My Favorite Husband 50-03-17 (ep080) The Wills

My Favorite Husband is the name of an American radio program and network television series. The original radio show, starring Lucille Ball, evolved into the groundbreaking television sitcom I Love Lucy. The series was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) written by Isabel Scott Rorick, the earlier of which had previously been adapted into the Paramount Pictures feature film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942), co-starring Ray Milland and Betty Field.

Radio
My Favorite Husband was first broadcast as a one-time special on CBS Radio on July 5, 1948. CBS's new series Our Miss Brooks had been delayed coming to the air, so to fill in the gap that week CBS aired the audition program (the radio equivalent of a television pilot) for My Favorite Husband. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch My Favorite Husband as a series. Bowman was not available to do the series, so when it debuted later that month it starred Lucille Ball and Richard Denning as the leads. The couple lived at 321 Bundy Drive in the fictitious city of Sheridan Falls, and were billed as, "two people who live together and like it."

The episode would progress into a minor crisis or problem, typically caused by one of Liz' zany ideas. Each episode would end with the problem solved and Liz saying, "Thanks, George. You're my favorite husband."

Beginning with the 26th episode on January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode the series, which had begun as a sustaining program, acquired Jell-O as its sponsor. An average of three "plugs" for Jell-O were made in each episode.
A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. It was initially written by Frank Fox and Bill Davenport, who were the writers for radio's Ozzie and Harriet.