The Comedy Spot (TV Series) Time Out for Ginger (1962) User Reviews

Someone looked into the future of American lingo regarding child rearing because Time Out is right!

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 6 November 2014]

It's easy to see why this was never picked up as a sitcom because its pilot episode has a premise that would have had critics Eve Arden's line in "Mildred Pierce" about knowing why alligators eat their young. Ginger (Candy Moore) is an obnoxious teenager who has no qualms about interrupting everybody else's life around her in order to get what she wants while utilizing positive behavioral patterns to passive aggressively manipulate everybody. Blame housekeeper Lizzie (an amusing Margaret Hamilton) for possibly allow her to sneak a couple of cups of her Maxwell House coffee while her back was turned. It certainly isn't because parents Margaret Hayes and Karl Swenson didn't discipline her. They certainly do. The idiotic plot line here has Ms. Moore playing fairy god sister for her older sibling trying to get her a car so they can go out on a date. This has her invading a car shop, repair garage and even trying to get money out of a rich kid while offering her own father as collateral. Whatever Candy wants, Candy gets, and this just propels the myth that spoiled children, even those pretending artificial charm, will always succeed in the end. She does succeed, however, in grating on the viewer's last nerve to the point of urging the parents to look up a nice boarding school, preferably very far away.

I can see exactly why the networks didn't pick up this godawful series!

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 2 June 2018]

"Time Out for Ginger" was a failed television pilot--eventually being shown in 1962 but never placed into production as a series. Apparently, it's based on a 1950s play and there was a previous attempt to create a show (starring Jack Benny of all people). This 1962 airing is for the second pilot--starring Candy Moore as Ginger. Most folks have never heard of Candy Moore and I can only assume that she was a no-talent, as her acting skills seem minimal, at best, in this pilot. She literally screams most of her lines and is like a constant baseball bat to your skull...she is THAT bad in the show. Now it's possible the director urged her for such a performance...all I know is that I had a hard time even finishing this family sit-com. Lousy writing, an unlikable star and a constant laughtrack...three things that are a recipe for disaster. Overall, I found nothing to enjoy about this show, though the 1955 version is excellent!

Combination "Patty Duke," "Dennis The Menace" and "My Three Sons"

[jayraskin · 10/10 · 8 November 2021]

I thought this was a terrific pilot and should have been picked up. The show has all the energy and nuttiness of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis." Unlike so other reviewers, I think Candy Moore was wonderfully exciting and fun. She played a 13-year old like a real 13-year old, probably because she was a real 13-years old.

It was also a delight seeing Margaret Hamilton (the Witch from Oz) being funny and humorous. She often played nasty characters after "the Wizard of Oz." It was also nice seeing Harry Belvadere in a comedy after watching him so often add so much comedy a police officer in the dramatic series "Naked City."

While some older women did get a chance to have their own shows like Betty Hutton and Lucille Ball at,this time. Teenage girls hardly existed on television in these early days.