I wonder why they only showed Pickles a couple times and they never showed Mels wife or Alans wife and kids?
Not even in the season 5 episode BUDDY SORREL MAN & BOY when Buddy had his barmizva.

and they never showed Mels wife or Alans wife and kids?


Couple thoughts: The "Boss' wife" generally is an area where one must tread lightly. I recall from office Christmas parties always having to be guarded, and make sure not to say anything that might be construed in a way that could come back to haunt me.
"Boss' wife" conjures up images such as Margaret Drysdale, and the kind of humor you can milk out of that tends to be low brow, and demeaning.

Also,wasn't the show originally created with Carl Reiner writing the show, about a comedy writer? Perhaps Laura is the representative "writer's wife", and consequently Reiner never felt the need to give his own, limited-appearance character a casted wife?

Or perhaps it was just money? why create more characters who will expect a paycheck?

I wonder why they only showed Pickles a couple times and they never showed Mels wife or Alans wife and kids?
Not even in the season 5 episode BUDDY SORREL MAN & BOY when Buddy had his barmizva.

I think you have to separate out Pickles from Mel's wife and Alan's wife and kids. Alan didn't begin appearing until season 4 for specific plots around The Alan Brady Show, and usually he was only featured in a couple of scenes so why add other characters those details were unnecessary. Mel was a supporting character who was seldom the focus of an episode so again why bother developing additional characters.

Now Pickles is another matter entirely. I know she had no functional purpose but Buddy often socialized with Rob and Laura and on one occasion Jerry Helper so his wife's constant absence on all these occasions didn't make sense (she became the Mrs. Columbo of this series).

Now, if you would have made Alan's wife young, hot, and unable to keep her hands to herself....now that might have been funny. But with censorship what it was back then, you could never do the part justice.