My Favorite Martian

My Favorite Martian is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS from September 29, 1963 to May 1, 1966^[1] for 107 episodes (75 in black and white 1963–1965, 32 color 1965–1966). The show starred Ray Walston as Uncle Martin (the Martian) and Bill Bixby as Tim O'Hara.

This series was produced by Jack Chertok.

Premise

A human-looking extraterrestrial in a one-man spaceship crash-lands near Los Angeles. The ship's pilot is, in fact, an anthropologist from Mars and is now stranded on Earth. Tim O'Hara, a young newspaper reporter for The Los Angeles Sun, is on his way home from Edwards Air Force Base (where he had gone to report on the flight of the X-15) back to Los Angeles when he spots the spaceship coming down. The X-15 nearly hit the martian's spaceship and caused it to crash.

Tim takes the Martian in as his roommate and passes him off as his Uncle Martin. Uncle Martin refuses to reveal any of his Martian traits to people other than Tim, to avoid publicity (or panic), and Tim agrees to keep Martin's identity a secret while the Martian attempts to repair his ship. Uncle Martin has various unusual powers: he can raise from his head two retractable antennae and become invisible; he is telepathic and can read and influence minds; he can levitate objects with the motion of his finger; he can communicate with animals; and he can also speed himself (and other people) up to do work.

Ostensibly an inventor by trade, Martin also builds several advanced devices, such as a time machine which can transport Tim and the Martian back to Medieval England and other times and places, such as St. Louis in 1849, the early days of Hollywood, or bring Leonardo da Vinci and Jesse James into the present. Another device he builds is a "molecular separator" which can take apart the molecules of a physical object, or rearrange them (a squirrel was made into a human). Another device can take memories and store them in pill form to "relearn" them later. Another device can create temporary duplicates, and another item which can levitate himself and others without the need of his finger.

Tim and Uncle Martin live in a garage apartment owned by a congenial but scatterbrained landlady, Mrs. Lorelei Brown, who often shows up when not wanted. She and Martin have an awkward romance from time to time but Martin never gets serious for fear of going home to Mars. She later dates a vain, cold-hearted, plain-clothes police officer, Detective Bill Brennan, who dislikes Uncle Martin and is highly suspicious of him.

The first two seasons were filmed in black-and-white (at Desilu), but the final season was shot in color (at MGM), resulting in minor changes in the set and the format of the show. In addition to the extraterrestrial powers indicated in the first two seasons, Martin seemed to be able to do much more in the final season, such as stimulating facial hair to provide him and Tim with a quick disguise, and levitating with his nose. Brennan's boss, the police chief, was involved in many episodes in the third season, generally as a device to humiliate the overzealous detective.

In its first season, My Favorite Martian did extremely well in the Nielsen ratings ranking at #10. However, by the end of the second season, the show had dipped to #24. Still, the series was doing well enough to be renewed for a third season.

"Martin O'Hara's" real name is Exigius 12½. Revealed in "We Love You, Mrs. Pringle," it was heard again when his real nephew, Andromeda, crash-landed on Earth in the show's third season. Andromeda, originally devised to bring younger viewers to the aging show, disappeared without explanation after this single episode and he was never referred to again. Andromeda was, however, a regular on the later animated series My Favorite Martians. Andromeda had a single antenna, which Martin explained was because his baby antennae had fallen out and only one adult antenna had come in so far. Ironically this is the reason for the series cancellation. In an interview with Starlog magazine, Ray Walston stated once CBS heard that Andromeda was to be a regular in the fourth season they soon announced the series' cancellation.

My Favorite Martian was produced at the same time as other situation comedies featuring characters who could do extraordinary things, as a parody of the standard family situation comedy. The show was an example of science fiction comedy, differing from Bewitched and I Dream Of Jeannie in that the central character was a man, and he relied on science and advanced technology rather than magic.

Characters

• Uncle Martin O'Hara (the Martian), played by Ray Walston
• Tim O'Hara, played by Bill Bixby
• Mrs. Loralei Brown, played by Pamela Britton
• Mr. Burns, played by J. Pat O'Malley, first season only, as Tim's boss at the newspaper
• Detective Bill Brennan, played by Alan Hewitt, second and third seasons only
• Police Chief, played by Roy Engel, third season only
• Andromeda, played by Wayne Stam, third season, one show only

Production and distribution

The series was produced by Jack Chertok Television in association with CBS. The show was later syndicated by Telepictures, and later by successor-in-interest Warner Bros. Television Distribution. The Chertok Company continues to hold all copyrights for the show; Rhino Entertainment held U.S. video rights until August 2008. In 2010, MPI Home Video acquired the rights to the series for home video, and re-releases of the show on DVD are now in the works. Australian and New Zealand video rights are held by Umbrella Entertainment. Currently, Warner Bros. holds domestic and international syndication rights for the series.

In October 2011, the series became available on Netflix through their streaming service.^[2]

Episode List

Season One

Season Two

Season Three

DVD releases

Rhino Entertainment released the first two seasons on DVD in Region 1 in 2004–2005. The third season was never released, however the season 3 release from Umbrella Entertainment of Australia was released in North America on February 5, 2008 as an import. This release is classified as 'Region 0', thus making it viewable around the world to anyone with a region-free DVD player. Rhino also released a 3-DVD box of "The Best of My Favorite Martian" in 2007 comprising episodes 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, 29, 31, 34 and 37.

MPI Home Video recently struck a deal with Chertok Television for a domestic Region 1 release of The Complete 3rd Season for "Late Summer 2010." [1] But so far no official announcement has been made. 2010 has come and gone and no release from MPI.

In Region 4, Umbrella Entertainment has released all 3 seasons on DVD in Australia. These releases are all Region Free.

Spin-offs

Animated series

An animated series, My Favorite Martians, was made by Filmation, and ran on CBS, from September 1973 to September 1975 on Saturday mornings. The series features Tim, Martin, Mrs. Brown and Detective Brennan (Brennan is considerably different). To appeal to a younger audience, Uncle Martin is joined by his Martian nephew named Andromeda, nicknamed "Andy", who only has one antenna and thus lesser powers than Uncle Martin and did appear in one episode of the television series. The pair also have a Martian pet named Okey, a sort of bouncing sheepdog with antennae. Tim also had a niece named Katy living with them. None of the characters were voiced by the original actors; Jonathan Harris voiced Martin.

Episode list

Feature film

The series was also remade as a feature film in 1999 starring Christopher Lloyd as the Martian and Jeff Daniels as Tim. This film was released and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Ray Walston was featured in the film (both Bill Bixby and Pamela Britton had since died) and played another Martian who had been trapped on Earth since the time of the first series and wore a similar space suit from the series; his cover was now that of a Government investigator of unidentified flying objects. However, the premise was changed: Martians such as Lloyd's "Uncle Martin" are now non-humanoids with four arms, four legs, and three eyes who use a "gumball" (which they call "nerplex") to assume human form. The "nerplex" comes in a selection that will turn the person ingesting it into assorted life forms, including Martian and one to "never use" (Venox 7).

In popular culture

• Ray Walston appeared in a television commercial for AT&T in 2000. The conversation makes it evident to those who remember the TV series that he is playing the role of Uncle Martin, still on Earth. He asks if the rates AT&T offers also apply for phoning fellow Martians living in the United States.
• In an episode of the TV series Picket Fences, Walston's character, Judge Henry Bone, attends a Halloween party wearing antennae like those he wore on Martian.
• In the end title theme music for the film Spaced Invaders, a Halloween comedy involving incompetent invaders from Mars, one of the Martians hums the first bars of the theme from My Favorite Martian.
• Gold Key Comics published a My Favorite Martian comic for nine issues, Oct 1963–July 1966. Hermes Press will be issuing a 2 volume archive series of the comic in 2011.
• Ray Walston and Bill Bixby were reunited in the TV series The Incredible Hulk (another series in which Bixby starred) in Season 3, Episode 5 entitled "My Favorite Magician", an obvious allusion to the series, as well as to The Magician, yet another Bixby series.

See also

• List of television series that include time travel

References

External links

Original series:

• My Favorite Martian at the Internet Movie Database
• My Favorite Martian at TV.com
• My Favorite Martian at epguides.com
• Extensive Overview of My Favorite Martian
• Another look at My Favorite Martian

Cartoon series:

• My Favorite Martians (1973) at the Internet Movie Database
• My Favorite Martians (1973) at TV.com
• Episode index at the Big Cartoon DataBase