And, in a television first, there was a gay couple living next door! Lance and Lester (Alan Dewitt, Lester Fletcher) were often referred to, and appeared in the November 27, 1972 episode, "The Co-Op." No one actually used the word "gay" -- I wouldn't hear the word on tv until 1976 -- but two men had found a way to live together, escaping the heterosexist mandate . Could San Francisco be a "good place"?
In its first season (1968-69), The Doris Day Show was Green Acres: City girl Doris, a new widow, moves to her father's ranch with her two sons, Toby (Todd Starke) and Billy (Philip Brown, below, who would go on to a successful career as a soap hunk), plus a ranch hand (James Hampton, right) and a housekeeper. It aired on Tuesday nights, just after another relic of the 1950s, The Red Skelton Show.
Doris hated hayseed -- she didn't even know that her husband Martin Melcher had signed her up for it. So in the second season (1969-70), she made some changes: the program became Tammy,without the beefcake. Although still living on the ranch, Doris commuted into San Francisco, where she worked as a secretary for Today's World magazine. She got two quintessentially urban coworkers, McLean Stevenson and Rose Marie.
By the time my family and I started watching, the transition was complete: Doris was a sophisticated career woman, Ms. instead of Mrs., who had always been single (Kids? What kids?). And she managed to finagle some gay neighbors out of the network, something Mary Tyler Moore was never able to do.