A Struggle for Happiness - By: Dr. Rob Moore

A Struggle for Happiness

The Nelson family, Ozzie, Harriet, David and Ricky, really were very nice people. David is still alive, but the rest, unfortunately, are no longer with us.

As everyone knows, Ozzie and Harriet (the name by which the show was known) was one of the longest running sit-coms in television history.

Ozzie, being burned out by the life of a big band leader, was anxious to get off the road; thus his willingness to focus his attention on a television program.

The scripts for Ozzie and Harriet were written by Ozzie with occasional input from the rest of the family. The story lines were primarily taken from real life events of his two sons as they grew. Ozzie would take a basic event in the life of either Ricky or David, place some well used gag lines around them, and "voila," a hit episode. Ozzie had an advantage in that he was a show business pro, and was dealing with a medium, TV, that was young. As such, situations that would now be too hackneyed to be aired, were then fresh to viewers.

The real home that Ozzie, Harriet, Ricky and David occupied was the one that was shown during the sitcom as their television home. And, the sets for the series were replicas of that home's interior.

The home had also belonged to Errol Flynn, and had the famous "black swimming pool." The pool floor and walls were painted black giving the pool a "lake at night" look.

In the early sixties, Ricky married Kristin Harmon, daughter of Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon.

Harriet once observed that Ricky, who was a very quiet young man, and Kris who was also very quiet, would create an explosion if they ever got together.

Unfortunately that was true. Their marriage was a difficult one, with Kristin, being a little more extravagant than Ricky could afford, was instrumental in forcing Ricky often to travel and perform when he would rather have been doing other things.

It was on one of these forced trips that he was killed.

Incidentally, the urban rumor that it was a drug induced fire that brought Ricky's plane down is untrue. There was no evidence of drugs or drug paraphernalia on board that plane. Ricky's plane maintenance log shows that the plane had had serious problems with the cabin heaters in the past, and the pilot indicated to ground control that he had tried to turn on the heaters just before he saw smoke coming into the cockpit.

May Ozzie, Harriet and Ricky rest in peace. And, may David and Kristin find a way to reconcile.

Ron - Toy Tech writes for "Ask Toy Tech" - the ToysPeriod blog. ToysPeriod is a premier online vendor of classic Lego set toys and model trains.

This is an article about the famous TV family, the Nelsons, and their struggle for happiness.