Television series

Hazel

Name: Hazel
Genre: Comedy, Family
Released: 1961
Cast: Bobby Buntrock, Shirley Booth, Don DeFore, Whitney Blake, Ray Fulmer

Hazel is the ultimate benevolent-tyrant sitcom: a live-in maid who bosses her employer around for his own good and is always, infuriatingly, right. Adapted from magazine cartoons, it's gentle, laugh-tracked, and utterly confident in its own logic — the help outranks the boss, and everyone's fine with it. Comfort food for anyone who grew up on reruns or wants 1960s domestic comedy at its sunniest.

TVMaze rating

7.2

If you liked this

Leave It to Beaver1957

The gold standard of postwar family sitcoms, gentle and specific about childhood logic and parental patience, with the same unhurried, everybody's-basically-decent tone that makes Hazel such easy company.

But No commanding household staff here — if Hazel's appeal was the maid running the show, this is a straighter, tamer family comedy.

Father Knows Best1954

Another impeccably tidy suburban household where wisdom flows from an unexpected direction — here it's the kids quietly outsmarting the adults rather than the maid outsmarting the boss.

But Slower and more moralistic than Hazel; the humor leans on gentle life lessons rather than Hazel's brisk comic bossiness.

The Donna Reed Show1958no page yet

Domestic sitcom royalty with a sharper, funnier matriarch than most of its peers — closer to Hazel's confident household management, minus the class inversion that made Hazel unusual.

But Donna Reed is the boss by right, not by cunning, so you lose the delicious tension of Hazel outranking her employer.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Servant1963

Same core figure as Hazel — a domestic servant who quietly assumes control of the household — but played as menace instead of comfort. It's the version of the premise where you stop laughing and start worrying.

Dirk Bogarde's manservant is charming, useful, indispensable — and increasingly, creepily in charge, in a chilly, beautifully controlled psychological drama about class and power.

But Bleak, slow-burn, and deliberately uncomfortable; there is no laugh track, no warmth, and no reassurance that things will turn out fine.

My Three Sons1960

Swap the maid for a live-in bachelor uncle running a motherless household, and you get the same cozy, competent-caretaker warmth that made Hazel such reliable company.

But There's no servant-employer dynamic at all, so the specific comic engine of Hazel — the help outranking the boss — is entirely absent.

The Dick Van Dyke Show1961

Contemporaneous, sharper-written, and packed with better jokes; if you liked Hazel's decade, this is the same era's sitcom craft at its funniest and most confident.

But Set in a workplace and a young marriage rather than a servant's household, so the tone is brisker and less cozy than Hazel's.

Bewitched1964

Another woman with quietly enormous power, hiding it or not bothering to, inside a nominally normal household — Samantha's magic plays the same trick as Hazel's unshakeable competence.

But The fantasy element changes the stakes entirely; this is magic-powered whimsy, not the earthbound, bossy-housekeeper realism of Hazel.

The Nanny1993no page yet

The most direct spiritual descendant: a working-class woman moves into a wealthy household and simply takes it over through sheer personality, exactly Hazel's playbook, updated and glammed up.

But Broader, brasher, and far more interested in romance and fashion than Hazel's quieter, gentler domestic comedy ever was.

Benson1979

A butler who talks back to his boss and usually wins — the same joke as Hazel, gender-flipped and given a political sensibility Hazel never touched.

But Set in a governor's mansion with actual politics running through it, so it's a colder, more institutional world than Hazel's cozy suburb.

Mister Ed1961no page yet

If what you loved was an authority figure nobody quite controls hiding in plain sight of a bewildered man of the house, this swaps the maid for a talking horse and keeps the joke.

But Purely absurdist rather than domestic — there's no household to run, no family dynamic, just one man and his impossible horse.

My Man Godfrey1936

Decades before Hazel, this screwball classic already ran the joke of a servant who's wiser, funnier, and more decent than the wealthy family employing him — the same comic engine in black and white.

Fast, witty, and genuinely moving underneath the wisecracks, it's the granddaddy of the wise-servant comedy and still one of the funniest films Hollywood ever made.

But Depression-era screwball rhythms and rapid-fire dialogue take some adjusting to if you're used to the slower cadence of 1960s sitcoms.

Upstairs, Downstairs1971

Takes the servants-really-run-the-house idea Hazel plays for laughs and treats it as social history — the hierarchy, the loyalty, the real cost of a life spent below stairs, played completely straight.

A meticulous, absorbing British drama about a townhouse's masters and servants across decades, full of the quiet authority and competence that made Hazel so satisfying, minus the jokes.

But It's a long, serious, multi-season commitment with real grief and social change in it — nothing like Hazel's tidy half-hour comfort.