Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Adventures Of Tugboat Annie

The Adventures Of Tugboat Annie was a syndicated sitcom that aired in the United States for 39 episodes beginning in March 1958.

Salt spray, insults, and action marked this expensively produced comedy, which had a short but well-publicized run in syndication in the late 1950's.. Rival tugboat captains in the Pacific Northwest, Annie ( Minerva Urecal)), a widow and Bullwinkle( Walter Sande) were both built like oxes. The 2 of them were constantly trading jibes, stealing jobs from one another, and sharing adventure. Pinto was the weakling cook on Annie's tug, The Narcissus.

The character of Tugboat Annie had been created many years earlier by Norman Reilly Raine in a long series of stories for the Saturday Evening Post. These were made into a famous movie in 1933, in which Marie Dressler traded salty insults with a drunken Wallace Beery. A Hollywood Production Company( TPA) obtained tv rights to the stories in 1954, but had great trouble both in casting the leads and in the actual filming, on location in San Pedro Harbor and on the Pacific. The pilot episode was said by Variety in 1956 to have been the most expensive ever made costing upward of $130,000. It took 2 more years to get the series on the air ( it aired in Canada first), and then it only lasted for 39 episodes.

For more on The Adventures of Tugboat Annie go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tugboat_Annie and
www.tvacres.com/boats_barges_narcissus.htm

For a biography on Minerva Urecal go to www.dougmacaulay.com/kingspud/sel_by_actor_index_2.php?actor_first=Minerva&actor_last=Urecal