While Eve Arden & Gale Gordon were making audiences laugh at high school follies on Our Miss Brooks, the husband and wife team of Ronald & Benita Colman took aim at college life with The Halls of Ivy, which lasted two years (1950-2), sponsored by Schlitz Brewing. Appropriate choice of sponsor, no?
Ivy is both the name of the small college where William Todhunter "Toddy" Hall (Ronald Colman) was the President, and the name of the town where the show was set. The Colmans had demonstrated a flair for comedy with frequent appearances on The Jack Benny Program, and, unsurprisingly, Benny would later return the favor and appear as himself on Halls. The cast also included radio veterans Willard Waterman (The Great Gildersleeve), Bea Benaderet, and Alan Reed, the latter of whom played an English professor.
Two years after the series ended, Halls was resurrected as a TV sitcom, produced by England's ITC, but lasted just 1 season, with Ray Collins (later of Perry Mason) replacing Waterman. We'll deal with the TV show another time. Right now, here's the episode, "The Stolen Gift":
It seems that when Hollywood tries to convert a radio sitcom set in high school or college to television, something gets lost in the translation, as very few succeed in the video medium. The TV version of Our Miss Brooks is one exception. Halls was not.
Rating: B.
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