The New Groom

When diffident Wally Cox and demure Patricia Benoit were joined last week in TV matrimony* before millions of their entranced fans on Mr. Peepers (Sun. 7:30 p.m., NBC), the happy event stirred up the most excitement since the arrival last year of Lucille Ball's TV baby. According to Trendex researchers, the Peepers' nuptials drew a bigger audience than the competing CBS Jack Benny Show, which ordinarily outscores it in the ratings.

Thus far, Mr. Peepers has concentrated on the minor problems of a high-school science teacher, played to awkward, heart-warming perfection by Wally Cox, who has spent as much time with eccentric friends and co-workers as he has on his sexless courtship of School Nurse Benoit. But even in television, things are bound to be different after a man gets married.

For one thing, Cox and his writers may find it nearly impossible to discover a comedy situation that has not already been fully explored and endlessly developed by rival husband & wife teams. The big-family family field is monopolized by Mamma, Life with Father and The Goldbergs. The young parents' division (both urban and suburban) is covered by Make Room for Daddy and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Cox and Actress Benoit can never hope to equal the eager smooching of Barry Nelson and Joan Caulfield (My Favorite Husband), the pratfalls of Joan Davis and Jim Backus (I Married Joan), or the downright silliness of Ray Milland and Phyllis Avery (Mr. McNutley). Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy) and Peg Lynch (Ethel and Albert) have all the first patents on feminine illogic, while Betty White (Life with Elizabeth) has staked out prior rights to the cuteness concession. Cox and his bride are too sweet-tempered to capture the honors in marital wrangling from Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows (The Honeymooners). Not much else is left.

Cox faces another problem. Even more than in life, the TV female is deadlier than the male. On practically every TV husband & wife show, the husband gradually diminishes to a straight man while the wife moves front and center, grabbing the best lines. Some TV husbands do little more than feed gags to their wives (e.g., Burns to Allen), or end scenes by chuckling: "In spite of everything, darling, I love you very much." TV wives invariably know best, and their most crackpot ideas turn out better than their husband's commonsensical thoughts.

Producer-Director Hal Keith hopes to avoid these traps by ignoring them. The show's title will remain as it is. Keith insists the program will not "degenerate into a miserable husband & wife show." Says Keith: "This isn't going to be about two people in aprons over an egg beater in the kitchen. It's still about Mr. Peepers, and he's still a science teacher, and he'll still have all the same troubles with students and doormen and whatever. He's just got married, that's all. Lots of men do that."

* In real life, 29-year-old Cox is a bachelor; Patricia Benoit is the wife of Peter Swift, a magazine production man.

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