I MARRIED JOAN
/I MARRIED JOAN is an American situation comedy that originally aired on NBC from 1952 to 1955. It starred actress Joan Davis as the manic, scatterbrained wife of a mild-mannered community judge, the Honorable Bradley Stevens (played by Jim Backus). Over the course of 3 seasons, ninety-eight (98) episodes were produced in total. GME has acquired the 35mm preprint materials for the entire series, and is now offering this collection for sale to an archival institution. The physical elements in GME’s possession also contain the original commercials by General Electric, the sponsor of the series.
Virtually every episode of I MARRIED JOAN had a plot which provided the star of the series, Joan Davis, with a setup for at least one scene of over-the-top physical comedy. Davis's real-life daughter, Beverly Wills, was a regular cast member for several months of the show's second season, portraying Joan's sister, Beverly Grossman. I MARRIED JOAN was aimed at the viewers who watched I LOVE LUCY, which had debuted the previous year on CBS and was already television's top-rated situation comedy. For research purposes, it is noteworthy that both I LOVE LUCY and I MARRIED JOAN have overlapping production histories, as producer Al Simon worked on both shows, as did director Mark Daniels and cinematographer Karl Freund. Furthermore, each show was owned by its woman star, so that both Joan Davis and Lucille Ball made significant sums of money selling syndication rights to their own series.
NBC scheduled I MARRIED JOAN on Wednesdays at 8:00 ET against the first half of ARTHUR GODFREY AND HIS FRIENDS on CBS for the entirety of its three-season run. The show performed marginally during its first year, but enjoyed a surge in the Nielsen ratings during its second season in the wake of Godfrey's firing of Julius LaRosa and the resultant negative publicity. In its third year, I MARRIED JOAN was overshadowed by the additional competition of ABC's new top-rated hit DISNEYLAND and was canceled, airing its last first-run episode on March 23, 1955.
Although Davis' personal health problems have also been cited as a reason for the show's cancellation, she was seen performing robust physical comedy as a guest star on variety series years after her own show ended. Joan Davis died of a heart attack in 1961, and tragically, her mother, daughter Beverly Wills, and grandchildren all died in a fire in 1963. Due to litigation over Joan Davis’ estate, I MARRIED JOAN was pulled from syndication for a period of time, and whereas I LOVE LUCY continued in reruns, I MARRIED JOAN faded from the public’s memory.
Beverly Wills’ husband at the time of her death was Martin Colbert, a real estate developer. He seems eventually to have inherited the I MARRIED JOAN series, as this is the name under which the physical materials in this collection had lain fallow for so many decades. GME then acquired the film elements in dead storage through legal chain of title as a result of a warehouse auction. Click here for the I MARRIED JOAN dossier about the collection, including more detailed information about the series itself, the physical materials in this collection, provenance and chain of title, copyright information, digitization prospects, accompanying cataloguing database, and prospective placement with a cultural institution.
GME’s objective in this library excavation and placement project is to further the legacy of Joan Davis through a greater appreciation of the history of this overlooked television series.