The Donna Reed Show
The Donna Reed Show is an American situation comedy in which Donna Reed portrays the upper-middle-class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz co-stars as her pediatrician husband, Dr. Alex Stone, while Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen play their adolescent children, Mary and Jeff. From September24, 1958 until March19,1966, the show initially aired on ABC. Patty Petersen joined the cast as adopted daughter Trisha after Fabares left the show in 1963. On January31,1963, Patty Petersen made her first appearance in "A Way of Her Own." Bob Crane and Ann McCrea featured in the last seasons as the Stones' friends the Kelseys, while Darryl Richard became a near regular as Jeff's best friend Smitty. The diversity of celebrity guests included Esther Williams as a prominent fashion designer, baseball players Don Drysdale and Willie Mays as themselves, adolescent heartthrob James Darren as a pop singer with the measles, canine sensation Lassie as herself, and little Jay North from CBS's Dennis the Menace. William S. Roberts devised the series, which Reed and her then-husband, producer Tony Owen, developed. The episodes centered on normal family issues of the era, such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, planning a retirement party for a coworker, and finding time away from the children. Infrequently, controversial topics such as women's rights and press freedom were examined.