The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
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| The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy |
| Running time | 30 minutes per episode |
| Creator(s) | Max Shulman |
| Starring | Dwayne Hickman Bob Denver |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | 29 September 1959–18 September 1963 |
| No. of episodes | 147 |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was a situation comedy which ran on CBS from 1959 to 1963. The television series and some episode scripts were adapted from a 1951 collection of short stories with the same name, written by Max Shulman, that also inspired the 1953 film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis. A follow up novel, I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf, appeared in 1959.
In the TV series, teenager Dobie Gillis (played by Dwayne Hickman) aspired to have popularity, money, and the attention of beautiful women. He didn't have much of any of these qualities in abundance, and the tiny crises surrounding Dobie's lack of success made the story in each weekly episode. His partner in crime was television's first beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs (played by Bob Denver); to say he missed the point on many things would be putting it mildly. This program was from Martin Manulis Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television; creator Shulman also wrote the theme song.
Each episode began and ended with Dobie pondering his problem, posing à la "The Thinker" by Auguste Rodin. In fact, he was usually in a park on a bench with a reproduction of the famous statue immediately behind him. At these moments he would break the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience.
Dobie's two main antagonists were popular rich kids Milton Armitage (portrayed by a young Warren Beatty) and, after Beatty's departure, Armitage's cousin Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. (played by Steve Franken), and homely busybody Zelda Gilroy (portrayed by Sheila James); the former Dobie hated as he had all that Dobie wanted, and the latter Dobie despised because she was hopelessly in love with him and he was annoyed by her advances. Dobie himself was hopelessly attracted to wealthy, distant blonde Thalia Menninger (Tuesday Weld), as well as an endless number of other beautiful women. (Future "Batgirl" Yvonne Craig appeared on the series, in several different roles.)
As a high school student, Dobie lived at home with his parents in the show's early years, and his interaction with his parents was a source of much of the humor. His mother Winnie (Florida Friebus) was very caring and perhaps tended to baby her son a little too much; his father Herbert (Frank Faylen), a grocer, was a very proud, somewhat belligerent World War II veteran who would often, on the slightest provocation, remind his listeners, "I was in the Big One—W W Two!" or declare "I've gotta kill that boy!", but was deep down a good and decent man. In later years, Dobie moved on from high school to S. Peter Pryor Junior College, surrounded by many of the same people; in between, he and Maynard (along with Chatsworth) even did a brief stint in the peacetime U.S. Army. (The Vietnam War was still of a minor concern to most Americans when the series ended.)
This program, like several others from roughly the same period, was probably more popular as a late-afternoon rerun than it had ever been in prime time and is probably remembered as well as it is for that reason. The program even spawned two sequels, the pilot Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis (1978) and TV movie Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis (1988). In these, Dobie had married Zelda. The latter of these took its title from the Sam Peckinpah film, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and its plot from the play The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt.
In real life, after largely retiring as an actor, Dwayne Hickman spent many years as an employee of CBS in the programming department, at one point being its vice president. He also worked as a television director.
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[edit] Other media
DC Comics published a Many Loves of Dobie Gillis comic that ran 26 issues in the early 1960s. Stories from this comic would later be revamped as Windy and Willy.
[edit] Pop influences
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was a major influence on the characters for another successful CBS program, the Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. Scooby writer Mark Evanier noted that "Fred was based on Dobie, Shaggy on Maynard, Velma on Zelda and Daphne on Thalia." [1] Similarities have also been noticed between the Dobie Gillis characters and The Archies (Dobie and Archie, Maynard and Jughead, Zelda and Betty, Thalia and Veronica, Chatsworth and Reggie), which may or may not be coincidental.
[edit] Surrealism
Occasionally The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis became mildly surreal.
Once in an infrequent while a character would say something that indicated that he was aware that he was in a TV program, again breaking the fourth wall.
At least twice, the show stretched the boundaries of sitcoms of the era. For example, in one episode, Maynard discovered that, by pointing at a package or can in Mr. Gillis's store, he could "taste" the contents, allowing him to spot something that might be too salty, or might be spoiled. In another one, he drank a potion devised in a chemistry class, changing into a Lugosi/Dracula-like figure, but shaggier. He had enough physical strength to lift the front of the store. By the end of the episode, another dose of the concoction changed him into an attractive young woman. Next week, he was Maynard again.
Neither of these occurrences was a dream, fantasy, wishful illusion, or anything of the sort. They were presented in an "And that's the way it was" manner, take it or leave it.
[edit] Reference
Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows
