From the Old Country

In less than two years, an immigrant Norwegian family has climbed from TV obscurity to the top ten in national ratings. In its successful rise, Mama (Fri. 8 p.m., CBS) has never once raised its voice, stood on its head, or mugged to a studio audience, as do most of its competitors.

If there is nothing earth-shaking about the Hanson family, there is nothing inconsequential either. The scripts, by Writer Frank Gabrielson, are often toughly realistic. Son Nels (Dick Van Patten), pushed too hard by family pride, is shown cheating in an exam for grades to impress his parents. Mama herself, expertly played by Actress Peggy Wood, is human enough to get in a temper just because she's having a bad day. Earnest, bumbling father Lars (Judson Laire), who often wears his head, as well as his heart, on his sleeve, can be as calamitously wrong in business as over an old sweetheart.

Though Mama sometimes looks at the ruder aspects of life, it still sees them through a romantic haze. Things seldom go absolutely right; they never go irrevocably wrong. For most of Mama's big, fond audience, the family favorite is pig-tailed Dagmar, caught at just the right note of sentiment and practicality by nine-year-old Robin Morgan. In theory, each Mama episode takes up a different member of the family; in practice, Robin often steals the show. Producer Carol Irwin observes with awe that radio-trained Robin has somehow developed a "wonderful sense of timing."

Mama and its sponsor, Maxwell House Coffee, have one of the few happy commercial marriages in television. The fragile mood of each show builds steadily without being split down the middle by TV's most distressing habit: the long-winded advertising plug. The commercials are blended skillfully into family coffee klatsches at the beginning and end of each program.

The TV show's distinguished ancestry includes Kathryn Forbes's bestselling novel, Mama's Bank Account, John van Druten's Broadway hit, I Remember Mama, and the movie based on the play. But Producer Irwin and Director Ralph Nelson have not borrowed a single episode from the play and novel. They prefer to concentrate on the basic characters, the locale (San Francisco) and the period (early 1900s). Since the program started, there has been only one major cast change. A spare kinescope (television recording), kept handy in case one of the principals should be taken ill, has never been used.

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