Angel (1960 TV series)

infobox television
show_name = Angel
format = Sitcom
picture_format = Black and white
runtime = 30 minutes
starring = Annie Fargé
Marshall Thompson
Doris Singleton
Don Keefer
country = United States
network = CBS
first_aired = October 6, 1960
last_aired = May 10, 1961
num_seasons = 1
num_episodes = 33
imdb_id = 0053480

Angel is a 33-episode CBS sitcom in the 1960-1961 season about a pretty young scatterbrained Frenchwoman, Angelique "Angel" Smith, played by Annie Fargé (pronounced far-ZHAY), who comes to the United States and marries a young architect, John Smith, portrayed by Marshall Thompson (1925-1992). Angel, with her distinct French accent, gets into various problems with the culture, language, and procedures in her new country. [ [http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/angel/199754 Angel on CBS] , TV Guide, accessed March 30, 2008] Though it had much less slapstick comedy, "Angel" was somewhat akin to two other CBS sitcoms, the already concluded Lucille Ball's "I Love Lucy" and the then newly-premiered Cara Williams and Harry Morgan series "Pete and Gladys", a spin-off of CBS's successful "December Bride", starring Spring Byington. "Angel" was broadcast at 9 p.m. Eastern on Thursday evenings between October 6, 1960, and May 10, 1961. It switched to Wednesdays at the same time for the summer reruns. Segments included "Voting Can Be Fun" (when the Smith home was turned into a voter precinct), "Angel's Temper", "The Valedictorian", "The Dowry", "The Joint Bank Account", "The Driving Lesson", "The French Lesson", "The Trusting Wife", and the concluding episode, "The Trailer". In the latter, Angel thinks that she has won a house trailer but was instead agreeing to make payments on the vehicle. John tries to get out of the contract, and then the company sends a model more extravagant than Angel had unwittingly agreed to purchase. [ [http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Stage/2950/US/Comedy/Angel.htm CTVA Comedy - "Angel" (CBS)(1960-61) Annie Fargé, Marshall Thompson, Doris Singleton ] ]

The series costarred Doris Singleton as Angel's sympathetic friend Susie and Don Keefer as Susie's husband George, somewhat like the Ethel and Fred roles of "I Love Lucy". [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053480/episodes "Angel" (1960) - Episode list ] ] The competititon included two other sitcoms, Fred MacMurray's first season of "My Three Sons", which went on to a twelve-year run, first on ABC and then CBS, and "Bachelor Father", starring John Forsythe, Noreen Corcoran, and Sammee Tong, then in its last year on NBC, but having been on all three networks during its total five-year run from 1957-1962. "Angel" followed the final season of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater and preceded what turned out to have been the last of the three-year run of "The Ann Sothern Show", which had been highly rated in its two earlier years. [1960-1961 United States network television schedule, Thursdays] . When CBS announced early in 1961 that "Angel" had been cancelled because of low ratings, "Time" magazine suggested that at least the talented Fargé should be "salvaged from the wreckage" for another enterprise. [ [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,874284,00.html Midseason Countdown - Printout - TIME ] ] Earlier, "Time" had commented that Fargé "triumphantly resists being merely Lucille Ball with a French accent. She is easily the brightest newcomer to situation comedy—small, pert, winsome, and somehow giving the impression of being attractively feathered." [ [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,871774,00.html The New Shows - Printout - TIME ] ] Fargé (age unavailable) did little acting after "Angel", but Thompson, the brother-in-law of actor Richard Long starred in the mid-1960s CBS series "Daktari" about a veterinarian in Africa.

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