The Real McCoys is a genuine classic from the golden age of television. A fine series. They really don't make well-crafted, heart warming shows like this anymore. Walter Brennan was simply amazing as old Amos McCoy, the patriarch of a family transplanted from Smokey Corners, West Virginia to "sunny Cal-i-for-nai-ay" as the theme song tells us. The stories are at once funny and often touching and there are some great people in the cast. Richard Crenna, fresh from playing squeaky-voiced Walter Denton on Our Miss Brooks, drops his voice to it's proper register to play Luke McCoy, Grampa Amos's grandson. He plays him as a sometimes naive, sometimes wise newlywed. The bride in question is lovely Kathy Nolan, as beautiful a woman as any who ever graced a sitcom. Her Kate is the balancing conscience which is a big asset to the show. (Indeed, when she was absent in the show's last season, it was the last hurrah for this long-running series.) Hassie, the 13 year-old "old maid" as Grampa would say is played by Lydia Reed, whose only other performance I have seen was in the 1956 MGM film, High Society. She was very good in the film and is very good in the Real McCoys. Michael Winkleman plays Little Luke with a naturalness not seen in today's high-strung attempts at situation comedy. Tony Martinez plays, Pepino, the "ranch hand". He plays off of Walter Brennan quite well and is an asset to the cast. Finally, we have Andy Clyde and Madge Blake as brother and sister neighbors George and Flora MacMichael. They are pros who know just the right way to play their scenes. The series is populated with many well-known character actors and this show has a cozy, home-spun feel to it. Indeed, it is a predecessor to the many rural comedies that followed in the sixties, like Andy Griffith, Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies. Some people have complained about the DVD episodes being edited, but I saw these same episodes when CBS ran this show as part of their morning comedy block of shows, from 1962 to 1966. These appear to be the same prints as shown on the network back in the day. I vaguely recall seeing some nighttime telecasts in prime time, but mostly I recall the morning CBS run. The stories are well-written and some are very heartwarming. The characters are three-dimensional and seem like genuine human beings. This series is all but forgotten these days and I don't think the DVD releases exactly set the world on fire sales-wise, but I am enjoying the set I got for one penny and think this should be picked up by one of the nostalgia channels like ME-TV or Antenna TV. This classic series is ripe for re-discovery.
