Take It From Me

1 9 5 3 – 1 9 5 4 (USA)
11 x 30 minute episodes

Standup comedienne Jean Carroll starred as an ‘average’ New York City housewife, complete with bumbling husband, Herbie (Alan Carney) and awkward, somewhat dopey daughter (Lynn Loring), in this ABC comedy.

Carroll opened each show with a monologue (much as Seinfeld would do, several decades later), then spiced the night’s sketch with comic asides to the audience. Many of the stories involved her sly schemes to trick her lazy but good-natured husband into doing whatever she wanted.

There was also a nosey neighbour, played by the epitome of nosey neighbours, Alice Pearce (later Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched).

The action took place in the couple’s apartment and the surrounding neighbourhood, which, though never identified, was presumably in Brooklyn or the Bronx.

Also known as The Jean Carroll Show, this ABC show aired on Wednesday nights at 9.00 pm.

Jean Carroll, however, quickly became disenchanted with the series, and after only eleven episodes, she announced to ABC that she no longer wished to continue.

Jean felt that Alan Carney was dreadfully miscast as her husband, and Take It from Me quickly disappeared from the ABC Wednesday night lineup.

Born Celine Zeigman in Paris in 1911, Jean Carroll became one of the first female stars of mainstream stand-up comedy – at a time when the world of stand-up comedy was thought to be no fit place for a woman – and was heralded as the female Milton Berle or Bob Hope.

She died at a hospital in White Plains on 1 January 2010. She was 98.

Wife
Jean Carroll
Husband (Herbie)
Alan Carney
Daughter
Lynn Loring