Wednesday, July 30, 2014

What Might've Been: Please Don't Eat The Daisies (1965)

It started with a book of essays by Jean Kerr in the 50's, became a movie in 1960, and moved to television in 1965, lasting two seasons. So why doesn't Please Don't Eat The Daisies get the same kind of respect as a lot of other domestic sitcoms from the same period?

For one thing, there were simply too many sitcoms at the time, of various genres, and Daisies fell into line with other domestic comedies of the period, like, for example, The Donna Reed Show. During the 2nd season, NBC, realizing things weren't going to get better, moved the show to Saturdays, coupled with another MGM property, Maya, which we recently reviewed. Problem was, it was pitted against the 2nd half of The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS. Thanks, we'll see you later.

The movie starred Doris Day & David Niven, but there really was no correlation between the film and the sitcom, which toplined Patricia Crowley, because it was a different family, though both used the Kerr book as an inspiration.

True story. While I was attending a private academy as a high school freshman, a classmate tried to sell me on the idea that he and another classmate were the Fithian twins, who played the youngest boys. I wasn't buying into this at all. A year later, our classmate moved away out of state, and the tall tale about them working on Daisies was proven to be just that. Utter balderdash.

Gilmore Box provides the open:



I'm begging Me-TV to take a chance on bringing this one back, just for kicks.

Rating: B.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

I watched this when I was a kid - it was in syndication in the 70s, running on WWOR I think.

It was essentially a run of the mill domestic sitcom with only the title being the only standout. I eventually saw the film which runs periodically on TCM (It ran just this morning in fact - part of a tribute to David Niven). Definitely better than the series.

Pat Crowley did continue working however. I remember she was in an episode of Charmed of all things! That was back in '99.

hobbyfan said...

I think she was the only cast member still working by then.

It's a pity how a lot of MGM's TV shows now sit in the vaults these days......