Ozzie and Harriet started out on radio, a medium to which bandleader Ozzie Nelson and his singer/actor wife Harriet Hilliard Nelson had gravitated in the late 1930s, hoping to spend more time together than their conflicting careers would permit. In 1941 they found a permanent spot providing music for Red Skelton’s program, a position that foundered when Skelton was drafted in 1944. In that year, the energetic Ozzie Nelson proposed a show of his own to network CBS and sponsor International Silver: a show in which the Nelsons would play themselves. Early in its run, the radio Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet jettisoned music for situation comedy. Nelson himself directed and co-wrote all the episodes, as he would most of the video shows.

The Nelsons signed a long-term contract with ABC in 1949 that gave that network the option to move their program to television. The struggling network needed proven talent that was not about to defect to the more established—and wealthier—CBS or NBC.

The television program premiered in 1952. Like its radio predecessor, it focused on the Nelson family at home, chronicling the growing pains of the boys and their parents and dealing with mundane issues like hobbies, rivalries, schoolwork, club membership, and girlfriends. Eventually, the on-screen David and Ricky (although never the off-screen David and Ricky) graduated from college and became lawyers. When the real David and Rick got married (to June Blair and Kristin Harmon, respectively) their wives joined the cast of Ozzie and Harriet on television as well as in real life.

Ozzie and Harriet lasted 14 years on American television, remaining on the air until 1966. Although never in the top ten of rated programs, it did well throughout its run, appealing to the family viewing base targeted by ABC. The program picked up additional fans in April 1957, when Rick sang Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin” on an episode titled “Ricky the Drummer.”

As soon as the Nelsons realized how popular their singing son was going to be, the telegenic Rick was given every opportunity to croon over the airwaves by his father/director/manager. Sometimes his songs fitted into the narrative of an episode. Sometimes they were just tacked onto the end: essentially, early music videos of Rick Nelson in performance.

Despite this emphasis on Rick’s vocal performances, and despite the legion of young fans the program picked up because of its teenage emphasis, the character of Ozzie dominated the program. The genial, bumbling Ozzie was the narrative linchpin of Ozzie and Harriet, attempting to steer his young sons toward the proper paths (usually rather ineffectually) and attempting to assert his ego in a household in which he was often ill at ease.

That ego, and that household, were held together by wise homemaker Harriet. Although she may have seemed something of a cipher to many viewers, clad in the elegant dresses that defined the housewife on 1950s television, Harriet represented the voice of reason on Ozzie and Harriet, rescuing Ozzie, and occasionally David and Rick, from the consequences of impulsive behavior.

Ironically, in view of the weakness of paterfamilias Ozzie’s character, the program was (and still is) considered, during its lengthy run, as an idealized portrait of the American nuclear family of the postwar years. The Nelsons eventually shifted their program into color and into the 1960s. Nevertheless, in spirit, and in the popular imagination, they remained black-and-white denizens of the 1950s.