Mrs. G. Goes to College

Did You Know?

• Co-star Cedric Hardwicke, in a 1962 TV Guide article, commented, 'If you're going to work in rubbish, you might as well get paid for it.'
• The series was released by Dick Powell's Four Star Television.
• The music was by Herschel Burke Gilbert.

Synopsis

Gertrude Berg, fresh from her long run on The Goldbergs, stepped back into episodic TV as Sarah Green, a 62-year-old widow starting college. This character, closely resembling Berg's famous Molly Goldberg, had first appeared as Aunt Sarah on Jackie Cooper's sitcom Hennesey earlier in 1961. The cast included Cedric Hardwicke as Professor Crayton and Mary Wickes as landlady Winona Maxfield. Skip Ward played fellow student Joe Caldwell, while Marion Ross appeared in five episodes as Berg's on-screen daughter, Susan Green. Aneta Corsaut, later known as Helen Crump on The Andy Griffith Show, was in 13 episodes as Irma Howell, a professor's wife, and Karyn Kupcinet played Carol, a young classmate of Sarah's. The story follows Sarah Green, a widow in her early sixties, who enrolls at her local college. She interacts with a Cambridge University exchange professor and her next-door neighbor George Howell, a character similar to Roy Norris from Fibber McGee and Molly, complete with his no-nonsense wife. The show aired Wednesdays at 9:30 Eastern, sponsored by General Foods, following CBS's Checkmate. It faced competition from ABC's Hawaiian Eye and NBC's Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall. Nielsen ratings were mediocre. After 13 episodes, a midseason move to Thursday nights and a title change to The Gertrude Berg Show failed to boost ratings. CBS canceled the series abruptly in April 1962 without airing repeats. The series resurfaced on get TV in March 2017 and began airing in the UK on Talking Pictures TV in April 2018.