As we continue our theme of Funny Duos, today we delve into Wendy and Me, starring George Burns. This one debuted on ABC in fall of 1964 and was canceled by the next season.

Gracie Allen passed away from a heart attack in 1964. She had quit the Burns and Allen show to get away from the fast pace of show business. Burns wasn’t ready to retire, so he agreed to star in this sitcom with Connie Stevens.

Burns, a former entertainment performer, owns an apartment building where Wendy Conway (Stevens) lives with her husband Jeff (Ron Harper). Burns practices singing for five or six hours a day just in case he is able to make a comeback. There were a lot of complaints, so he had to buy the building to keep practicing. Also in the cast was Danny Adams (James T. Callahan), a friend of Jeff‘s who’s a playboy, and Mr. Bundy (J. Pat O’Malley), the superintendent.

Like his previous show, Burns can watch a television playing Wendy and Me and talk to the audience about the events. This show was also similar to Burn and Allen in that George is the straight man while Stevens is the naïve, bit ditzy, scatterbrained blonde who is an airline stewardess and Jeff is a pilot. As George says, “having Wendy help you is like being lost in a desert for four days and then having someone give you a glass of sand.”

A running gag on the show is that Wendy celebrates everything from when she and Jeff had their first date to when she first put sugar in his coffee.

The show aired Monday nights. It was sandwiched between No Time for Sergeants, a military comedy, and The Jack Benny Show. However, its competition was The Lucy Show and The Andy Williams Show. The Andy Griffith Show was on before The Lucy Show, and both were top-ten hits so the struggle for viewers was challenging.

Actually the show was well written and I thought the dialogue was great. If this had been the original version of this show, it probably would have been a big hit. I’m guessing that it was hard to compete with Gracie and with her having just passed away, it felt wrong to cheer for me to root for someone else in her place. While those feelings might have come into some of the audience draw, I’m guessing the tough competition was this show’s biggest hurdle. It probably could have drawn viewers from younger generations who never saw the original Burns and Allen but when it was up against The Lucy Show that followed The Andy Griffith Show, the viewers chose NBC. The Andy Williams Show also struggled in this time slot.