This James Thurber adaptation for Alcoa Theatre has dated badly, from its unnecessary (and counter-productive) laugh track and script full of homilies by writer Mel Shavelson, to the soggy sentimentality in the final stages of the show. Laughably marketed decades later as the "Golden Age of Television", it stands as an extreme example of what used to constitute family entertainment.
I was sick of Arthur O'Connell sort of portraying Thurber, as a cartoonist for a New York magazine whose life seems to revolve around his pesky dogs, pets beloved by his too lovable daughter Susan Gordon (her presence is an acquired taste, familiar to most of us genre fans for her roles in her dad Bert I. Gordon's cheapie sci-fi/horror movies).
Georgann Johnson is fine as his wife, but the mawkish, corny content is unbearably saccharine to watch, especially having O'Connell constantly talking to the camera with his unfunny one-liners. The edge of say, a Rodney Dangerfield, is completely absent.
Christabel is a black pet poodle, and the show climaxes after its death with the three stars alternating reading the heartfelt eulogy written to the doggie by O'Connell as Thurber. It can't save the forgettable show, which makes "Leave It to Beaver" seem like Paddy Chayefsky by comparison.