and out with an illness, which he can’t quite describe and doesn’t yield a fever. Nevertheless, he is sick as a dog, and can barely make it downstairs, but when Ruth finally gets him to agree to eat, he has no problem scarfing down breakfast. He puts a call into his doctor, who finally calls him back from the golf course. Matt takes his advice to come see him, and rushes out of the house to meet him… on the golf course. Meanwhile, between poking fun of Matt’s supposed ‘illness’, Pete has plenty more room for wisecracks about his pregnant wife Gladys. Finally Ruth has had enough of the hard time he is giving her, and demands that he be nice to Gladys. Pete finally admits that the reason he makes so many jokes is because he is scared to death of the whole notion of Gladys having a baby and him becoming a father. Lily suggests that they stage a dry run-through of the night that Gladys will go into labor. He agrees to the simulation, with Lily standing in for Gladys. When she announces that it’s time to go the hospital, Pete panics through getting ready, and then nearly forgets her. They even take the trip to the hospital, so he can get used to the waiting room. When he arrives at the hospital, he finds two expectant fathers named Mr. Kent (Olan Soule) and Mr. Ferguson (William Tracy). Neither of the fathers seem anywhere near as nervous as Pete. Mr. Ferguson tells Pete that he has a wonderful, young doctor, but Pete starts questioning the credentials of a young doctor, but before the conversation is over, Ferguson is so nervous that he is smoking his cigarettes backward. Mr. Kent is calm too initially, and brags about Old Doc Stevens who actually delivered him. As Pete dwells on this, he makes Mr. Kent a nervous wreck as well, making him think his doctor is a doddering old bat. When the guys ask Pete why he isn’t nervous, he tells them that he’s only rehearsing and that his wife has six months to go. They start to throw him out, when the nurse (Edith Simmons) comes out and announces that both fathers had successfully deliveries of their new children. Pete feels better, but tells Ruth that he’s glad those ne fathers won’t be there in six months, as they could make a guy really nervous. 1/29/22
• 124. The Capistrano Show – 5/5/1958
  • Matt has agreed to let his boss Mr. Gordon’s niece Nancy Gordon (Shirley Mitchell) from Philadelphia stay with them while the boss it out of town. She shows up and quickly begins making a nuisance of herself when she sends Ruth back to airport to pick up her seventeen suitcases. She also freely starts making long distance phone calls to her mother and other family members, just after Matt has yelled at Ruth for running up the phone booth. Nancy has Ruth, Lily, and Hilda take her sightseeing all over Los Angeles. They hit the Hollywood Bowl, Olvero Street, and the Griffith Observatory, and then they stop by Jack Benny’s home. Nancy can’t get a good picture from outside the gate, so she talks Ruth into trying to slip through gates, causing her to get her head stuck. The next day, Ruth stays home with her sore neck, so Lily and Hilda take her to the La Brea Tar Pits, where Hilda falls in while taking a photo of Nancy. The family couldn’t be more anxious to get rid of Nancy, but since she is the boss’s niece, Matt can’t do much about it. Lily has good news after the Tar Pits though: Nancy is ready to go home, although she has the nagging feeling that there’s something she didn’t get done. When Lily mentions going baRutrrrrrck to Philly the way the swallows return to Capistrano, Nancy remembers that was precisely what she wanted to see. Since the swallows won’t be returning for a week, Lily gets the idea to get some squabs to take to Capistrano and release so that Nancy can get her photo and go home. Pete accidentally picks up a case of chickens instead. He tries to explain to a couple (Lester Dorr, Jasslyn Fax) who pass by that the swallows have mated with chickens and that these are swall-chicks. Another man happens by and he tries to tell him the same story, before the man tells him that he is an ornithologist (Jack Rice). Nancy then shows up and gets her picture of the chickens and is ready to book a plane back home, when Lily mentions that she admires how she took the bull by the horn… reminding Nancy that she wanted to see a bullfight in Tijuana. Since the bullfights don’t start for two weeks, this means yet another extension to Nancy’s visit. A few weeks later, Nancy calls to tell everyone how much fun she had and how she’s like to return for Christmas. Lily suggests that they return to her hometown of Philadelphia for Christmas, and that they could plan to wave to each otehr as they pass in Chicago. Richard Monahan is the delivery man at Jack Benny’s house. 1/16/23

SEASON 5

• 128. The Alaska Show – 10/9/1958
  • Matt has purchased surprised tickets to Acapulco, but waits to tell Ruth into right before the trip to prevent her from shopping. Ruth however has already found out and done her shopping. It is all for naught though when Lily convinces her friend Colonel Kenneth Donovan (Pierre Watkin) to get Matt assigned to active duty, which he had been trying for. To make matters worse, his so-called friend Andy Walker (Peter Leeds) gets his orders switched with his, so instead of going to Palm Springs, he is assigned to the frozen wasteland Glacier Island, Alaska. Lily comes up with the idea to have Pete pose as Captain Nielsen, who has just returned from Glacier Island, and act as if it is a tropical paradise with a huge ratio of beautiful women who greet every stranger with a kiss. The ruse is nearly derailed when Hilda shows up in tropical attire, but then a beautiful woman named Tanana (Marie Tsien) shows up, and Andy decides that he wants to go to Alaska after all. 10/10/17
• 143. Nurse Is Fired – 1/22/1959
  • The Porters bring their new baby girl home from the hospital, along with the stringent Nurse Twilley (Isabel Randolph), who has some strict rules about the baby. Among them are that she only lets people see the baby during certain times of the day, and most irritating to Pete, she won’t let him hold the baby when she is crying. Eventually Pete, the Ruskins, Lily, and Hilda all rebel and sneak in the window to hold the baby when Nurse Twilley falls asleep. When she catches them and reiterates her rules, Pete gets angry and fires her. With Gladys still recovering in bed, this leaves him to stay up with the baby night after night. When Nurse Twilley returns to retrieve her apron that she left behind, Pete and the others hear her talking to the baby over the intercom. They learn she is extremely kindhearted but maintains she can’t pick her up every time she cries so that she can get on a schedule of eating, sleeping, playing, and being loved. Pete asks her to return and promises to follow all of her rules. 2/19/19
• 146. The Hi-Fi Show – 2/12/1959
  • Lily has arranged for Ruth to bring home a hi-fi stereo to try out for several days before purchasing, and they hope to convince Matt to use his $300 bonus check to buy the $275 stereo. After scaring Hilda with a record containing sound effects by blaring a roaring lion when she walks in, Lily gets Matt to sit down and get comfortable after work and then startles him with the sound of locomotive going through the living room. Pete pops in to see what is happening, and the sound of gunfire causes him to jump under the table. Matt has no interest in the hi-fi and tells the ladies to send it back, but Ruth has an idea to win him over to it. While Matt and Pete are playing Gin, she puts on a record that he made when they first started dating of him singing Some Wonderful Day. He is so mesmerized by the sound of his own singing voice that he decides to sign over the bonus check to Ruth so that she can buy it after all. However, instead of giving her the check, he decides to surprise her with it, so he tapes it in the book she is reading, Autumn Love. Unfortunately, Lily tells her that the book isn’t very good, so she decides to skip it, and Lily takes it back to the library. Matt later tells Lily about the surprise check, and Lily panics when she realizes that it is in the book that she returned. She tells Ruth about it, and then she and Hilda head to the library to try and find the book. The ladies make a commotion of locating the book, causing the snooty librarian (Nancy Kulp) to threaten to throw them out. They also cause one customer (Robert Hoy) to smash his head through the card catalogs, stumble through the shelves, and then get pushed from the ladder out the window into a pond. Hilda accuses another older man (Perry Ivins) of stealing the check when they think he is reading Autumn Love, but it turns out he is actually reading Autumn Serenade. Back home, Matt insists that Ruth go read Autumn Love, so she pretends to read it while actually reading another book. She then pretends to find the check, and while giving Matt a big hug, Lily and Hilda return home with the book and swap it with the one she is holding. Hilda later tells a friend over the phone that they couldn’t get the check out of the book, so they bought the book from the library and used the whole page to buy the hi-fi stereo from the appliance store. 11/17/24
• 147. The Scotch Show – 2/19/1959
  • Lily has answered the letter of an exchange student from Scotland named Nancy Lee Fairburn (Bethel Leslie), who wrote into her advice column looking for ways to learn more about American life. She has suggested that Matt and Ruth might want to rent her the room over their garage. She stops by to meet Lily and manages to immediately charm Matt by complimenting the architecture for their house that he designed. They wind up offering her the room for $15 a month so that it is affordable. Nancy Lee begins telling Lily about her boyfriend who also originally hails from Scotland named Ronnie MacDougal (Russell Arms), the man she wants to marry, but is afraid that her father won’t allow the marriage because of a longstanding feud between the Fairburns and the MacDougals. It seems that 300 years ago, a MacDougal stole one of the Fairburns’ sheep, and although Ronnie likes to joke about it, their fathers do not see it as a joke. Hilda talks them both into inviting their fathers to get together in hopes that they can settle the feud and bless the marriage. Ronnie talks his father Angus (David Thursby) into coming to visit from San Francisco, and he seems to be charmed by Nancy Lee… until Lily reveals that she is a Fairburn. He says that he will not bless the marriage and will not meet her father either. With Mr. Fairburn coming in from Scotland, they get the idea to dress up Pete is Scottish garb and let him use his Scottish brogue to pose as Ronnie’s father. They bring Mr. MacDougal back over to show them what they are willing to do to settle the feud. Still, they cannot talk him into meeting with Mr. Fairburn (Ted de Corsia). When Fairburn shows up, he meets Pete and accepts the fact that he is a Fairburn but is willing to overlook it and give the blessing to Nancy Lee and Ronnie to get married. Nancy Lee cannot continue to lie to him, so she admits that Pete is not really Mr. MacDougal. This only insults Fairburn, and he then refuses to bless the marriage. As he storms out, he says that he should have known that Pete really did fool him with the chicken legs that matched the MacDougals’. He says this just as MacDougal is returning, and the two argue over their legs. Ronnie then offers to pay Mr. Fairburn $100 for the sheep that his family stole 300 years ago, but MacDougal says that it will be $2000 with interest. Nancy Lee then throws out the fact that even if it was $2000, it would need to be split amongst the 2000 MacDougal ancestors. The fathers seem to warm on the marriage but still argue over who has the better legs. Lily says that they will need to be in kilts to fully judge them, but MacDougal says he only puts on kilts on special occasions. She asks if a wedding would qualify, and they agree that they both give their blessing for the kids to get married. Lily later tells Hilda that they all went out to eat and got along, but when someone mentioned getting a good night’s sleep by counting sheep, the argument nearly started up again. 11/17/24

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2000 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.