I Married Joan

No, they didn't suddenly legalize same sex marriages in Texas. I'm talking about the old TV show called "I Married Joan".
There are those of you who have never heard of it because you're not strange like me.
The reason I thought of the show has a round-about story.

The other day I was talking to a co-worker who is 18. I don't remember exactly what we were talking about because the latter part of the conversation became so explosive that it wiped out any memory of earlier conversation.
Anyway, I said something jokingly about someone having a bionic leg.
Her: A what?
Me: You know, a bionic leg. Like The Bionic Woman?
Her: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Me: Are you telling me you've never heard of the TV show called The Bionic Woman????
Her: *shakes head*
Me: What about the Six Million Dollar Man?
Her: *blank look*
Me: You have GOT to be kidding me!!!
Her: You're forgetting that I'm only 18.
Me: I don't care! You had to have at least HEARD of those shows! C'mon! They're television classics!

I was surprised and it sort of made me sad. That is a whole era of television culture that is lost to people of her generation.
Those were shows of my childhood along with other shows like Chips and Charlie's Angels.
The only reason people her age know Charlie's Angels is because of those horrid movies with Cameron Barrymore and Lucy Drew.

Then the other night I was thinking of shows that I loved that weren't of my generation. Shows like Donna Reed, Mr. Ed, The Three Stooges, Little Rascals, My Three Sons. I caught all of those on Nick at Nite as a teenager and loved them.
I was also trying to think of some really old shows that I watched when I was even younger. These shows were sort of obscure even back then although my mom and dad knew them because they watched the original runs!
My first thought was I Married Joan and another show I couldn't remember. It had the name Irma in it.
So, I called my mom. She remembered right off the bat that it was My Friend Irma and wanted to know why I was thinking about that show.
I told her what led me to think of them and she started reminiscing about Joan and Irma.
She has an actual memory of going to her Aunt Pauline's house to watch it on Wednesday nights because they didn't have a television at home.
The cousins would lay on the floor in front of the TV and look at the wonder of technology.
She said she can remember laughing so hard at the antics Joan would get herself into.
I can remember laughing at them too, 30 years after she first did. In the early 80s a Christian cable channel started showing reruns and somehow I stumbled upon it.

I wondered if the show was on DVD now and through the magic of the internet, I found out the entire show was on DVD!
Because the amount of information on the internet is so vast and neverending, I dug a little deeper and found out all sorts of interesting tidbits.

Joan was played by Joan Davis and her husband was played by none other than Jim Backus (aka Thurston Howell, III)! I had forgotten about that.
Her sister, Beverly, on the show was played by her real-life daughter, Beverly.

Joan Davis started out in vaudeville and when I Love Lucy came out to such raves, NBC cooked up a show for Joan to rival Lucy.
As good as the show was, everyone really loved Lucy. The show lasted only 3 seasons versus I Love Lucy's 6 or so seasons.

Davis died in 1961 and her daughter, Beverly Wills died in a house fire, along with her two sons and her grandmother (Davis' mother). How tragic!

Isn't the internet freakin great?