My Mother the Car

My Mother the Car is an American fantasy sitcom which aired for a single season on NBC between September 14, 1965 and April 5, 1966. A total of 30 episodes were produced by United Artists Television.

Critics and adult viewers generally panned the show, often savagely. In 2002, TV Guide proclaimed it to be the second-worst of all time, just behind The Jerry Springer Show.^[1] In 2010 The O'Reilly Factor recorded its viewers as listing it as the worst show of all time. In the context of its time, however, My Mother the Car was an original variation on then-popular "gimmick" shows like My Favorite Martian, The Flying Nun, I Dream of Jeannie, and especially Mister Ed, all of which depended on a fantastic, quirky premise for their comedy. Like these situation comedies of the 1960s, My Mother the Car is remembered fondly by baby boomers who followed the series during its one broadcast season.

Allan Burns, co-creator of My Mother the Car, went on to create some of the most critically acclaimed shows in television history, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, and Lou Grant. Television producer James L. Brooks, who later collaborated with Burns on these series, created, among others, Room 222 and Taxi, and served as executive producer of The Simpsons (which later parodied the show in the "Lovematic Grandpa" segment of "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase"), got his start in television sitcoms when he was called upon to rewrite a script for an episode of the series.^[2][3] The other co-creator, Chris Hayward, produced and wrote for Barney Miller during its first several seasons.

Synopsis

The show follows the exploits of attorney David Crabtree (played by Jerry Van Dyke), who, while shopping at a used car lot for a station wagon to serve as a second family car, instead purchases a dilapidated 1928 Porter touring car. Crabtree hears the car call his name in a woman's voice. The car turns out to be the reincarnation of his deceased mother, Gladys (voiced by Ann Sothern). She talks (only to Crabtree) through the car's radio: the dial light flashes in synchronization with "Mother's" voice. In an effort to get his family to accept the old, tired car, Crabtree brings it to a custom body shop for a full restoration. The car is coveted by a fanatical collector named Captain Manzini (Avery Schreiber), but Crabtree purchases and restores the car before Manzini can acquire it.

For the rest of the series, Crabtree is pursued by the avaricious Captain Manzini, who is determined to acquire the valuable automobile by hook or crook. In a running gag characterizing his shifty nature, Manzini (who resembles a 1920s silent film villain) always distorts Crabtree's name when speaking to him. "Now, then, Crabapple..." "That's Crabtree." "Whatever."

Others in the cast included Maggie Pierce as wife Barbara and Cindy Eilbacher (the sister of Lisa Eilbacher) and Randy Whipple as the kids, Cindy and Randy. Veteran movie and television character actors played supporting roles, including Harold Peary, Byron Foulger, Bob Jellison, Sam Flint, and Willis Bouchey.

Production notes

The show was created by Allan Burns and Chris Hayward, who had better success with Rocky & Bullwinkle, The Munsters, and Get Smart (which debuted the same season). Aluminum Model Toys (AMT), a well-known producer of plastic model car kits, introduced a 1/25-scale kit of the Porter in late 1965.

The theme music was composed and conducted by Ralph Carmichael. It was written and sung by Paul Hampton. It was used on an episode of Arrested Development also called "My Mother, the Car".

The show began with a black and white pilot, which was later totally re-filmed. This pilot did not originally air, but has been shown several times on Canadian television. Network censors insisted that one particular scene be deleted where the car backfired, for obvious reasons.

The car

The 1928 Porter used in My Mother the Car was not a production car. Real Porter cars had existed. The first was a steam automobile (Boston, Massachusetts, 1900–1901). The second car was a powerful luxury car (Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1919–1922) made from parts left over from production of Finley R Porter’s FRP. By the 1960s, no examples of either remained. For the TV show, assistant prop man Kaye Trapp leased the producers a 1924 Ford T-tub hot rod he recently bought from his friend and its builder, Norm Grabowski. Both Grabowski and the car had earlier appeared in the B movie comedy Sex Kittens Go to College (1960).

The 1928 Porter touring car sported diamond-tufted naugahyde upholstery, oversized white tonneau cover, plush black carpeting, chrome windshield braces and half-moon hubcaps. Trapp and studio special effects man Norm Breedlove (father of land-speed-record-setter Craig Breedlove) modified the car to give it an elongated engine compartment, palladian-style brass radiator with “Porter” script, a spare tire mounted on the running board, outboard fuel tank and antique cane-clad trunk. (It was later fitted, as needed, with special effects hardware, such as an oil tank drip to simulate a smoking engine and "tear ducts" in the headlamp bezels.) Off-camera operation of electrics was by umbilical cable. The signature features gave it an anachronistic look, resembling cars of earlier eras. The power train was the rod-grade 283 cu in V8 (Chevrolet small-block) engine mated with Powerglide automatic transmission. The "Porter" was registered (as a modified Ford) in 1964 with the contemporary yellow-on-black California license plates PZR 317 evident throughout the show's run.

When series production was approved, the Grabowski rod was retained as the "hero" car, and a second — "stunt", or special effects — car was commissioned and built by celebrated car customizer George Barris, whose Barris Kustom Industries licensed it to AMT in 1965 for a model kit production.^[4] The stunt car, not conventionally driveable, was equipped with apparatus to let Mother "drive herself" via a system of levers and mirrors operated by a short human driver concealed on a tractor seat below the removed rear floorboards. It had other special mechanical features, such as gimbaled headlamps.

Both cars had the dashboard-mounted radio head with flashing dial light through which Mother "talked" (though only to her son). These scenes were filmed with a stand-in; actress Ann Sothern’s voice was dubbed to the soundtrack in post-production. Generally, the hero car was used for driving shots and close-ups, and the stunt car for long shots and special effects sequences. Either was available as a stand-in in case of mechanical breakdown on set. Though made to represent one car, they can be distinguished by minor details, and actually appeared together in one episode.

The hero car is currently as of November 2015 located in Edmonton , Alberta, Canada and owned by Dave Bodnar.^[5] The stunt car was once owned by casino giant William Harrah, who had one of the largest special-interest and antique auto collections of all time in Reno, Nevada. After Harrah's death in 1984, the auction catalogue advertised the lot as having a carnation red body with white top and created from parts of a Ford Model T, a Maxwell, a Hudson and a Chevrolet. As of 2012 the stunt Porter is located at the Star Cars Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.^[6]

Cast

• Jerry Van Dyke as Dave Crabtree
• Maggie Pierce as Barbara Crabtree
• Ann Sothern as Mother the 1928 Porter (formerly Gladys Crabtree)
• Avery Schreiber as Captain Bernard Manzini
• Cindy Eilbacher as Cindy Crabtree
• Randy Whipple as Randy Crabtree

Episodes

Availability

The current owner of the show is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which bought United Artists in 1981. All 30 episodes were available for viewing on hulu.com.^[7]

TGG Direct released a DVD box set of the series on 12 November 2013. It contains the 30 episodes that aired, but not the unaired pilot. The laugh track has been removed for the DVD set.^[8]

Antenna TV began airing episodes of the show on September 19, 2015.^[9]

References

External links

• My Mother the Car at the Internet Movie Database
• My Mother the Car at TV.com