This paper is based on a general analysis of 40 episodes of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and 170 (of 179) episodes of I Love Lucy, both of which were aired on television during the 1950s. Character portrayals of the stars and supporting actors/actresses are described in detail and analyzed from the perspectives of gender and sex stereotypes as well as comedy and humor. In addition, both of the television (albeit real life) marriages are examined in terms of the personality dynamics, interactions, and tensions of/between the two spouses, and the two situation comedies (sitcoms) are then compared and contrasted to each other, once again from the standpoint of the major characterizations. The role of narrative (i.e., the embodiment of a political determinism in which women find a subordinate place) is disucssed in an attempt to discover how comedy works to contain women and how successfully it does so; and it is recommended that attention should be turned to theories of the comic and humor as they intersect narrative in order to explore this issue. The paper then turns to Freud's assessment of comic and humor when both the subject and the object are women. The discussion concludes with some reflections on Freud's construction of the radical underpinnings and "liberating" function of jokes, the comic, and humor, and the difficult problems of women's simulated liberation through comic containment. (21 end notes) (CGD)