Growing up in Brooklyn close to where I live was James Madison High School and as a little kid I imagined that the folks I saw on Our Miss Brooks were those I would find in that school. By the time I reached that age I knew such was not the case. And I was in a different school district besides.
Like William Bendix with The Life Of Riley, Eve Arden was known as a crack supporting player in dozens of films. Speaking of crack, her wise cracks usually as the heroine's best friend made her reputation even today. But with Our Miss Brooks first on radio then television she became a star as the wise English teacher with an ever ready wit doing battle with her arch nemesis, pompous Principal Osgood Conkling played by Gale Gordon who made this the first of many TV series he would be an indispensable part in.
Some of the other regulars on television were Robert Rockwell as Mr. Boynton the biology teacher who could never quite get together with Arden though not for lack of trying, Carol McMillan as Gordon's nice but totally clueless daughter and Richard Crenna as ever voice changing Walter Denton. He had the longest entrance to puberty that anyone ever had in history.
I remember Crenna saying how he hated the part because he thought he would be typecast and no one would take him seriously. He was lucky to get to be Luke McCoy in The Real McCoys, but then got his real break in the short lived Slattery's People where he was finally seen as a serious actor with a rich baritone actually.
One thing with Our Miss Brooks that made it work was that both Arden and Gordon came with built in images, Gordon carrying over from the radio Our Miss Brooks, Arden from there and dozens of films displaying a woman of wit. Audiences expected it and got it.
I think though that if Our Miss Brooks had been started in the 70s Eve Arden would have expected and demanded that the title be Our Ms. Brooks.
