ONE SEASON WONDERS: Mrs. G. Goes to College

MRS. G. GOES TO COLLEGE

Programming Details:
October 4, 1961 - April 5, 1962
26 episodes
CBS

Starring: Gertrude Berg and Cedric Hardwicke, Mary Wickes, Skip Ward, Marion Ross, Paul Smith, Aneta Corsaut
Created by: Gertrude Berg, Cherney Berg & Arthur Stander

Plot: Sarah Green (Goldberg) is a 62 year old widow who decides to attend her local college. She immediately deals with her much younger classmates including Joe (Ward) and spars with a professor on exchange from Cambridge University (Hardwicke). Rounding out the main cast are new on campus neighbors, the Howells (Smith & Corsaut).  

Brief Pilot Review:
It's interesting to go back and look at shows like I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show and realize just how special they were at the time for their sophisticated humor. Most shows of their era were so much gentler and this is one of them. A lot of that is due to Berg, who was a holdover from radio days. I'm not discounting the very successful career she had but watching this (the first I've ever seen of her on screen), I'm surprised she was able to carry entire shows. She certainly seems more like a supporting character even in a show completely centered on her because of her sensibility. 

This doesn't play like a "fish out of water" show even though the concept is and I think that's because Berg is just too calm to seem flustered by her unusual situation in the show. There was an awful lot of long musical sequences showing Berg in her dorm room. She played the sadness well but the problem was just none of it was funny. I'm never one to be too critical of a sitcom going for heart but it can't be heart instead of humor, it has to be heart in addition to humor. It was a thrill to see a younger Marion Ross in a recurring role as Berg's on-screen daughter. I think this is a show you had to go in with the expectation that you were going to maybe gently smile, but you certainly weren't going to laugh. It's certainly dated now and perhaps even was back then.

What Went Wrong:

Mrs. G. Goes to College was a sequel of sorts to The Goldbergs, a radio sitcom from 1929 to 1946 and TV sitcom from 1949 to 1956. The Goldbergs was an incredibly popular show across both mediums and Gertrude Berg was a genuine star of the era. This show had Berg playing a very similar role to the Molly Goldberg role she made famous. By the time Mrs. G Goes to College aired though, TV had changed and the gentle family shows that aided the transition from radio to TV were off the air or on their way out. So the gentleness I discussed above wasn't playing as well as it might have even a few years earlier.

At midseason, Mrs. G. Goes to College was struggling the ratings and was moved from Wednesdays to Thursdays. The series was retitled The Gertrude Berg Show in an attempt to make a greater connection to their star. The changes did not improve things and the series was cancelled after one season. Mary Wickes received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. This was the last major work for Berg who passed away in 1966, much more remembered for her role as Molly Goldberg than Sarah Green.

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