The Bickersons originated on radio and starred Frances Langford as the long-suffering Blanche Bickerson and Don Ameche as her harried husband, John Bickerson.
This couple truly lived up to their surname, arguing about (amongst other things) his snoring, her mother, his drinking, her cooking, his cheapness and her spending.
Unlike The Honeymooners – who did indeed fight a lot and yet displayed great love and admiration for one another – the Bickersons’ love was rarely obvious.
When The Bickersons came to TV, they were originally seen as a semi-regular live feature on the DuMont Network’s Star Time series.
Frances Langford reprised her role as Blanche, but now in the role of John was comic Lew Parker (later Lew Marie on That Girl).
The Bickersons became a weekly syndicated series in 1951 and again starred Lew Parker as John, but now Virginia Grey was Blanche.
These episodes are sometimes called It’s The Bickersons, and the opening credits featured two birds on a perch squawking at one another. The couple resided in apartment 22 and had a cat named Nature Boy.
Also in the cast were Blanche’s judgmental sister next door on Englewood Drive, Clara Gollup (Lois Austin), and her brother-in-law Barney Gollup (Sam Lee), who could never quite satisfy his appetite for food or gambling.
This syndicated version of The Bickersons only lasted one season, but the unhappily married couple surfaced as a semi-regular erratically-timed feature on variety shows through 1953 – still with Lew Parker as John, but now with Betty Kean as Blanche.
Blanche Bickerson
Frances Langford (1)
Virginia Grey (2) John Bickerson
Lew Parker Clara Gollup
Lois Austin Barney Gollup
Sam Lee
