MovieChat Forums > The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952) Discussion > Did this show literally recycle episodes...

Did this show literally recycle episodes? What is going on here?

posted 7 years ago by Navaros
1 reply | jump to latest

I watched this episode on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osg8fL6RwiI&list=PLABBf_0W_aIt_IJp02LykSgIzcov2Q3hH

At the start, O&H claim that they are going to show an episode from 8 years earlier.

Was that an episode that never aired 8 years earlier? Or did they just air the same exact episode twice (with a couple of minutes of added frame-story footage tacked onto the beginning and end of the second airing)?

If they did air the episode twice, then the episode count commonly given must be incorrect, because duplicate episodes should not be counted twice.

Also, this begs the question how many other episodes did they duplicate?

And why do people "credit" (it's really a mark of shame, not credit) LITB with having the first clip show when this episode apparently is evidence of O&H doing that first?

[–] gbennett5 7 years ago

In those days, shows - like today - had contracts for a certain number of episodes
each season. To lighten the tight schedule (this series was shot ONE camera,
like a movie), a few would be selected from seasons past. In order to get
PAID, Ozzie, as producer, had to frame it with "new" footage, introducing
them as a "fave" from years before. "Bewitched" did the same thing twice during
its eight-year run.

This was actually quite charming on O & H, as one could revisit the series before
Ricky hit puberty and when David was covered in zits and had a squeaky voice.