Joan Davis

Can you qualify your assertions above please?

Davis preceded Lucy as a comedy star, appearing in B-movies from the 1930s on. During that time, Lucy was being miscast in all sorts of crappy roles at RKO and later at MGM, only occasionally getting a good part in comedies, dramas and even film noirs. Neither actress had an A-level movie career, but Davis was known more for comedy than Lucy at the time.

Lucy's huge success on television changed that.

I Married Joan was a ripoff of I Love Lucy, and despite the way Davis was billed, everyone knew by then who really was the queen of comedy -- Lucy.

I Married a Cunt!

What was with the Bill Cosby comparison OP

^^ "Dr. William H. Cosby, PhD" was the way the slimeball was billed on his hit TV show in the end credits.

Joan Davis drugged and raped Jim Backus. He channeled his pain into playing Thurston Howell III. 😔

Apparently r6.

She actually hired her daughter to play her sister.

This show was garbage, from the star to the writing to the production values.

It had OK ratings for two seasons on NBC, and then the audience was over it.

Joan had a rather masculine appearance, was she a early tranny?

Bitch was an egomaniac.

The intro announcer called it "The Joan Davis Show..."I Married Joan," starring America's queen of comedy, Joan Davis as Mrs. Joan Stevens... and featuring Jim Backus"

Not to be a downer but Joan died of a sudden heart attack at age 48 and her surviving family was wiped out in a house fire two years later.

R48, really? I Married Joan was such a hoot, because this young, fresh, dewy new bride... seemed like a dykish alcoholic 60 year old.

In the 80s a good friend hosted a weekly Joan Davis Fan Club meeting... signs in the front of her house, sitting down to watch an I Married Joan rerun. Substantial herb was involved.

[quote] I Married Joan was such a hoot, because this young, fresh, dewy new bride... seemed like a dykish alcoholic 60 year old.

It was supposed to be funny when she dressed up like a little girl, but she was channeling Baby Jane back in the 1950s.

A classic DL thread! I mean, it has all the components:

(a) rehashing TV shows from 70 years ago

(b) it's been discussed before

and

(c) DL seems to have a Joan Davis troll

I decided to check out some of the episodes on Youtube. And it is one of those shows, like Lucy, where Joan is constantly referred to as 'young lady' and girl a lot, despite looking every day, and then some, of her actual age. In one episode she is playing a young stewardess and all I could think was, Joan Davis must have been a Datalounger.

R15 And even a meta-communicative "here's why this is so DL" malcontent. Yep, it has everything.

Jim Backus looks mortified.

Does CDAN read Datalounge? A blind item today from "Old Hollywood":

[quote]An Old Hollywood item that is actually about television rather than a movie. A television show that lifted entire episodes from an iconic show and then ran them as theirs, right down to the physical comedy scene performed by the actress star of the show. The problem is the ripoff show had an actress nobody could stand who cast her daughter as her sister and had writers leave every week and the director saying out loud that he debated each day whether suicide or working with the actress for another day was preferable.

The only thing I've ever seen her in is the Abbott & Costello film Hold That Ghost . . .

When I was a kid her show ran on cable...I think CBN?...and even as a child I found that bombastic opening ludicrous. Poor Jim Backus!

r20 She actually was pretty funny in that movie, one of Abbott & Costello's best.

r19 Can we sue for plagiarism?

"Queen of Comedy" my ass!

I preferred her to Lucy.

I think she was pretty funny on the show. No Lucy, but amusing in her own right.

[quote]Jim Backus looks mortified.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine, but for him, "Gilligan's Island" was actually a step UP.

[quote]It was supposed to be funny when she dressed up like a little girl, but she was channeling Baby Jane back in the 1950s.

Bitch was "channeling" Baby Snooks.

They should have called it [italic]I Didn't Marry Lucy.[/italic]

The set design of this show was so ugly. It's cluttered and busy and competes with the actors.

The I Love Lucy set by comparison is simple, clean and light...it's a much better backdrop for comedy.

It's of its time period but it has aged well.

Anyway: Jim Backus was a hot daddy.

R11 I have a disdain for actors who name every show after themselves, and it is almost always comedians. What gives?

BILL COSBY -- "The Bill Cosby Show," "The New Bill Cosby Show," "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids," "Cos," "The Cosby Show," "The Cosby Mysteries," "Cosby," "Little Bill"

BOB NEWHART -- "The Bob Newhart Show," "Newhart," "Bob"

TONY DANZA often played someone named 'Tony' -- Tony Banta ("Taxi"), Tony Micelli ("Who's the Boss?"), Tony Canetti ("Hudson Street"), Tony DiMeo ("The Tony Danza Show"), Tony Caruson ("The Good Cop")

ELLEN DEGENERES -- "Ellen," "The Ellen Show," "The Ellen DeGeneres Show"

Jim Backus is awful in the episodes I have seen of this show. I don't know why people thought he was a great comic actor.