''Marge and Jeff'' is an early American

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

broadcast Monday through Friday on the

DuMont Television Network The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being ...

during the 1953-1954 television season.

Broadcast history

The program originated as ''Marge and Fred'' on a station in Philadelphia. The title was changed when a new male co-star came on the show. The main claim to fame of this series is the fact that, unlike many other American sitcoms of the 1950s, it appeared every weekday at 7:15 pm ET, after ''

Captain Video and His Video Rangers ''Captain Video and His Video Rangers'' is an American science fiction television series that aired on the DuMont Television Network and was the first series of its genre on American television. The series aired between June 27, 1949, and Apr ...

'' during its original run. The show starred and was written by Marge Greene. Each episode was 15 minutes long. The series, at one point, received a Neilson rating of 13.6.

Format

The series was largely set in the living room and kitchen of characters Marge and Jeff, who were often accompanied by their dog Paisley. Costing just $5,000 a week to produce and aired on 40 stations, the series used a mix of rehearsed and ad-lib dialogue, based on a scenario written by Marge Greene. It was originally a local Philadelphia-aired series titled ''Marge and Fred''.

Episode status

At least 27 episodes exist at the

UCLA Film and Television Archive The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Also a nonprofit exhibition venue, the archiv ...

, and four at the

Paley Center for Media The Paley Center for Media, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio (MT&R) and the Museum of Broadcasting, founded in 1975 by William S. Paley, is an American cultural institution in New York City, New York with a branch office in Los Angeles, ...

. UCLA records show that the show probably never had a commercial sponsor and instead featured

public service announcement A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. In the UK, they are generally called a public information film (PIF); in Hong Kong, ...

s. Some of the existing episodes survived because it directly followed ''Captain Video'' which was regularly kinescoped, with ''Marge and Jeff'' apparently preserved on the same 30-minute reel of film. UCLA records indicate that several episodes were repeated in July 1954. For example, the September 28, 1953, episode was repeated on July 20, 1954.http://cinema.library.ucla.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=136849 This indicates that DuMont was retaining at least some of the episodes after broadcast. This is noteworthy because DuMont's archive was destroyed by a successor company after the network ceased broadcasting, and there has been speculation as to which shows DuMont had considered worth keeping.

Bibliography

*David Weinstein, ''The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television'' (Philadelphia:

Temple University Press Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach t ...

, 2004) *Alex McNeil, ''Total Television'', Fourth edition (New York:

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains ...

, 1964)

References

External links