December Bride

December Bride was a situation comedy broadcast in the United States by the CBS television network.

December Bride centered around the adventures of Lily Ruskin, a spry widow who was not in fact a "December bride" but very much desired to become one, if the right man would come along. Aiding Lily in her search for this prospective suitor were her daughter Ruth, her son-in-law Matt, and her close friend and peer, Hilda Crocker. A next door neighbor, Pete Porter, was frequently seen. Married miserably himself, according to his constant complaints about his unseen wife, Gladys, he also envied Matt's positive relationship with Lily, as he despised his own mother-in-law.

First-run episodes of December Bride aired for five seasons, beginning in 1954 and ending in 1959. During the first four seasons, the program was not shown in the summer, supplanted by "summer replacement" series, but in its final year, repeat episodes were run in its time slot during the summer months.

December Bride was sufficiently popular that even after its production had ceased, CBS used repeat episodes of it to fill slots in its prime time programing. In July of 1960, they were used to fill in for the second half of the Friday 9 PM timeslot vacated by Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, running until the beginning of the fall 1960 schedule, and again as a temporary replacement at 7 PM Thursday nights in April 1961. Additionally, repeats of the program were shown on CBS as a daytime program from October 1959 until March 1961. The Pete Porter character became so popular that he and Gladys were spun off into their own series, Pete and Gladys, shortly after the end the broadcast of first-run episodes of December Bride.

Cast

• Spring Byington as Lily Rankin
• Frances Rafferty as Ruth Henshaw
• Dean Miller as Matt Henshaw
• Verna Felton as Hilda Crocker
• Harry Morgan as Pete Porter

References

• Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows

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