Brothers, The

The Brothers was one of the 87,000 TV series Gale Gordon appeared on…but really the only one that had him as the lead. It was created when Our Miss Brooks went off and someone at Desilu (probable Desi or Lu) realized that Gordon would be at liberty. So they paired him up with Bob Sweeney, who had previously been in a comedy team with Hal March, and Gordon and Sweeney played two bachelor brothers who operated a photography studio and shared an apartment in San Francisco. Gordon was Harvey Box. Sweeney was Gilmore “Gilly” Box and they kept getting mixed up in each other’s problems and those of their father, played at first by Frank Orth and later by Howard McNear.

Unlike most shows with Gale Gordon on them, this one didn’t last long. It went on the air on October 20, 1956 and went off on September 7 the following year. Gordon went on to other shows. Sweeney segued from performing to directing and was quite successful at it. The show also featured Barbara Billingsley as Gordon’s lady friend. When it was cancelled, she went right over to a fruitful job as the mother on Leave it to Beaver.