This collection of The Couple Next Door Greats includes 147 different shows and appearances for a total of 34+ hours of listening enjoyment.
Ethel and Albert (aka The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert) was a radio and television comedy series about a married couple, Ethel and Albert Arbuckle, living in the small town of Sandy Harbor. Created by Peg Lynch, who scripted and portrayed Ethel, the series first aired on local Minnesota radio in the early 1940s, followed by a run on NBC, CBS, and ABC from May 29, 1944 to August 28, 1950.
Radio historian Gerald Nachman (in Raised on Radio) called the show "insightful and realistic... a real leap forward in domestic comedy--a lighthearted, clever, well-observed, daily 15-minute show about the amiable travails of a recognizable suburban couple" which combined "the domestic comedy of a vaudeville-based era with a keen modern sensibility. Lynch made her comic points without stooping to female stereotypes, insults, running gags, funny voices or goofy plots."
The show began as three-minute filler between a pair of Minnesota KATE station programs, then expanded to 15 minutes and finally became a half-hour show in the last couple of years on radio. Like Easy Aces, the humor on Ethel and Albert was low-key; like Vic and Sade, it was constructed around such simple, often mundane household situations as efforts to open a pickle jar. Often Ethel or Albert would attempt to prove the other wrong over some inconsequential matter. For example, one entire script centered around Ethel disputing Albert's claim that he could see her using only his peripheral vision. "I realized that I didn't have to sit down and knock myself out every minute to try to think of something funny," Lynch told critic Leonard Maltin many years later. "All I had to do was look around me."
This collection of The Couple Next Door Greats includes 147 different shows and appearances for a total of 34+ hours of listening enjoyment.
This product is a DVD collection of Old Time Radio mp3s. It is designed to be played on your computer DVD drive with standard mp3 software - like Windows media player or its equivalent on Macintosh computers. The mp3 files on the DVDs can be copied onto CDs for play in your car stereo, home entertainment center, etc so you can take your favorite shows with you anywhere you go.
