In a seemingly never-ending succession of Television Sitcoms and Dramas that owed their origins to Radio Network Series, we present for your approval, "OUR MISS BROOKS" (1952-56). Miss Brooks came onto the Friday night scene with a vengeance, and never really let-up until the production decided to make "Her" cool off on her own. But more about that later.
That Miss Brooks came from a Radio Series should not have been such a stunning surprise to anyone. Remember, in the period of the Late 1940's to the Early 1950's, we had more attempts with moving series completely from Radio to Television. Some were not so successful, but once in a while, we'd have a complete success! Such is the case with Eve Arden in "OUR MISS BROOKS".
To begin with, there had to be very little adaptation from Radio (Sound & Imagination) to Television, as the situations were set in ordinary, "everyday" sorts of settings. The story lines, though varied and comically exaggerated, had a certain high degree of plausibility, and required very little of that old "Suspension of Disbelief" in order for them to work.
Secondly, we still had the one and only 'real' Miss Brooks in the TV Sitcom, who had managed to wise crack her way through so many of the Radio Shows, still here doing her Connie Brooks for the whole world.
In addition we had the vast majority of the original radio cast on board, doing the same characters for the Camera that they did on CBS Radio. (1948- 1957, also!) We had Gale Gordon as everybody's idea of a School Principal, Osgood Conklin. Jane Morgan was wise-cracking Land Lady, Mrs. Davis. Gloria McMillan portrayed Harriet Conklin daughter of Principal Osgood, with Richard Crenna* as troublesome student and boyfriend to Harriet, Walter Denton. (He always gave Miss Brooks a ride to school, jus' 'bout ever day! Furthermore the cast was composed of Mrs. Conklin portrayed by Virginia Gordon and Paula Winslow. Leonard Smith was the great school athlete and tutorial bonanza, 'Stretch' Snodgrass, who also had a brother 'Bones' Snodgrass (actor unknown), to fill in when he wasn't available. Also there was semi-regular Joseph Kearns as Superintendent Stone.
Robert Rockwell came on board for the TV Series, as well as the OUR MISS BROOKS Feature Film (1957) to portray Miss Brooks slightly shy and unaware love interest, Mr. Boynton. He had replaced an actor named Ira Grossel from the Cast of the Radio 'Our Miss Brooks'. This Ira Grosel fella', you might not be familiar with his name. But he was the only one from the old Radio Cast to not make it to the TV version. He was just a trifle pre-occupied with his new found job in front of the Motion Picture. And by the way, he did change his professional name to Jeff Chandler! In the last season the producers did the usual monkeying around with the premise of the series, by putting Connie Brooks out of Madison High and in to some Private School. Gone were Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Walter, Harriet, Mrs. Davis, et al., and new characters were introduced with such new cast members as Gene Barry, Bob Sweeney and Frank Nelson. It was curtains for the lovable English Teacher.
As the Wise Man once said, "If it ain't broke, why fix it!"
NOTE: * Mr. Richard Crenna indeed had some career. He was in Radio in the 1940's where he specialized in doing Juvenile Voice Characterizations (Type Casting?). Because of his youth and seemingly overnight maturation process, I can remember being about 12 years old, when I refused to believe that he was the same guy in portraying Luke McCoy in Walter Brennan's "THE REAL McCOYS!" Of course he had an even more long-lived career, which included co-starring with Bernadette Peters in "ALL'S FAIR"(1976-77) and with Sly Stallone as Rambo in FIRST BLOOD (1982).
