December Bride

December Bride is an American sitcom that aired on the CBS television network from 1954 to 1959, adapted from the original CBS radio network series of the same name[1] that aired from June 1952 through September 1953.

December Bride
Lily (Spring Byington) helps guest star Mickey Rooney with a crap game set up as a trap for those who robbed his home.
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Parke Levy
Written by	Bill Davenport Lou Derman Arthur Julian Parke Levy Bob Schiller
Directed by	William Asher Frederick de Cordova Jerry Thorpe
Starring	Spring Byington Frances Rafferty Dean Miller Verna Felton Harry Morgan
Theme music composer	Eliot Daniel
Composer	Wilbur Hatch
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	156
Production
Producers	Frederick de Cordova Parke Levy
Running time	30 minute
Production companies	Desilu Productions CBS Television Network
Distributor	CBS Films
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	October 4, 1954 – May 7, 1959
Chronology
Related shows	Pete and Gladys

Zsa Zsa Gabor (1958)

Spring Byington, Harry Morgan and Frances Rafferty

Overview

December Bride centered on the adventures of Lily Ruskin, a spry widow played by Spring Byington, who was not, in fact, a "December" (rather old) bride but very much desired to become one if the right man were to come along. Aiding Lily in her search for this prospective suitor were her daughter Ruth Henshaw (Frances Rafferty) and son-in-law Matt Henshaw (Dean Miller), and her close friend Hilda Crocker (character actress Verna Felton). A next-door neighbor, insurance agent Pete Porter (Harry Morgan), was frequently seen. Married miserably himself, according to his constant complaints about his unseen wife Gladys, he also envied Matt's positive relationship with Lily as he despised his own mother-in-law. The pilot episode premiered on October 4, 1954, and involved Lily Ruskin moving in with her daughter and son-in-law. Most of the scenes filmed for the series took place in the Henshaws' living room.

First-run episodes of December Bride aired on television for 5 seasons (1954–1959), sponsored by General Foods' Instant Maxwell House Coffee. During the first four seasons, the program was not shown in the summer, supplanted by "summer replacement" series (such as Ethel and Albert) but in its final year, repeat episodes were run in its time slot during the summer months.

Thanks in part to its following I Love Lucy, December Bride had high ratings its first four seasons[2] – #10 in 1954–1955, #6 in 1955–1956, #5 in 1956–1957 and #9 in 1957–1958. When CBS moved it to Thursdays in the fall of 1958, ratings fell dramatically, and the series was cancelled in 1959.[3]

In 1960, a new series titled Pete and Gladys debuted, set around many of the same characters; this new series focused on Pete Porter and his now-seen wife Gladys. Hilda Crocker appeared in 23 episodes of the new series, which aired until 1962.

After its production had ceased, CBS used repeat episodes to fill slots in its prime time programming. In July 1960, December Bride repeats were used to fill in for the second half of the Friday 9 pm Eastern time slot vacated by Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, running until the beginning of the fall schedule in 1960, and again as a temporary replacement on Thursday nights in April 1961. Additionally, repeats were shown on CBS as a daytime program from October 1959 until March 1961. The daytime repeats, and an attempt to syndicate the show, were ratings failures; it was this phenomenon that prompted Michael Dann, an executive at CBS, to use the concept of "hammocking:" inserting a weak or new series in-between two better-established shows to improve its viewership.[4]

Cast

• Spring Byington as Lily Ruskin
• Frances Rafferty as Ruth Henshaw
• Dean Miller as Matt Henshaw
• Verna Felton as Hilda Crocker
• Harry Morgan as Pete Porter

Guest stars

• Desi Arnaz as himself
• Edgar Bergen as himself
• Madge Blake as Anita Henderson in "Family Quarrel" (1955) and as Margaret in "The Homecoming Show" (1957)
• Rory Calhoun as himself in "Rory Calhoun, the Texan'
• Harry Cheshire as Gus in "Lily Ruskin Arrives" (1954) and as Poole in "Big Game Hunter" (1955)
• Zsa Zsa Gabor as herself
• Fred MacMurray as himself
• Marjorie Main as herself
• Lyle Talbot, six episodes in different roles

Ownership

Parke Levy, who created and wrote December Bride, owned 50% of the program, and Desilu and CBS owned 25% each.[5]

Episodes

Season		Episodes		Originally aired		Rank	Rating
				First aired	Last aired
	1	34		October 4, 1954	May 23, 1955	10	34.7
	2	31		October 3, 1955	May 14, 1956	6	37.0
	3	30		October 8, 1956	May 6, 1957	5	35.2
	4	31		October 7, 1957	May 19, 1958	9	30.7
	5	31		October 2, 1958	May 7, 1959	N/A	N/A

Crew

Script Supervisor was DaLonne Cooper[6]

Notes

1. Dunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. Oxford University Press. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-19-507678-3. Retrieved 29 April 2017. December Bride, situation comedy.
2. Shapiro, Mitchell E.; Jicha, Tom (2015). The Top 100 American Situation Comedies: An Objective Ranking. McFarland. p. 151. ISBN 9781476623405. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
3. http://www.classictvhits.com/tvratings/index.htm
4. Grimes, William (May 30, 2016). "Michael Dann, TV Programmer, Dies at 94; Scheduled Horowitz and Hillbillies". The New York Times. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
5. "'December Bride' Shifts to Vidpix; Desilu Producing". Billboard. February 27, 1954. p. 7. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
6. Fred Sica Says He Was Defending Self in Row. (January 31, 1957). Los Angeles Times, p. 4.

References

• Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows
• Dunning, John, On the Air: The Encyclopedia Of Old-Time Radio

External links

• December Bride at IMDb
• December Bride at TV.com