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1949: 'Mama' Makes its Debut
July 1, 2013  | By David Bianculli
 
The popular sitcom Mama — which debuted on this day in 1949 — was to Norwegians what The Goldbergs was to Jews: an affectionate look at their cultural heritage, rich family life, and proud status as hardworking American immigrants.

But where The Goldbergs was a contemporary comedy, Mama was a period piece, set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. Except for its final season, Mama was performed live, so the majority of the series' episodes exist only in memory — a neat irony, since the sitcom is based on the 1948 movie I Remember Mama (which, in turn, was based on a Broadway play, which was based on a novel).

On television, Rosemary Rice's Katrina opens each show by flipping through a family photo album and saying fondly, " I remember my brother Nels, and my little sister Dagmar, and of course, Papa. But most of all, I remember Mama." The TV Mama is loaded with firsts: it's the first TV spinoff series based on a movie (beating CBS's The Front Page and NBC's The Life of Riley to the punch by several months), the first instance of popular support from viewers reinstating a canceled TV show (when CBS dropped the series in 1956, so many fans complained that the network reversed its decision), and the first instance of a TV series getting its act together and taking it on the road.

Peggy Wood, the titular star of Mama, toured regional summer theaters with a stage version of her TV show and, according to one account at the time, "broke box-office records" — a startlingly early precursor of the TV-to-stage phenomenon later presented by the likes of The Real Live Brady Bunch.

Other Mama legacies include the character of Dagmar (one of the actresses who played the role is now better known as feminist writer Robin Morgan),  whose Dagmar name was appropriated for the buxom sidekick played by Jennie Lewis on Broadway Open House, and a youngster named Dick Van Patten, who played the rather geeky-looking son, Nels. Van Patten would grow up, of course, to head his own TV family, as the patriarch of Eight is Enough.

And regarding Mama, that's about enough, too — except to note one Mama legacy that, unfortunately, was not embraced by subsequent sitcoms. On Mama, commercials appeared only at the start and end of each program, and never were permitted to interrupt the action. Mama mia!

—Excerpted from Dictionary of Teleliteracy: Television's 500 Biggest Hits, Misses and Events

 
 
 
 
 
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