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If you know much of anything about Television sitcoms of the 1960s, you know that the bulk of them had some kind of supernatural gimmick. Two of the more popular shows of this type: "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeannie" were about a beautiful immortal woman, helping out (or attempting to help) a mortal man with magic.

Here things are a little more down to earth. In "Dream Wife," a pilot that didn't make any network's schedule, Shirley Jones was the titular character (who was called "Liza" by everyone in the cast who used her name, but was listed as "Lisa" in the show's credits), who helped her hubby Paul (Donald May) rise through the ranks in his job to become a junior partner in his firm as this episode gets going.

The secret is that the character has the ability to hear thoughts (as the audience can hear them as well, with an echo-like voiceover when she's mind-reading) and through that, she could steer and guide her spouse to make the right choices and have success.

Liza (I'm going with how the name was pronounced), was a mom to young Tommy (Kelly Corcoran) who knows Mom has ESP through their private interactions, and they keep that info away from Dad because Liza's good friend Professor De Pew (John Abbott) suggests that telling him would create even more trouble when he discovers he hasn't accomplished any of his business achievements on his own!

The trouble with the pilot is in the interactions between the characters, which, even for a sitcom, don't feel real at all. Reactions to misunderstandings, handling antagonists and generally reacting to information by all of the characters just feels stilted and unreal within the program's own context. I think if those were cleaned up and made more believable, this might have found a network.

But there were two sitcoms that eventually were created that played on this very same theme. The first was "Nanny and the Professor" (which also borrowed liberally from "Mary Poppins") about a child caretaker played by Juliet Mills, who seemed to have several sorts of powers as she helped her little family along, and "The Girl With Something Extra" with Sally Field as another character with the ability to read minds, only she confessed her skills to her husband after they got married.

"Dream Wife" is a unique curio in TV lore, even as it was trying to copy the current tropes of the mid-1960s programming schedule, and Ms. Jones is the best, if not the only reason to consider giving it a look.

The World, The United States and New York City were very different places in 1966 than they are as you're reading this. And Prime Time TV back then was determined to try to distract its viewers with elements that were either nostalgic or completely unrealistic.

But sometimes, there were shows that at least bordered on the facts of the day, even as they played it for laughs. One of those was "Occasional Wife."

At the time, there was a belief that if a man couldn't find a woman to marry him by a certain age, there was something bothersome, untrustworthy, "wrong" about him. So, if a bachelor was trying to climb the corporate ladder in a company, they likely would be passed over by a married guy, especially one with a family.

Such was the case for executive Peter Christopher (Michael Callan) who worked for a Baby Food company (hence, the "family image" issue), as Peter was looking to get promoted by his persnickety boss, Mr. Brahms (Jack Collins). So, Peter did the only thing he thought to do, get his platonic woman friend Greta (Patricia Harty) who was already pretending to be married to "slow down" the male patrons of the cocktail bar she worked at, to be a stand in as his spouse!

Peter moved Greta into an apartment two flights above his own, and the charade began, as Greta was working to become a fashion designer at a local art school (which Peter paid for as recompense for her having to be Peter's "wife").

Scenarios involved Greta playing house for Peter, even as Peter's actual girlfriends were around and about, unexpected visits from his corporate bosses for dinners, and all of the machinations and manipulations that those things created, including the requisite racing up and down the NYC building's fire escape so Peter could escape getting fired.

Plus there were the disapproving glances from the neighbor in-between those floors (great character actor, Bryan O'Byrne) who wordlessly watched the traffic flying past his window.

The most notable thing about the series was that it was narrated by long time Dodgers play-by-play announcer, Vin Scully, in an uncredited role, where he would describe the action and even make commentary about the circumstances (Ron Howard would carry this concept to its zenith with his similar narration of the sitcom "Arrested Development," nearly 40 years later).

The show attempted to be a little bit spicy for its day, sometimes bordering on the same territory that "Three's Company," with its "two ladies and one gentleman in the same apartment" concept perfected just a decade later. But, in the end, despite the charm of Callan and Harty in their roles and the descriptions and accounts offered by Scully, "Occasional Wife" was out at home in just one at bat, er, season.

Imagine an hour long "Saturday Night Live" episode, every weeknight at 11pm Eastern time. That's essentially what "Broadway Open House," television's first ever "late night" entertainment broadcast, was.

Let's just keep in mind, performing live on television every night required some serious skills. If a joke didn't work, how do you recover? That was Jerry Lester's forte. With a booming voice and a rubber face, Lester was ready to make audiences laugh by reading the names of the countries that belonged to the brand new United Nations on the East Side! And honestly? He had the ability and the chutzpah to do it!

With his high energy personality and his "anything for a laugh" attitude, Mr. Lester turned into a fan favorite and the program became a popular event at the end of each weekday broadcast night. But, surely even a talent like Jerry Lester couldn't do this all alone. What would it take to make this concept work? It would take a great musical director like Milton de Lugg. It would take great writers/performers like Morey Amsterdam (who was the previous MC and who alternated with Lester as host as the show gained viewers). It would take singers like Jane Harvey and David Street.

And it would take something extra, and that "extra" was known as Dagmar.

Dagmar was "invented" on "Broadway Open House" as a "ditzy blonde" character, which was already cliché at the time, thanks to comics like "Archie" and "Blondie." But she soon transcended the stereotype and became a show favorite and the first female superstar of late night. She even got her own spinoff show, "Dagmar's Canteen," where she would talk with servicemen about their lives and then perform a song or two, just like a USO Canteen in various ports-of-call.

Filling time and killing time was part of the process on this show. Gags were tried on the spot and if they worked, great. If they flopped, then you had to laugh it off and move on to the next thing. There was no playbook here. "Broadway Open House" was WRITING the playbook on how to handle a telecast like this as they went! That was why people had to tune in - you never knew what was going to happen.

Conversely, that need to "fill and kill" often meant a lot of really bad jokes, or really obvious jokes, and watching live television with someone doing unfunny "comedy" sketches brought groans, at best, or it was truly painful to witness. Imagine one of the worst episodes of "Saturday Night Live" you remember, run every weeknight!

New York played a part because they packed the audience with people for each show and their excitement fueled the cast's enthusiasm. This gets to why the show isn't higher on the list. It appears they got so used to either coming up with material on the fly and having it supported by an amped up crowd, or were able to weather the bad routines even when they went really wrong, they either didn't want or get to put in much writing or rehearsal time.

To be fair, doing this every night was a massive challenge! The 2024 incarnation of "SNL" does, at most, THREE shows in a row, and they're only doing one show a week and they have a team of writers, plus different hosts and musical guests for each episode to provide topics and themes that help vary the material. While "Broadway Open House" did have guests some of the time, the heavy lifting was done by the main cast and crew.

Partially because of the technology of the day (many episodes were either lost or destroyed) and partially because there aren't a lot of "vintage" clips that are worth viewing (despite Amsterdam's and Lester's best efforts at comedy), "Broadway Open House" will remain an historic but obscure part of the Annals of Television.