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Entertaining and clever dialogue and sight gags with very narrow parameters when it came to subject matter. These shows depended more upon the characters and their uniqueness. "My Miss Brooks", "Leave It to Beaver", "The Honeymooners", and "I Love Lucy" were all interesting and funny, but never touched upon anything controversial or what might be 'offensive' to viewers. This also made them 'the best' in many people's limited television choices because when television was new some folks saw it as a threat . It was beamed into your home, like radio, but now you could see the actors, so not as much was left to the imagination. They also focused on middle-class white families, with only an occasional nod to people of color or non-Christians in an effort to appeal to audience they 'thought' were spending money on the products that supported them. Of course this wasn't true and television has come a long way to rebalance the omission of the rest of the world community.

Television came on the heels of movies, which closely followed after vaudeville. This means the plot and dialogue was very important as the visuals were minimal. If you watch these programs you'll notice there are very few sets and out-door shots are few and far between. I don't think we ever got out of Ralph Cramdon's kitchen in "The Honeymooners". "Leave It to Beaver" was mostly shot in the Cleaver home, occasionally taking us to Beaver's school or the sidewalk in front of the house. So the weight of the program was on the dialogue and acting, and they did an excellent job.

My Miss Brooks starred Eve Arden, a veteran vaudeville and movie actress who had an excellent sense of timing and delivery. Her show was also one of the leaders in the world of the single working woman. A very young Richard Crenna played one of her rather simple-minded students and Gale Gorden, another veteran of stage and film was her boss. Eve Arden's sarcastic, witty observations were spot on in timing and delivery and gave women a character slightly different view of life from the housewife characters of Leave It To Beaver and The Honeymooners.

Leave It To Beaver featured the sweet, cute and brutally honest little boy nicknamed Beaver, probably because of his cute front teeth acted perfectly by Jerry Mathers. He lived in an almost perfect family with a mother, June Cleaver played expertly by Barbara Billingsly always had dinner on the table, the house spotless and a comforting word for her husband Ward, the Beaver

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