I don't know what I would have done without growing up with the Nelsons. I loved Ricky's music and still do, and I am 73. They were a nice, all around good family with high morals and principles.
I met Ozzie and Harriet about 1968. Ozzie was just like he appeared on his show. He was very outgoing and friendly. He had been a successful band leader and was instrumental in producing and promoting Ricks early career. Harriet was relatively quiet but lovely and elegant. It was a great privilege to meet them. Its hard to know they are all gone now. Wonderful people.
Like Desi and Lucy - and Jackie Gleason, Ozzie OWNED and DID EVERYTHING. The show, the producer, the director, actor, the head writer, the copyright holder, the production company, the syndicator etc. etc. etc.
A great and talented man with a very open honesty about his life; how he wrote and directed his show with his wife and sons; we won't see the likes of him anymore.
+moontheloon5 Very much a man of his time; charming, unassuming, articulate, but also in control. It's impossible not to like him, but his supposed in control methodology has been blamed for at least some of the problems that afflicted various members of his extended family. Where do you draw the line as a father? After almost 50 years, I have no clue.
i saw an interview with a child actor who was on the show and he said Ozzie really was an ice cream junkie. He took the boy in at the end of the day and they watched the rushes while eating ice cream. what great folks these guys were.
To Ozzie in 2022, I'm 59, have lived very near Ridgefield park, it is still legally known as a village. They preserve their history, don't knock down the older homes. Your childhood home still stands on Teaneck road and your brother attended the dedication ceremony in the 1990s of Ozzie Nelson drive which still is near the high school. Your legacy survives with your never met grandson Sam Nelson currently restoring every episode of your beloved creation.
This brings such tears to my eyes, how wonderful to know all that remains and is honored. Thank you, Sam, for your hard work, someday I would love to purchase your remastered Ozzie & Harriet Collection! 🩷
@Karenlee Mallonee how sweet karenlee. I know Sam Nelson personally, my interview appears here on RU-vid under paul donor interview ozzie and harriet. Seasons 11 and 12 are coming out shortly. Very nice comment.
@Karenlee Mallonee thank you karenlee, I'm a native of neighboring Ridgefield. The day I spent with Sam showing him his grandfather's original home, etc was a treasured experience. We still keep in touch via email. Thank you
@@paulgeorge1238 It really warms my heart that he took the time to see & learn about his Grandfather's young life. I'm happy to know he had such a nice, caring person to show him around. It's also nice to know he stays in contact with you, that's very special!
I enjoyed this interview very much. A huge fan of the show, I still listen to the old radio shows of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and also the tv shows. Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for this interview showing us he was pretty much that kind & genuine man we watched! I loved hearing about him in his younger days & it‘s all very interesting to me! And I can’t help but love the person he was.
What a remarkable perspective from someone who was the image of the stereotypical 50s middle class white gilded family. A very well and fairly reasoned man.
What a beautiful nostalgic walk down memory lane. Back to a more civilized time where manners and behavior were front and center. Where anyone older than you was addressed only as Mr. or Mrs. Now coarsened and vulgarized by today's pop culture. The world could use more John Wooden's Vin Scully's Lawrence Welk's and Ozzie Nelson's.
I remember "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" when I was little, but not very well. Back when the Disney Channel was still good, they brought the program back in the mid-1980s at 12:30 p.m. I couldn't wait to watch it. I still enjoy the program immensely. I then became a Ricky Nelson addict and was obsessed with his early music. Ozzie was a genius in my book. He acts in this interview exactly like I expected. What a wonderful person with high standards. Sad to know they're all gone now. Thank goodness we can still watch the show. Thanks, Ozzie, for what you did. You were a part of so many American's lives. I surely wish we had these standards today for TV shows.
Interesting what he says almost at the outset that this TV family was viewed as an ideal family and that teenagers from dysfunctional families (abusive/drunk) would want to be adopted by them. I have often thought that is true of so many TV families that seem so perfect.
yes and both Dave and Rick ended up divorced and Rick was a womanizer and a pothead. Rick also didn't make it through high school. It was said that as an adult Rick didn't even know how to write a check. That being said I really enjoyed the show
All interviewers should watch James Day conduct an interview: this is how you do it, as opposed to say Charlie Rose who just wants to show how much he knows. Very few people know how to get the best from a subject
I don’t know much about him, but, Ozzie seems to not have been a carbon copy of the stereotypical straight-laced Conservative - he was an avowed atheist, he enjoyed rock ‘n roll (he got heat for featuring it on his show), and he could appreciate the positive aspects to the hippy-movement. Refreshing. Also, unlike shows like Leave it to Beaver, etc. references to alcohol use and sexual predilections, although mild, were not verboten. Amazingly enough, Father Knows Best, uncharacteristically, produced a couple of pretty subversive episodes regarding women’s issues, in its early days.
@@karenleemallonee684 I've read several accounts of it over the years. I didn't know him, personally, so I really can't say, but that's what I read, that he was a tee-totaler and an atheist, and he got a lot of blowback for letting Ricky play rock-and-roll so publicly.
@@ddburrows988 I was just so surprised by what I read here, truly mind blowing to me. It doesn't change how I feel about Ozzie or the family, I don't think. I just thought (my own opinion) that they were a God loving family. You could have knocked me over with a feather last night...I'm still stunned. Ozzie was Ozzie, & I still love & respect the man, even if we would have had a difference of options. Thank you, DD Burrows for your information and in your kindness to write back, it's much appreciated!
I wish I had been born when there were more ballrooms! For a while they became popular here on the East coast. I have one old Arthur Murray studio down the street from me, but now it’s only open 3 days a week. I was surely born in the wrong era.
I loved the show, still watching re-runs.The only thing I never understood was did Ozzie EVER have a go to job?I never got over his ALWAYS wearing sport coats and ties! And lastly, why the older sons wearing sweaters and ties.Did neighbor "Thorny" ever have a job????
Ozzie was an eagle scout at 13? That is pretty amazing, to be so young. Scouting was a big deal - as he pointed out - in many smaller American towns and continued to be very influential throughout the 1960s and 70s.
Yes. Not a true pattern. They wrote comedy. They weren't the simple perfect family. Ozzie the character often had bad ideas which launched the plots. He bumbled into problems. Harriet was always coming out with dry snappy comebacks. Rick flew by the seat of his pants. David was simple, straight forward, conservative. These weren't the classic, square, nuclear family (which is how they are remembered). By the way, most shows weren't like all other sitcoms which ran for 25 mins with one idea; one theme per show. Ozzie and Harriet often had several threads per story line running per show. It must have been harder to write but it often made for a packed, fast moving show. It was funnier too because the viewer would forget about something that was going on so the comedic punch later on would blind side them thus making it surprising.
As a matter of fact, I liked how Ozzie keep giving such ideas to his sons and when things don't work, he told his sons to go on ask momma. I would laughed hard on Ozzie. Such a great entertainer.
Yes Ozzie...integrity has always been around. Unfortunately congress (note small “c”) thinks they are the only ones who can dictate THEIR integrity (socialism/death of the constitution/treating all who doesn’t lock in to their ideology like crap) upon the rest of the country. Says some terrible stuff about congress but even worse stuff about those who elected them! I wonder what Ozzie’s observations about today would be?
