Boys vs. Girls in Vintage TV Shows

The photo above is a CBS promo shot from 1966. The child stars shown are Bill Mumy, Barry Livingston, Ron Howard, Anissa Jones, Stanley Livingston, Johnny Whitaker & Clint Howard.

I was noticing only one girl and started thinking… why were most of the television child stars in the 1950s through the mid 1960s boys? Why so few girls? When there was a girl, she was usually one of two or more children.

Examples of popular shows follow. Notice a pattern?

If there was one or two children, they were almost always boys.

• Andy Griffith Show – Opie
• Flipper – Sandy and Bud
• I Love Lucy – little Ricky
• Dennis the Menace – Dennis
• Dick Van Dyke Show – Ritchie
• Leave it to Beaver -Wally and Beaver
• The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet – Ricky and David
• Lassie – Timmy
• The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin – Rusty
• The Rifleman – Mark
• My Friend Flicka – Ken
• My Three Sons – THREE boys: Mike, Robbie and Chip

When there are girls- usually there was either just a boy and a girl close to the same age, or there were two girls and a boy, the oldest of the three being a girl several years older than the two younger children.

• Make Room for Daddy – Terry (girl) and Rusty (boy).
• The Donna Reed Show – Mary (girl) and Jeff (boy).
• The Addams Family – Wednesday (girl) and Pugsley (boy).
• Father Knows Best – Betty, teen/young adult, and the two younger children: Bud (boy) and Kathy (girl).
• Lost in Space – Judy, teen/young adult, and the two younger children: Penny (girl) and Will (boy).
• Family Affair – Cissy, teen girl, and the two younger children: Buffy (girl) and Jody (boy).
• The Munsters – Marilyn, teen/young adult, and Eddie (boy): no younger girl in this one.

The exceptions were odd. Bachelor Father had one teen girl, Kelly. The Patty Duke Show had two teen girls, Patty and Cathy Lane, both roles played by Patty Duke. The Eve Arden Show had Mary and Jenny, both girls, but bizarrely, the girls only appear in about 25% of the episodes. The storylines centered on the mother. The girls were kind of in the background, like an after thought.

As shows began to be filmed in color, more girls showed up. Bewitched started in B&W, and Tabitha was born after it became color. As color television became the norm, girls became common.

Comment with any shows I missed!