During the COVID months I have always had some TV shows in the background while doing other things. For example, I watched every episode of The Big Bang Theory, and there are about a zillion of them. When I ran out of recent comedy shows like The Office (both versions), 30 Rock and Parks & Rec, I started to take a look at old-time classics.
Some are so awful I couldn’t get through more than two episodes. I tried to watch Gilligan, for example, and managed to get through only the pilot with the original cast and the first episode with the familiar cast. I love dumb stuff, but that was too dumb even for me.
I did somehow manage to get through all four seasons of Dobie Gillis, a pretty hip show for its time, but extremely repetitive after the first two seasons. In those days they would produce 36 or 39 episodes per year of the half-hour shows, which must have been quite an ordeal, and it’s not surprising that they got burned out. The writers of this series turned out 147 episodes in just four years, and got so desperate for ideas that they actually remade some of their own first-season scripts in later seasons.
Oh, well. The show gave us two things to remember. The first is one of the most memorable and beloved characters in TV history, the dumb but lovable Maynard G. Krebs, a clueless beatnik played by a pre-Gilligan Bob Denver – and played very well, indeed, with just the right combination of slapstick, pathos and clever wordplay. The second legacy of “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” was the women who played those many loves. You must certainly remember Tuesday Weld if you are of the age, because she was spectacularly sexy and appeared in many episodes as the unattainable Thalia Menninger. You may not remember some of the honest-to-god real actresses who spent part of their youth being pursued by Dobie and inevitably dumping him.
For example, there was Ellen Burstyn, at age 30, in episode five of season four:
And Sally Kellerman, then 25, in the penultimate episode (s4e35):
FYI, Zelda Gilroy was played by Sheila James. She is now known as Sheila Kuehl and has been a fixture in CA politics for decades. Currently she is a member of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
I guess she was a lot like Zelda Gilroy in terms of the big brain. She graduated from Harvard Law.
Gilligan is hit & miss. They went completely off the map with the silliness in unwatchable episodes like the one where a mad scientist switches their brains, or they’re covered in feathers as scientists watch via TV camera and thus can’t be recognized or saved. They did have some good ones though: When Mary Anne hits her head & thinks she’s Ginger, and the beauty contest where the ape wins. The only real reason to watch the show though is to see Dawn Wells running around skimpily clad, in color.
Funny, I recently saw Burstyn in an Roger Corman racing movie from the late 1960’s, and she was very good looking and talented in it too. Although she looks even better in the Dobie Gillis still. Thanks for showing it to us; they run DG in the middle of the night around here.
Condolences on riding the Big Bang train, I can’t even with that dog.
Under “I turned it on and there it was”, I caught part of an episode of Alice with Dennis Farina in a guest spot. What he lacks in sexy he makes up for in WTF is this guy doing here?
Thanks for the tip on Dobie, I might check it out. Gotta watch something…