Ricky singing in episodes

[cd637299]

Not an O&H fan, BUT I just noticed the long list of episodes with Ricky singing.

As I was born in 1959, I vaguely remember each ep on ABC maybe from 1962 on, having Ricky do a song at the end of each ep.

Three questions:

(1) Which episode was really the first one to have Ricky end the show with a song, and what airdate?

(2) Does the new DVD collection feature the songs, or is it a music licensing roadblock?

(3) Just thought of this—Why do the closing credits on many eps just show “copyright by Ozzie Nelson”? I always like to see the date. I do remember seeing season 1 eps with a copyright date. That one throws me.

Any help, as usual, would be appreciated.

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[stevea]

1. The first original episode where Ricky sang was "Ricky the Drummer," airdate April 10, 1957--he sang "I'm Walkin'." It was a season 5 episode, and Ricky was 16, nearly 17. Maybe someone else can answer when the first video-style song was presented at the end of an episode, but it was probably later in that season.

2. The DVDs from MPI have the music videos, and all the other musical performances--the Nelson family owns all the music and they probably paid songwriter and any other fees to include them on the DVDs.

In some summer rerun episodes other videos were substituted. "String Along" is a possible example of this, mentioned earlier in this thread. The video is on Youtube--and the fact that it exists and someone had it to post it, probably means it was in some episode--if so, no one knows which one--my theory is, a summer rerun. It was scheduled to be part of the Music Festival episode, June 6, 1963.

3. I recently read somewhere that including the year was a copyright requirement. Since Ozzie didn't do it, it's supposedly the reason many episodes are public domain. Not sure I buy that, since Ozzie almost never included the year and not all episodes are P. D.

[cd637299]

^ Interesting, thanks.

CTN Lifestyle channel, although Christian, sprinkles some PD sitcoms in the schedule. For a long time it was running O&H, along with the original commercials. They ran Make Room for Daddy last week, and I can only assume it’s the Jean Hagen eps. This week, they run 4 straight eps of The Dick Van Dyke show; only six fell into PD.

“I’m Walkin’ “ is also Ricky’s first big hit, played on radio alongside Fats Domino’s version. I didn’t know that summer reruns switched out for another song. Just like The Monkees substituting songs.

Edit: oh yeah, I read somewhere (here on SO I think) that the Al Brodax made-for-TV Popeye cartoons that had an incorrect copyright date (“MCMXL” instead of the correct MCMLX) automatically made it PD and allowed MeTV to air those few, as bad as they were.

cd