The Bob Cummings Show
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The Bob Cummings Show was an American television sitcom which was produced from 1955 to 1959. The program began with a half-season run on NBC, then ran for two full seasons on CBS, and returned to NBC for its final two seasons. It starred Robert Cummings as a dashing young Hollywood photographer, Air Force reserve officer, and "ladies man," Bob Collins. The character's interest in aviation and photography mirrored Cummings' own in real life. The program was later rerun in the daytime hours on ABC and then syndicated under the title Love That Bob.
The Bob Cummings Show was important in the development of several television careers. One of the co-writers was Paul Henning, later the producer of major 1960s hits such as The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres. Regulars in the show included Ann B. Davis, later the long-suffering maid "Alice" on The Brady Bunch. Henning apparently remembered cast members Nancy Kulp and Joi Lansing favorably; both had long running roles on The Beverly Hillbillies, Miss Kulp as "Miss Hathaway" (secretary to banker Milborne Drysdale) and Miss Lansing as "Gladys".
However, perhaps the biggest career boost was that received by young Dwayne Hickman, a student at Loyola University in Los Angeles, who appeared as Bob's nephew and became a favorite with young women in the audience. The fall after The Bob Cummings Show ended, he was cast as the lead in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
This program represented the height of Cummings' television career. Although he made many further appearances as a guest star and again starred in a series in the early 1960s, My Living Doll, he never again achieved the success on television that he had with this program, which was rerun in off hours until black and white television series lost almost all of their audience in the 1970s and were retired from syndicated distribution in large measure. However, reruns, using the Love that Bob title, were seen on the CBN Cable Network in the mid-'80s.
