What I watched: The sixteenth episode of The Life of Riley, an early sitcom. The episode starred Jackie Gleason, Rosemary DeCamp, Sid Tomack, Maxine Semon, and Bill George. It was directed by Herbert I. Leeds, and written by Irving Breecher, Reuben Shipp, and Alan Lipscott. “Riley’s Firstborn” aired on NBC at 9:30 PM on Tuesday, January 17, 1950, and is available to watch on the Internet Archive.
What happened: It’s the weekly canasta night at Riley’s house. One of the guests is Hal, a young man who works at the same plant as Riley and Gillis. Gillis makes some jokes about how he hates his wife..Hal has apparently been distracted lately because he’s worried about his upcoming baby and how to support it on a factory worker’s salary. Riley tells him that he’s got to be a pillar of strength for his family.
As Riley heads out, everyone else decides to reminisce about how Riley really reacted to having a baby for the first time. We get our first recorded version of the TV ripple flashback. We’re back in Brooklyn, and everyone is wearing wigs. Peg meets with her doctor to discuss the pregnancy, but she hasn’t told Riley yet.
Riley and Peg are living in a dingy basement, where they serve as the janitors. It’s like me, except he has prospects for the future. Riley and Gillis come in wearing super-plaid period clothes. After a long time trying to give him the news in a roundabout fashion, Riley finally figures things out. He seems happy enough.
However, problems arise: when Riley asks for a raise, he’s fired, and re-hired at a lesser rate. That’s why you need a union, kids. After a quick fade to black, Peg is ready to have the baby. Riley hails a cab to the hospital, but forgets to bring his wife the first time. It’s Riley who’s looking sick by the time they get there.
After another convenient fade, baby Barbara is out. We don’t actually see her though, because filming with babies is a pain in the ass. Back in the present, Riley is back, and they’re almost ready to play canasta. They get a call saying that Hal’s wife has already given birth, to twins. Man, pregnancies were a lot faster back in the day.
What I thought: This episode of Life of Riley introduces us to another sitcom staple — the flashback episode. If you can’t think of something new to do with the characters, you can always stick them in a bunch of wigs and hilariously dated fashions and play out an established part of the backstory. It’s a foolproof plan.
The only problem is that this episode of Life of Riley doesn’t really have much of a story to tell. The available film is even shorter than normal, clocking in at a slender 18 minutes. The putative point of Peg’s narrative is that her husband freaked out when the baby was on the way, but we don’t really see much in the way of irrational behaviour. He’s worried, but he has good reason to be worried, with a child on the way that he can’t afford and little job prospects. Okay, his need to be comforted during the delivery is a little outlandish, but it’s not exactly funny.
I should probably pay some attention in these write-ups to Rosemary DeCamp, playing the fairly thankless role of Peg. Most of the focus of writing about the show (and of the show itself) was on Jackie Gleason, whose exaggerated expressions would make him perfect for TV. But DeCamp would also go on to have a long career in television, both in recurring and guest roles.
For the most part, she glides through Life of Riley as the archetypical housewife, but she actually puts a lot of effort into this episode’s performance. In a sense, DeCamp is almost giving a dramatic performance, conveying a real anguish over her changing life and how much she cares for her family. It’s not Emmy-reel stuff, but there’s a genuine emotion to much of her acting here which is absent throughout the series.
If the overall plot of the episode isn’t that interesting, than neither is the frame narrative which sets up this extended flashback. I sometimes talk about sitcoms as instruction manuals for the heteronormative family, but this episode takes this role literally, with . The nominal crisis is Hank’s inability to focus at work: to address this, making him unproductive in his role as breadwinner. So he must learn from Riley’s example and not allow himself to be overwhelmed with emotion.
At the heart of this narrative is an association of masculinity with stoicism. Paternal love is taken to be a positive emotion, but one that is not to be indulged too much. Riley is the butt of the joke precisely because he is unable to control his love for his family and his anxiety about his future. Hank has just started his instruction, but he’s well on his way to being the kind of bitter, indifferent father represented by Gillis.
Coming up next: Suspense marks the dead of winter with an episode called “Summer Storm.”
The Eternal Couch Potato 