My buddy Rick Scheckman provides the following info. And trust me…he's always right about this kind of stuff:
The below recounting of the switchover of Harry Morton's that was on the web page today is slightly incorrect. The episode in question "The Iron Deer" was the first episode of the second filmed season of Burns And Allen. The way it happened was thus:
Blanche Morton is mad at Harry and is standing in her kitchen holding an iron skillet to hit Harry over the head. She calls him into the kitchen. George off-stage calls out hold it. Blanche freezes in place and George walks on-screen and explains that Fred Clark has left the show to go to NY and from now on Harry Morton will be played by Larry Keating who he brings on and introduces in front of the frozen in place Blanche. He asks Larry if he has ever met his TV wife and calls Bea into the foreground to meet Larry Keating. They exchange pleasantries. Then George says it is time to go on with the scene. He and Keating walk off and the scene resumes and the new Harry Morton walks in and gets hit with the skillet.
Fred Clark had left on bad terms with George and was not in the transition episode.
When Bill Goodwin was replaced by Harry Von Zell in the live days, he was introduced by Goodwin as the new announcer. And when Hal March was replaced by John Brown, George did a similar scene to the Keating change in welcoming John Brown explaining that March had left for NY with his partner Bob Sweeney to do a television show. Brown was shortly replaced with Fred Clark because his name turned up in Red Channels.
That sounds right. And into all this talk about how to replace departed cast members, I should mention that soap operas have this problem occasionally…and had it rather often back when they were done live. They would sometimes just have another actor come in and start playing Diana's husband or whatever the role was, and there were a few times when they'd have a voiceover announce the change. I seem to remember that there was some soap where a key role was played by the daughter of some famous actress. The daughter was off the show for a time and her mother came in and filled her part for a few weeks. At the beginning of the broadcast, a voiceover made the announcement that So-and-So, who played such-and-such a character was off for a while, and that her mother was playing her character until she returned. I don't recall the actresses or the soap but I'm pretty sure it happened that way.
By the way: Yes, this is the same Rick Scheckman who works for Late Show with David Letterman, where his duties include film coordination, appearing occasionally in sketches, and impregnating the host's girl friend. He's a good friend and a decent human being, as evidenced by the fact that he was the first person to donate money to our Feed the Raccoons fund. (Yeah, I know I'm really pushing it. But you should see how much seven raccoons can eat…)