George Burns should never have continued his show after Gracie
decided to retire. "The George Burns Show" (1958) had all the
"Burns And Allen" regulars: Bea Benaderet, Larry Keating, Harry Von
Zell, and Ronnie Burns, but the real star of the show was missing and
wasn't coming back; she was enjoying her life with her friends and,
especially, her grandchildren. OTOH, I think "Wendy And Me" is an
overlooked gem that should have gone more than one season; Connie
Stevens might have made Gracie look like a genius but I still think she
and George played off each other pretty well.
As much of a fan as I am of "You Bet Your Life" I think Groucho went
about two years too long with it. The last two years (1959-61) he seemed
to be going through the motions, rarely seeming as sharp as he did in the
show's peak years in the middle '50s (and what was the point of the Mrs.
Housing Development contest besides giving Groucho a chance to ogle female
contestants in swimsuits?). His director, Bob Dwan, wrote a book
about the show, "As Long As They're Laughing," in which he argues that the
show began to go downhill when they added the wheel that determined the
value of the big question at the end of the show; he felt too much time was
spent on selecting the two numbers for $10,000 and $5000 respectively, spinning
the wheel, and asking the questions, meaning that the number of couples was cut
from three to two and thus less time for the conversational portion of the show.
