To avoid future embarrassment for her family - and especially for her daughter, Myrtle Mae - Veta decides to have Elwood committed to a sanitarium. At the sanitarium, a frantic Veta explains to the staff that her years of living with Elwood's hallucination have caused her to see Harvey also, and so the doctors mistakenly commit her instead of her mild-mannered brother. The truth comes out, however; Veta is freed, and the search is on for Elwood, who eventually arrives at the sanitarium of his own volition, looking for Harvey. But it seems that Elwood and his invisible companion have had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors. Only at the end does Veta realize that maybe Harvey isn't so bad after all.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy debuted on Broadway in 1944 and ran for more than 1,750 performances as one of the longest-running Broadway plays. After closing in 1949, the 1950 film adaptation starred James Stewart as Elwood. More recently editions have featured a pair sitcom stars as Elwood: Night Court's Harry Anderson for a 1998 TV movie and Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons for a Broadway revival in 2012.