In the wake of the success of I Love Lucy there were bound to be imitators.

One of these was I Married Joan starring Joan Davis and Jim Backus, which was broadcast on NBC from 1952 to 1955.

Backus played a judge who was married to a somewhat scatterbrained wife who was constantly getting into situations that required over-the-top physical comedy.

I don’t recall watching it during its initial run, but some time in the late 50s I saw some episodes when it went into syndication.

I only specifically remember one episode and really only one scene from it. It involved Backus falling asleep on a barber’s chair while he mumbled “Butch” with the barber mistakenly thinking he wanted a butch haircut, i.e. a crewcut. When Backus woke up he was very upset.

Even then I couldn’t figure out a) how does one fall asleep while a barber is cutting one’s hair, and b) what was all the fuss about his haircut? His hair was short to begin with and the “butch” haircut wasn’t really as short as it could have been.

In any case, through the “magic” of YouTube, many, perhaps all, of the episodes of I Married Joan are now available, and here is the episode entitled “Joan’s Haircut”, cued to the place where Jim Backus as Judge Stevens is in the barber’s chair.