From beautiful downtown Burbank…

When Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In premiered as a one-shot NBC-TV special on September 9, 1967, several of the show’s best remembered cast members were already on board: Judy Carne, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley, and Ruth Buzzi, to be precise.  Larry Hovis also appeared in the special, taking a sabbatical from his regular gig as Sgt. Andrew Carter on Hogan’s Heroes (he would return to Laugh-In later in the show’s run, along with his Heroes castmate Richard Dawson), as did Barbara Feldon—who might have become a Laugh-In regular if her Get Smart duties hadn’t limited her participation to a handful of the early telecasts.  What you may not know (then again, if you’ve read my Facebook compadre Hal Erickson’s book you might) is that Ken Berry was also in the pilot.  Just imagine.  If they had kept Berry in the cast, we might have been spared Mayberry R.F.D.  (Just can’t catch a break.)

If you’re curious as to my sudden interest in Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, it’s because I received an e-mail last month from my good friend Michael Krause at Foundry Communications that the iconic comedy hour—which aired over NBC from January 22, 1968 to March 12, 1973, and was television’s #1 show in the 1968-69 and 1969-70 seasons—has made its home video debut in a ginormous DVD collection available from Time Life and Proven Entertainment.  All 140 telecasts are present (including the final season, which until they recently resurfaced on the Decades channel had long been MIA) and accounted for in this 38-disc set, along with scads of bodacious extras and a 32-page collectible booklet—Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In: The Complete Series can be ordered right now at www.timelife.com/laughin: the tariff is $249.95 (for the budget-minded, there's a 40-episode "Best of" set priced at $99.95).  (Fans of the show have my permission to discard their “Best of” Rhino DVDs they may own—eBay operators are standing by.)

The cast of Laugh-In (1968-69)

Like most couch potatoes of my generation, I dropped in on the show’s legendary “cocktail party” from time to time…though admittedly, it was in the show’s declining years, when most of its famous cast members had moved on to bigger and better things and Laugh-In was having to rely on the high-wattage comedy contributions of Moosie Drier.  I’m more familiar with the whittled down half-hour version of the program which aired for a time on Nick at Nite (the series’ original hour-long syndication package consisted of 70 hours culled from the first three seasons, along with the pilot and a few Season 4 installments) but to be honest—I never could figure out what all the fuss was about.  I think Laugh-In’s reputation for hip irreverence is somewhat inflated; creator-producer George Schlatter describes it as “a free fall of television without a net.  It was dangerous.  It was controversial.  It was totally unpredictable and always funny.”  Well, not really.  It was little more than sped-up vaudeville hokum—a mixture of the irreverence of Olsen and Johnson’s Hellzapoppin’ and the technological wackiness of television comedy innovator Ernie Kovacs.  (Schlatter was and still is married to Jolene Brand, a cast member of Kovacs’ show.)

Creator George Schlatter (holding sign) and the Laugh-In writers

Laugh-In was critically praised for its “representation of the counterculture” …but in this superb article by Kliph Nesteroff (who recycles some of this material in his indispensable The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy), the argument is convincingly made that the show was nothing more than The Establishment’s idea of The Counterculture (if you read Kliph’s piece, you’ll learn that Laugh-In head writer Paul Keyes played a large role in making Richard Milhous Nixon palatable to TV audiences).  “Laugh-In is commonly considered a reflection of the late sixties youth sensibility, but closer examination reveals a much different picture,” Kliph writes.  “It was, in essence, an establishment show, profiting from the anti-establishment sentiment running through America.  Moderated by the comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, Laugh-In was old in style, but draped in the popular fashion of the day.  It effectively garnered a genuine hippie aesthetic, but any actual connection to the counterculture was mostly smoke and mirrors.  The bulk of Laugh-In consisted of eye-catching vaudeville bits that mostly ignored the war, the riots and the protest.  It embraced the look and sound of the hippies and had no problem making references to getting high, but generally glossed over political issues.”

"Sock it...to me?"

This assessment goes a long way in explaining why I experienced disappointment with Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In as I got older: I was looking for something that was never there in the first place.  So I need to temper my criticism from the previous paragraphs with this caveat: if you’re looking for the biting political satire of such 60s shows as That Was the Week That Was or The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, you’re not going to find it on Laugh-In; its humor was more of the toothless Jay Leno-Tonight Show variety.  (In fact, if you read Nesteroff’s article in its entirety you’ll learn that hosts Rowan and Martin eventually bought out producer Schlatter’s interest in the program because the two stars “were very heavily into Nixon.  They actually had a quota of Daniel Ellsberg jokes, a quota of anti-New York Times jokes, and a weekly segment on the [left-wing] distortion of the news.”)  Yet if you look at the series through the prism as one of those classic television variety hours that they sadly don’t make any more, Laugh-In can be pretty amusing from time to time.  (Television to me has become a vast repository of “reality shows” …which you can actually lay the blame for at Schlatter’s feet for creating the successful Real People in 1979.)

Ruth Buzzi, Jo Anne Worley and Goldie Hawn in a Season 3 sketch

The “big names” on the show had already vamoosed during the period I watched Laugh-In although Lily Tomlin was still on the show; she joined in the show’s 1969-70 season, and became phenomenally popular with her characterizations of Ernestine (“Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?”), Edith Ann (“And that’s the truth…thbthh!!!”), and Mrs. Earbore, the “Tasteful Lady.”  Tomlin probably enjoyed the biggest post-Laugh-In career—she garnered an Oscar nomination for her performance in the 1975 film Nashville, which also featured Laugh-In alum Henry Gibson—save for Goldie Hawn, who took home her Academy Award trophy (for Best Supporting Actress in 1968’s Cactus Flower) while she was still performing on the show.  (I’ve watched a few of the early telecasts featuring Goldie, and was amused that her persona of the giggly blonde ditz took a show or two to develop—in her early appearances she plays it perfectly straight.  Also hooty: Hawn was on the show at the same time her Private Benjamin co-star Eileen Brennan was also a regular.)  Laugh-In featured some truly funny comic actresses: Judy Carne (the “Sock it to me” girl who would be doused with water or dropped through a trap door whenever she uttered the show’s phrase), Ruth Buzzi (“I just want to swing!”), and Jo Anne Worley (“Bo-ring!”), who only has to start in with that infectiously goofy laugh to make me chuckle (“Is that a chicken joke?”). 

Buzzi and Arte Johnson as Gladys & Tyrone

On the distaff side, there was Henry Gibson (the poetry guy with the flower), Gary Owens (the old-style announcer with his ever-present hand cupped to his ear), Alan Sues (sidesplitting as “Uncle Al, the kiddie’s pal”), and Larry Hovis (I loved his David Brinkley-like newscaster).  I didn’t find Arte Johnson as hilarious as some of my contemporaries (his German soldier shtick—“Verrry interesting”—got old quickly) though I did like his interactions with Buzzi’s Gladys Ormphby (“Care for a walnetto?”).  (Actually, the funniest thing about the old man was that his official name was “Tyrone F. Horneigh” …though they had to pronounce the last name as “Hor-NIGH” for obvious reasons.)  And I still have a soft spot for Dave Madden, who made me titter as the dour deadpan guy who threw confetti as a reaction to punchlines…because his “Reuben Kincaid” on The Partridge Family is one of my role models.

Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In has been released to DVD to coincide with the commemoration of the show’s 50th anniversary, and while I couldn’t score a screener of the set I did receive a wonderful consolation prize that I’ll discuss in a bit more detail in a future post.  What I could sample was a delightful surprise in that the show still manages to be entertaining despite the inevitable dating of the material, and I would not hesitate to recommend a purchase for true Laugh-In diehards—it’s timeless TV.  (You bet your sweet bippy!)

Color my world

The post you’re reading now was composed on Wednesday evening of the previous week—and before I begin, I apologize to everyone who may have already been clued into this news (I talked about it on Facebook…but not everyone in the TDOY faithful is into the whole [anti]social media thing); an article that I read at the MeTV website sort of planted the seed of inspiration, and I knew I needed to cobble together something fast and economical because of the weekend busyness.

Back about this same time last year, I mentioned that our DISH network system started carrying WGTA (channel 32), a local TV station in Toccoa (the “GTA” stands for “Greenville to Atlanta”) …and because WGTA’s programming consisted of the substations Heroes & Icons (32.1), Decades (32.2), and Movies! (32.3), our DISH had the full Heroes & Icons lineup—a rarity in the world of DISH, since they don’t usually carry substations.  In January of this year, there was an announcement that MeTV would be available on our DISH Channel 32 starting March 25, because WSB-TV—which originally carried MeTV as a substation—had dropped it, switching to Escape.  (And not the good kind—“designed to free you from the four walls of today.”)  The addition of MeTV as a WGTA substation meant all the other substations moved down a peg in terms of OTA (off the air)—Heroes & Icons is now 32.2, Decades 32.3, and so on.

The news that MeTV would once again be available in the House of Yesteryear was, as you may have guessed, warmly welcomed; sure, I experienced a small amount of initial disappointment (I was only a handful of episodes from a complete collection of Broken Arrow) that gave way to me being extremely jazzed because MeTV offers a good deal more variety in their classic TV programming.  (Also, too; I would gain access to reruns of Our Miss Brooks and 77 Sunset Strip—two series not yet released to DVD.)  I’m not happy that these shows are heavily edited in order to cram in the commercials my father constantly bitches about…but a thirsty man never turns down a glass of water.  I’m not joking about the ads on MeTV, by the way; I tried to persuade His Lairdship to start watching Gunsmoke on MeTV at 1pm EDT weekdays because they show two of the half-hour episodes back-to-back and he’s seen all of the color hour-long episodes they run on TVLand at that same hour.  (He claims he hasn’t…but this is incorrect, because I’m usually in the living room with him and I know I have.)  He gave up after one thirty-minute episode.  “Too many commercials,” he griped.  (I’ve been away from TVLand too long—I was not aware they were now ad-free.)

The amusing thing about MeTV is that on their current schedule, they run back-to-back episodes of The Andy Griffith Show at 8pm EDT weekdays (7pm EDT Sundays)—but only in selected areas.  If they’re running TAGS on another station in your viewing area, MeTV substitutes those reruns with…wait for it…Mayberry R.F.D.  (“Every time I think I’m out—they pull me back in!”)  Now comes an announcement that the network is going to work the TAGS episodes from 1965-68 into the rotation.  That’s right.  The color episodes.  The Mayberrys That Dare Not Speak Their Name.

I know many people—I think we even heard from them in the comments section when I was doing the Mayberry Mondays posts—who will not only refuse to watch The Andy Griffith Show in color…they vehemently deny the period ever existed.  And I get this—I really do.  There are a lot of TAGS episodes from the color era—a lot of episodes—that clearly illustrate that sitcom was running on fumes once Don Knotts said “I’m off like a prom dress.”  I think Don’s departure is the chief explanation for the hostility toward the Mayberry color era—replacing the Barney Fife character (even though Knotts returned on several occasions in a guest-star capacity) with that doofus played by Jack Burns was an idiotic decision that would not be equaled until they rolled out New Coke.  And I say this as a guy who likes Jack Burns…I just believe his "Warren Ferguson" was not a good fit where Mayberry was concerned, and in the MeTV article (“The Color Seasons of ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ are Great and Here’s Why”) the author amusingly notes “the character only appears in 11 episodes before mysteriously vanishing to wherever Chuck Cunningham went.”

The article makes some good arguments…and some not-so-good.  Their first bullet point, “Howard Sprague is a wonderfully milquetoast character,” is the strongest argument they could make (I’m going to assume that’s why it was first); it’s no accident that, as I have stated in the past, Howard is usually at the center of the one laugh-out-loud moment in every episode of Mayberry R.F.D.…and the subject of that show’s funnier episodes (“The Panel Show,” “The Caper,” “The Mynah Bird,” etc.).  My fellow Facebook denizens and I discussed this article a bit, with many of MeTV's points greeted with all the enthusiasm of drinking warm beer.  I believe it was Andrew “Grover” Leal who had his flabber gasted at #4, “Road Trips”—personally, I didn’t have a problem when Andy, Opie, and Aunt Bee made the trek to Hollywood…because if it was good enough for Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, it was good enough for the Taylors.

The only item on the MeTV list that found me searching for where in my skull my eyes had rolled to was #7, “Aunt Bee Gets to Do a Lot More.”  Mr. Leal persuasively argues: “[They] were trying too hard to fill the ‘Barney does something wacky’ gap,” and I have to agree (while at the same time believing “The Mayberry Chef” to be one of the stronger final season episodes).  I might be persuaded to side with MeTV if I stopped to consider that with every “wacky” Aunt Bee installment that meant less time spent with Mayberry’s resident fix-it savant and wife-batterer, Emmett Clark.  As I told Facebook chum Jason Beard: “…I have stared into the R.F.D. abyss, and I know that even on its worst color-saturated day TAGS was better.”

I think that last part might be the number one reason I’m not as filled with revulsion with a color Mayberry as some.  You see (this is the portion of the blog where I tell a sad childhood story—please, no tears), we didn’t get a color TV set until 1976.  Mayberry was always in black-and-white when I was a kid.  Sure, some of town’s residents either vanished (Otis, Ernest T.) or moved away (Barney, Floyd), but for the younger Ivan, that sleepy little North Carolina hamlet remained in its monochromatic state until the day my father decided that color TV was no longer a fad and was here to stay.  (Yes, he never misses an opportunity to ride me about my love of black-and-white TV shows and movies—completely missing the irony that my childhood might have had something to do with that.)

So bring on the color episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, MeTV.  The channel is also running announcements of the return of Rhoda (yay!) and Remington Steele (snore) …I just hope this isn’t going to interfere with my burgeoning Our Miss Brooks collection.

Putting a wreath on The Couple’s Next Door

I’ve got just enough space before 2016 comes to an official close to do one more giveaway on the ol’ blog…and since this is that holiday time of the year, I figured I’d take another stab at offering up a chance to win one of two sets of the Radio Spirits collection The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-Ups.  (There are a few Yuletide-themed broadcasts in this set, so it is most appropriate.)

Back in March, I tried to give away these sets…and to my genuine astonishment (and amusement), I didn’t get one entry.  Nada.  Zilch.  Now, I can understand why this was the case: it was at a time when the weeds had started to multiply around Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, since I had fallen into a quicksand pit of slackitude when it came to posting.  By the way, no one is more surprised than I at my recent spate of activity at TDOY; I have already doubled (and then some) the number of posts that I managed to cobble together in 2015.

Because I am committed to recycling, I’m going to borrow a few paragraphs from that original March 2016 post to give the TDOY faithful a little background on The Couple Next Door:

Actress-writer Margaret Frances “Peg” Lynch—who, sadly, was summoned to the Great Audition Room back in July of 2015 at the age of 98—was one of the most amazing individuals employed during Radio’s Golden Age.  Her website rightfully boasts that she was “the lady who invented sitcom”—that sitcom being The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert, which premiered over NBC Blue on May 29, 1944 (an earlier version had appeared previously in three-minute installments over several local stations at which she was employed).  It was a simple, character-based sitcom: Peg played Ethel Arbuckle (Lynch stepped in when the network brass didn’t think any of the actresses who auditioned were suitable), a typical housewife married to a typical husband in the form of Albert Arbuckle.  Albert was played initially by Richard Widmark, who eventually moved on to a stage and film career, and he was replaced by Alan Bunce…whose chemistry with Peg was quite convincing.

Ethel and Albert spent most of its run on radio as a five-day-a-week quarter hour—it was expanded to a half-hour in its final season before it was cancelled on August 28, 1950.  After that, it became one of the boob tube’s early successes—first as a fifteen-minute segment on Kate Smith’s variety show, and then as a half-hour series that aired on all three of the majors (ABC, CBS and NBC) from 1953 to 1956.  Lynch went on record as not being overly fond of the TV Ethel and Albert (“…I always felt it spoiled my timing…I would have to hold up for the laugh…”) so when she got an opportunity to revive her creation for CBS Radio beginning in December of 1957 she leapt at the chance.  The only snag was that because she had signed away the rights to “Ethel and Albert” sometime ago, she would have to rename the new series The Couple Next Door.

The Couple Next Door is a quirky little situation comedy in the mold of Vic & Sade (without the engaging eccentricity) and Lum ‘n’ Abner (without the bucolic wackiness).  I only had a passing familiarity with the series before I was asked to contribute liner notes, but in listening to the shows it wasn’t long before Couple Next Door worked its magic on me.  What I enjoy so thoroughly about Peg Lynch’s writing is that it doesn’t come off as writing; the dialogue sounds perfectly natural to the ear—it’s as if you caught yourself eavesdropping on a neighbor couple’s conversation by accident.  Several of the broadcasts in the Merry Mix-Ups collection are Yuletide-themed; one of the funniest is an outing that finds Mr. Piper (Bunce) having to drop off a parcel at the post office and being stymied by the nitpicky regulations that the clerk insists must be followed to the letter before it can be sent on its way.  (You have no idea how much I identified with his situation.)

As Mike “Mr. Television” Doran later noted in the comments section of the original post, Peg eventually arranged to re-obtain the rights to Ethel and Albert, since she and Alan reprised their characters in several laundry detergent TV commercials (Mike seems to recall it was Cheer, but he’s not 100% on that).  With that out of the way, here’s what you need to do to enter TDOY’s giveaway (the Merry Mix-Ups set has a SRP value of $31.95):

1) Send me an e-mail with “Merry Mix-Ups” in the subject header to igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com.  You have until 11:59pm EST on December 17, 2016 (next Saturday) to enter.

2) Make sure you are a U.S. resident or have a U.S. mailing address.

3) If you’ve won one of the blog’s contests in the past thirty days, it’s the height of proper netiquette to maybe sit this one out to allow fellow members of the TDOY faithful a more sporting chance of winning.

4) I will choose two winners Sunday morning (via the Random Number Generator at Random.com) of December 18th and inform the lucky persons of their tremendous good fortune.  Keep in mind that when entering, you don’t have to provide a snail-mail address…but I will need it once you receive that “Congratulations!” e-mail.

5) As always…there is no number five.

The swag will be sent out to the winners as quickly as I can, owing to the timeliness of Christmas and all.  So there you go—a chance to win some truly remarkable comedy from the waning days of Radio’s Golden Age, and I think you’ll be as enchanted with The Couple Next Door as I am.  Good luck to all who enter, and remember—Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

“Peg…it will come back to you…”

First off…many thanks to those of you who sent my mother best wishes on her recuperating from her recent experience with the surgeon’s scalpel.  I would like to honestly say she was overwhelmed by your kind thoughts…but her reaction was more along the lines of “Stop writing about me on your blog, damn it!”

One of the fabulous perks I receive as a result of my liner note contributions to Radio Spirits old-time radio collections—besides a little jingle in my pocket so that I might keep creditors at bay, of course—is that RS usually sends me a few gratis copies of the sets on which I’ve worked.  I usually keep one for myself, and then either hook up a friend with one or give them out as fabulous prizes to reward those people patient when the blog fields at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear fall fallow.

The last giveaway I did here on the blog was for a Don Rickles DVD back in October…so what do you say to a chance to win a copy of the Radio Spirits release The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-Ups?  For those of you not familiar with the program…here’s a little background:

Actress-writer Margaret Frances “Peg” Lynch—who, sadly, was summoned to the Great Audition Room back in July of 2015 at the age of 98—was one of the most amazing individuals employed during Radio’s Golden Age.  Her website rightfully boasts that she was “the lady who invented sitcom”—that sitcom being The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert, which premiered over NBC Blue on May 29, 1944 (an earlier version had appeared previously in three-minute installments over several local stations at which she was employed).  It was a simple, character-based sitcom: Peg played Ethel Arbuckle (Lynch stepped in when the network brass didn’t think any of the actresses who auditioned were suitable), a typical housewife married to a typical husband in the form of Albert Arbuckle.  Albert was played initially by Richard Widmark, who eventually moved on to a stage and film careet, and he was replaced by Alan Bunce…whose chemistry with Peg was quite convincing.

Ethel and Albert spent most of its run on radio as a five-day-a-week quarter hour—it was expanded to a half-hour in its final season before it was cancelled on August 28, 1950.  After that, it became one of the boob tube’s early successes—first as a fifteen-minute segment on Kate Smith’s variety show, and then as a half-hour series that aired on all three of the majors (ABC, CBS and NBC) from 1953 to 1956.  Lynch went on record as not being overly fond of the TV Ethel and Albert (“…I always felt it spoiled my timing…I would have to hold up for the laugh…”) so when she got an opportunity to revive her creation for CBS Radio beginning in December of 1957 she leapt at the chance.  The only snag was that because she had signed away the rights to “Ethel and Albert” sometime ago, she would have to rename the new series The Couple Next Door.

The Couple Next Door is a quirky little situation comedy in the mold of Vic & Sade (without the engaging eccentricity) and Lum ‘n’ Abner (without the bucolic wackiness).  I only had a passing familiarity with the series before I was asked to contribute liner notes, but in listening to the shows it wasn’t long before Couple Next Door worked its magic on me.  What I enjoy so thoroughly about Peg Lynch’s writing is that it doesn’t come off as writing; the dialogue sounds perfectly natural to the ear—it’s as if you caught yourself eavesdropping on a neighbor couple’s conversation by accident.  Several of the broadcasts in the Merry Mix-Ups collection are Yuletide-themed; one of the funniest is an outing that finds Mr. Piper (Bunce) having to drop off a parcel at the post office and being stymied by the nitpicky regulations that the clerk insists must be followed to the letter before it can be sent on its way.  (You have no idea how much I identified with his situation.)

I have two copies of The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-Ups to give to two lucky members of the TDOY faithful.  It’s a six-CD set containing twenty-four broadcasts from 1958 and 1959 (retail value: $24.95), and if you’re interested in winning one all you have to do is drop me an e-mail at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Merry Mix-Ups” in the subject header (you can add something witty if you like…though I should warn you that the winners of this giveaway will be determined by the old random number generator at Random.org).  The contest will end next Thursday, March 10 at 11:59pm EST, and once the winners have been chosen they will be notified of just how very fortunate they are.  (Oh, and I will get their prizes out as soon as possible.)

I need to issue a couple of caveats: 1) this promotion is limited to U.S. residents only.  You know I love the people from the Great White North (sheesh—I sound like Donald J. Drumpf: “I have a great relationship with the Canadians”) but unfortunately when I send packages that way I have to jump through a great many postal hoops like being fingerprinted and submitting some skin from the back of my neck.  (The last time I mailed something to Canada there was a strip search involved…though I can’t swear that had anything to do with the parcel’s destination.)

Secondly, all I ask is that you’ve won something off the blog within the past thirty days that you wait and let some other people have a chance to benefit from this sweet, sweet largesse.  This rule can’t really be applied for this particular giveaway because it’s been about four months since I handed out free swag…so if you’re of U.S. origin, take a chance!  Remember: Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

A Very Merry MeTV Blogathon: Christmas with the Gillis Family

The following essay is Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s contribution to A Very Merry MeTV Blogathon, an event sponsored by The Classic Television Blog Association to promote MeTV’s stellar lineup of Yuletide programming airing from November 16th to December 25th (Christmas Day).  For a list of participating blogs and the shows and episodes covered, click here.

Since 1959, TV’s The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis has been making fans both old and new laugh uproariously at the misadventures of a bewildered teenager (played by Dwayne Hickman) as he stumbles and fumbles his way through this wacky thing we call life.  Many of Dobie Gillis’ episodes focused on the conflicts in his family (parents courtesy of Frank Faylen and Florida Friebus) and amongst his circle of friends; unconventional beatnik Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver), snooty millionaire Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. (Steve Franken)…and the two most important women in his life: greedy, grasping Thalia Menninger (Tuesday Weld) and plain, practical Zelda Gilroy (Sheila James Kuehl).

Dobie Gillis always had a bite to its humor…but it also possessed a strong sentimental streak—as Maynard would often say as he dabbed his wet eyes on the cut-off sleeve of his sweatshirt: “Gee, Dob…I’m gettin’ all misty.”  Nowhere is this more evident than in the four episodes the series telecast to celebrate the spirit of Christmas (one for each season).  Three of these installments will be included in MeTV’s holiday celebration of Yuletide and Thanksgiving programming from November 16-December 25, 2015.

The first time Dobie and his family invited us to spend Christmas occurs in the first season (natch), with “Deck the Halls”—which originally aired December 22, 1959.  (This episode didn’t make the MeTV Holiday Programming cut—if the poor quality print of the episode on the Shout! Factory Dobie set is any indication, it’s no surprise they nixed it—still, I thought we’d get it out of the way.)  We find the family patriarch, Herbert T. Gillis, sitting forlornly on Christmas Eve in a cell in what I like to call The Gray Bar Hotel…and even though the police chief (Jack Albertson) and presiding judge (Milton Frome) have told him he’s free to go, Mr. Gillis is determined to stay put until Christmas is over.

Herbert's fellow lockup denizen is played by Alan Carney, best remembered as one-half (the other being Wally Brown) of RKO's attempt to create an Abbott-and-Costello-type comedy team in the 1940s.

JUDGE: Gillis…be reasonable…look at it this way…you’re not really mad at me…

HERBERT: No?

JUDGE (clapping him on the back): Or the chief here…

HERBERT: No…

JUDGE: You’re really mad at Christmas!

HERBERT: No!

JUDGE: What was that?

HERBERT: I am not mad at Christmas…I am mad at people!  People at Christmas!

So who are these “people” with whom Mr. Gillis is frustrated?  Well, his wife Winifred is dithering over who should receive a Christmas card from the Gillis’ grocery store.  Son Dobie, in a rare burst of enthusiasm, offers to help out in the store…though soon revealing his motive for doing so is to cadge five bucks from his father so that he can get his girl a Christmas gift: baton-twirling lessons.  The Gillis’ elder son Davey (Darryl Hickman), home from college, also needs a little spending money for the holidays—fifty dollars in order to tip “the help” at an exclusive resort at which he’s vacationing with a college chum.  Mr. Gillis is even agitated at Dobie’s friend Maynard—though it doesn’t take much effort for Mr. Krebs to get on Herbert’s bad side—when he leaves an inflatable raft he bought at the Army-Navy Surplus (a gift for the senior Krebs) and it’s activated inside Gillis’ store.

Dwayne Hickman's brother Darryl in the second of his three outings as Dobie's older brother Davey.  Davey would later succumb to the same fate that befell such boob tube siblings as Chuck Cunningham, Eugene Barkley and Mike Douglas (not the talk show host...the older brother on My Three Sons).

But the individuals who really get on Herbert T.’s wick are his loyal grocery patrons—and having worked in customer service in the past, I sympathize with the man.  Mrs. Muller orders the same salami at Gillis’ Grocery every week of the year, but on Christmas she insists on having one gift-wrapped as a present for her sister-in-law in Detroit (the old dame really just wants to score some free wrapping paper).  Mrs. Kenney has ordered a gi-normous candy cane for her husband to commemorate the first Christmas the couple spent together long ago…only she paid $1.50 for it then, and can’t understand why the price is now $3.00 (to add insult to injury, Herbert even had to have it made special).  But it’s Mrs. Lapping (Verna Felton) who really takes the cake: she won’t need the turkey she bought for Christmas because she’ll be spending the holiday out-of-town with family…so she insists Gillis take back the bird he previously sold her.  She also contends that he’s short-changing her by refunding her the forty-nine-cents-a-pound she paid for the turkey in June (when they were on sale)—why, the sign outside says sixty-nine cents!  Mad as hell, and not willing to take it anymore, Mr. Gillis heaves the turkey through the store’s plate-glass window as a startled Mrs. Lapping begins to shout out loud for the police.

Herbert’s mind is made up: he’s going to channel his inner hermit during Christmas, because he’s fed up with humanity.  But he hadn’t counted on his family—Winnie, Dobie and Davey—showing up to be with him in jail on Christmas Eve; even though the boys had other plans, they insisted on cancelling them to help Winnie with the store.  Herbert realizes that Christmas is all about family, and quietly tells his clan they’re going home.  Later, while trimming the tree inside the grocery, the Gillises are serenaded outside by a group of carolers: the police chief, the judge, Mrs. Kenney and Mrs. Lapping.

In Season Two, Dobie Gillis reworked Charles Dickens’ classic short story A Christmas Carol into “Jangle Bells” (originally telecast December 20, 1960); in fact, the episode begins with Dobie, Zelda and Chatsworth re-enacting the story (Chatsworth is Scrooge, appropriately enough) in front of the class taught by the kids’ favorite schoolteacher, Leander Pomfritt (William Schallert) (“That, my young gluttons-for-punishment, was Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol…forgive us, Charlie…”):

POMFRITT: Class, as you have seen…Dickens ingeniously employs ghostly spirits to show Ebenezer Scrooge just how lonely his future Christmases will be unless he changes his ways…now tell me—how would you describe the character of Scrooge at the beginning of the story?

ZELDA: A pitiful creature!

CHATSWORTH: A wretched clod…

DOBIE: A miserable wreck…

MAYNARD (entering the classroom): You rang?!!

Honest to my grandma...it never gets old.

By the time Maynard takes off several layers of clothing, class is through for the day (Pomfritt: “Somewhere between the second muffler and the mackinaw”).  Once again, Maynard plays the fool—but Mr. P is going to give him some advice on how to turn it all around:

POMFRITT: Now look, Maynard my boy…has it ever occurred to you that perhaps you’re trying too hard to please everybody by being a clown…a Pagliacci?

MAYNARD: Polly-who?

POMFRITT: Pagliacci…he was a character in an…never mind…what I’m trying to say, Maynard, is that you don’t have to attract attention to yourself by being odd and different…why not just try to be one of the gang?

MAYNARD: How can I do that, Mr. Pomfritt?  I mean…they go out on dates…and they go to dances…and they throw parties and that…I couldn’t do none of them things…

POMFRITT: Who said you can’t?

MAYNARD: Me!  I just said it—didn’t you hear me?

POMFRITT: Maynard…I mean…what’s to prevent you from, say, uh…giving a party…inviting your friends over…giving them some refreshments?  Show them that you, Maynard G. Krebs, are just as good as the next fellow!

MAYNARD: Me?  Maynard G. Krebs throw a party?  Yeah…I could do it!  A swingin’ Christmas party, with popcorn…and a tree…and like (Sings) “Deck the Halls”…and bobbin’ for apples and settin’ off firecrackers…and…and…

POMFRITT: Firecrackers?  At Christmas?

MAYNARD: Yeah…that’s Halloween…

So the groundwork on Maynard’s Yuletide bash is underway…but there’s one small problem.  His best friend, Dobie, has been invited to a shindig at Chatsworth’s (Chatsworth: “You know, we aristocratic Osbornes traditionally rub elbows with the peasantry once a year at this outing—something to do with democracy, or some such”) and while his loyalty is with Maynard, Zelda insists the two of them attend the Osborne soiree so that Dobie can make those all-important contacts.

ZELDA: Are you a scholar?  No…are you a businessman?  No…are you talented?  No…are you ever going to be a whopping success?

DOBIE (dejectedly): No…

ZELDA: Yes!

DOBIE: Yes?

ZELDA: Yes!  Because you have one hidden quality—people like you!

DOBIE: They do?

ZELDA: I do…and I’m highly perceptive!  Together we will turn Dobie Gillis—the formless blob of mediocrity—into Dobie Gillis…the whopping success!

This means Dobie is going to have to bail on Maynard’s rager, which is being held in his garage.  (Maynard: “I talked to my father…it’s the only part of the house he’ll let me have.”)  Dobie tries to break it gently to his pal, but Maynard is so jazzed about his party that he’s not really listening to anything his buddy is saying.  Dobie’s dilemma: friendship or establishing solid contacts for his future?  He asks his father what he should do, but Father Gillis is of no help, merely spouting forth empty platitudes and clichés.

Like...boo!

Taking a nap before the Osborne affair, Dobie is visited by a ghost who looks strangely like Maynard.  As the Spirit of Christmas Past, the Maynard-like apparition shows his friend a distant memory of when they spent Christmas together when they were only four-years-old.  As the Spirit of Christmas Future, the ghost offers up a hilarious peek at Dobie’s future: he’s married to Zelda and the two of them are filthy, stinking rich.  The couple are seated at each end of a comically long dining table, and at one point in their conversation Zelda does her patented nose-wrinkle at Dobie, hoping he’ll reciprocate—but since he’s too far away to see it, she has to send their butler, Tremblay (David Bond), to the other end to nose-wrinkle.  (Actor Bond played “Tremblay” in several episodes of Dobie Gillis…though he was usually in the service of the Osbornes.)  Outside, a pathetic wretch (Maynard) scratches at the window and asks to come in…but the warped Dobie (who cares about nothing but money) has the butler send Maynard away.

Against his better judgement, Dobie goes with Zelda to the Christmas party…while lonely Maynard is forced to entertain himself in his garage…with only an alley cat for company.  Dobie keeps seeing Maynard’s miserable mug on the various party guests (he even see Maynard-as-Zelda, wearing a party dress) and finally decides he won’t sell his soul for a mess of pottage; Zelda also realizes she was wrong to advise Dobie not to go to Maynard’s wingding, and leaves with him.  The two of them—along with Mr. and Mrs. Gillis—turn up at Maynard’s…and then the throng from Chatsworth’s shows up as well.  “You observe how the Christmas spirit overwhelms the average citizen,” Chatsworth explains to Dobie.  “So you can imagine the shattering effect when it strikes an Osborne!”

“Jangle Bells” is probably my favorite of the Yuletide Dobie Gillises, only because I have a tendency to gravitate towards those episodes that feature the entire Dobie cast (I love the characters, and enjoy watching them interact).  There’s only a tiny hiccup: to promote his Capitol Records LP Dobie, Hickman warbles I Pass Your House…and let’s not beat about the bush: the man simply could not sing.  (Granted, this didn’t stop Shelley “Johnny Angel” Fabares…or Paul “My Dad” Petersen, now that I think about it.)  MeTV will air “Bells” on Sunday, November 29th at 5am EST…with an encore performance on Sunday, December 20th at 5:30am EST.

“Have Reindeer, Will Travel”—a punny title inspired by the TV western Have Gun – Will Travel—was Dobie Gillis’ third season Christmas show, originally telecast on December 19, 1961.  It features a simple premise: Maynard, in his capacity as treasurer, is transporting $55.78 raised by his fellow classmates for a school dance…which he proceeds to hand off to a little Mexican boy (Michael Davis) who’s barely eking out an existence shining shoes in the streets of Central City.  Now—I know what you’re thinking: for this episode to work, we have to believe that the students in Dobie and Zelda’s class at S. Peter Pryor Junior College have experienced temporary insanity in electing Maynard the Manchild treasurer.  I spotted this logical flaw right off the bat, but in their defense it is addressed in the episode:

WALTER: How much money do we have in the fund to spend on the dance?

DOBIE: Er…we’ll know the exact money as soon as the treasurer for the Christmas fund gets here…

WALTER: Who’s the treasurer?

DOBIE: Uh…Maynard G. Krebs…and now then…on…

WALTER: I move we get a new treasurer!

ZELDA: Dobie—you appointed Maynard to be treasurer?

DOBIE: Yes—by virtue of the power vested in me as chairman…

WALTER: Well, I move we get a new chairman!

(The group murmurs in agreement)

DOBIE: Now just a minute…

ZELDA: Yeah, just a darn minute…you kids ought to be ashamed of yourselves!  Now, look—we all voted to make Dobie chairman…now let’s stand behind him and back him up instead of picking on him!

DOBIE: That’s right—I’m doing my darndest to do a good job!

ZELDA: And you’re succeeding, Poopsie—you’re doing a fine job…

DOBIE: Thank you, Zelda…

ZELDA: So how come you pulled a lame brained stunt like appointing Maynard treasurer?

DOBIE: Because Maynard’s changed, that’s why!  Now that he’s a college man, he’s mature…grown-up…and resourceful…and self-reliant…and…am I really talking about…

ZELDA (finishing his sentence): Talking about our Maynard…no…

Maynard returns to a hearty welcome from his fellow matriculators…and that’s when they learn he doesn’t have the dough.  Now you and I—because we were not raised in a sitcom—would immediately ring up the gendarmes to have Mr. Krebs detained for theft…but the class gives Maynard a break on that score (Walter: “Of course he didn’t steal the money—he’s too stupid to be a crook”).  What goes unexplained is why Maynard won’t reveal to his best friend—or anyone else, for the matter—what’s happened to the missing cabbage; surely he shouldn’t be embarrassed that he was struck with a sudden case of altruism?  Dobie’s bright idea is for Maynard to secure a part-time job in order to earn the money needed to replace what’s missing…and the first person he thinks of who might employ young Krebs is a man not known for his unselfishness:

HERBERT: Look…he couldn’t carry fifty-five dollars and seventy-eight cents for the class dance across the street without losing it—and you want me to trust my hard-earned cash to him?  You gotta be kidding me…

MAYNARD: Yeah, Dob…you gotta be kidding…

DOBIE: Maynard…

WINNIE: Herbert, I’m ashamed of the way you’ve been talking about Maynard…

HERBERT: So am I—but with a lady present, it was the best I could do…

WINNIE: Dobie…as I understand it, Maynard has done something to let you down…and now he wants to make up for it…

DOBIE: That’s right, Mom…

WINNIE: Well then, Herbert—how can we possibly refuse to help him?

HERBERT: Easy!  (She gives him The Look) Winnie…I hope you understand what you’re letting us in for…it means that Maynard will be here in the store…with us…hour after hour…day after day…week after week…

WINNIE: I understand that perfectly and Dobie—isn’t there some other way that we could possibly help Maynard?

Maynard’s career as an associate with Gillis Mart is a brief one; he does a funny bit of physical comedy where he falls off a ladder and on top of Herbert, but what really tanks his career is that the same Latino shoeshine boy shows up to buy groceries with twelve dollars…and when the bill comes to $11.45, Maynard feels guilty that the little urchin will have nothing with which to purchase Christmas presents.  So he makes the groceries a present, but is oblivious to the fact that his supervisor is watching:

HERBERT: Maynard?!!

MAYNARD: Present…uh-oh…

HERBERT: What’s my name?

MAYNARD: Your name is Herbert T. Gillis, and you’re a veteran of WW2…

HERBERT: Right! Not J.P. Morgan…not John D. Rockefeller…not the Aga Khan…just plain, everyday Herbert T. Gillis…your former employer…

Bloodied but not bowed, Maynard finds another job—more suitable for a man Dobie describes as “a warm-hearted, lovable, human being.”

Like...ho ho ho!

Yes, Mr. Krebs gets a job as a department store Santa and demonstrates that he’s perfect for the job, particularly when he presents a little girl (Debbie Megowan) and her mother (Edith Loder) with some gifts (teddy bear, dollhouse) they don’t have to pay for.  (I think it goes without saying a person like that would be the most popular Santa ever—whether or not this comes out of Maynard’s paycheck is never addressed.)  On Maynard’s last day, Dobie and Zelda arrive to make sure the money doesn’t disappear a second time…and that’s when “Pepe” shows up.  Maynard hands him his paycheck even though the kid is clearly telling him “I don’t want your money” in Spanish (hey, nice to know I retained something from all that Spanish I took in college).  Maynard takes off in the store to elude his friends, and that’s when Dobie and Zelda encounter Pepe:

Maynard in Toyland.

DOBIE: Who are you?

ZELDA: What are you doing here?

PEPE: Por favor, señorita…no comprendo…

DOBIE: Wait…wait…did you see a thin fellow with a beard run past here?

(Pepe looks at him puzzledly)

ZELDA: Dobie, I think he only speaks Spanish…

DOBIE: Yeah…uh…el señor…skinny…avec le beard…?

ZELDA: I said Spanish—not gibberish…

Fortunately for the purposes of quickly wrapping up the plot, Zelda speaks Spanish (“Pure Castilian—none of those regional dialects”) and she’s able to communicate with Pepe…bringing The Case of the Captured Coinage to an end.  Dobie, Zelda and Maynard wind up at the home of Pepe’s family, where his mother (Argentina Brunetti) explains that while the family may be down on their uppers they don’t need the class dance money.  Dobie insists that she take it: “I’m a very stubborn caballero—I don’t hear a word you say.”  The dance does go on as planned—it’s held in the same classroom where the kids were holding their meeting earlier, and the soiree is catered by Herbert T. Gillis, “your friendly neighborhood grocer.”  The Latino family also arrive, bringing with them musical instruments to play so that all those WASP kids can get down with their bad selves.  “Have Reindeer, Will Travel” airs tonight (November 17) on MeTV at 9pm EST.

By the time of the fourth and final Dobie Gillis Christmas caper—“Will the Real Santa Claus Please Come Down the Chimney?” (12/19/62)—the show had added a new character in Duncan “Dunky” Gillis, Dobie’s younger cousin.  (Dunky was played by Bobby Diamond, who did a pretty good job as the kid hero of the series Fury…but sadly, possessed none of Dwayne Hickman’s first-rate comedic timing.)  “Real Santa Claus” finds Dunky and his “Uncle Herbie” filled with the Christmas spirit as they sing “Deck the Halls” while trimming the tree.  But Winifred Gillis—the kindly, lovable mother who served as the series’ supportive center—has a simple message for the season: “Christmas? Bah humbug!”

How did the gentle, compassionate Mrs. G reach this sorry state?  Well, it all begins with Maynard as the show’s resident manchild stops by the grocery store:

WINNIE: …why don’t you tell us why you’re here before Mr. Gillis forgets he’s filled with holiday cheer…

MAYNARD: I brung you a letter from my mother…

WINNIE: Oh?  From your mother? (She takes a slip of paper from him)

MAYNARD: Or my father…I forget which…they both look alike…

HERBERT: Winnie…you do me an injustice…with all this Christmas spirit in the world…forget… (Scoffs) I’m filled with holiday cheer!

WINNIE (after reading the note): Maynard is moving in with us!

HERBERT: I just got unfilled… (Threatening) Maynard…

WINNIE: His folks would like to know if we can take care of him while they’re visiting relatives in Cleveland…

MAYNARD: See how they love me?

HERBERT: They love you?

MAYNARD: Sure!  This is the first time they told me the name of a real place—always before they made ‘em up so I couldn’t find them…ain’t that heartwarmin’?

HERBERT: Oh, that’s just what it is, heartwarming—but you ain’t stayin’ here, boy…

MAYNARD: Name me one good reason…

HERBERT: Because I couldn’t stand to see you around the house…

MAYNARD: Name me two good reasons…

WINNIE: Herbert, dear…be generous…what would be so terrible about having Maynard around with us for a few days?  Joining in the family fun…eating with us…talking to us all day…and all night…Maynard, I just had a wonderful idea—why don’t you go to Cleveland with your folks?

Despite Mrs. Gillis’ reservations, Maynard ends up being a guest at the Gillises—and that’s when the episode’s plot is set into motion: Maynard—despite being free, white, and 21—still stubbornly clings to the belief that Santa Claus is real:

WINNIE: Maynard dear…we all believe in Santa Claus just as you do…we believe in him as a symbol, as a warm, wonderful example of goodness and kindness and goodwill to everyone…

MAYNARD: Santa believes in them things, too!

(Herbert rolls his eyes)

DUNKY: Let me take a stab at straightening the boy out…Maynard—you’ve seen the Santas in all the department stores, haven’t you?

I would hope so—he previously played one in “Have Reindeer, Will Travel”…

DUNKY: He’s just a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit—right?

MAYNARD: Right!  Didn’t you know that—a kid your age?  Dunky, the man in the suit is one of Santa’s helpers…I mean, Santa himself can’t be everywhere…so Santa’s helpers give kids laps to sit on…next question?

Maynard has an explanation for all the Santas on the street corners and in the movies, and for the Santa that showed up at school (Maynard knows that’s Dean Magruder, the major domo at S. Peter Pryor Junior College played on occasion by Raymond “Milburn Drysdale” Bailey).  But as for the real Saint Nick—well...

WINNIE: Then you have never seen the real Santa Claus—true?

MAYNARD: True!  But then I never seen the real Marshal Dillon, neither—and I know he’s real…of course…I’m not too sure about Chester…

Poor Dobie.  He's reduced to being the narrator of his own self-titled sitcom...and modeling terrible Christmas sweaters.

Despite his substantial lack of evidence for the existence of Kris Kringle, Maynard is unshakable in his faith—so much so that he arranges for a construction crew to come in and put in the pipes needed for a new automatic washer and dryer, because he knows Santa is going to bring that for Mrs. Gillis as a present.  (They also work upstairs on a surface suitable for Dobie’s new ping-pong table.)  Herbert is livid, and he wants to introduce Maynard to his pal Louis…short for Louisville Slugger.  But Dobie—who finally turns up in this episode, by the way—convinces his dad that a Plan B is in order.  Herbert will dress up as Santa, come down the chimney and plant Maynard in his lap.  After Maynard tells the old gent what he wants for Christmas, Mr. G will rip off the beard to reveal his true self…and Maynard will be so shocked he’ll stop with the Santa Claus nonsense.

For Herbert to play Santa, there must first be rehearsals down the Gillis chimney…

…well, that could have happened to anybody.  Herbert winds up stuck, and finds himself coughing up more dinero to make the chimney bigger and wider so his ruse to fool Maynard will be a success.  On Christmas Eve, Mr. G successfully navigates the new chimney and Maynard, clad in footy pajamas, hops up on his lap to tell him what he wants for Christmas:

MAYNARD: First…I want a ping-pong table for Dobie…he’s that fellow over there…the one who’s flabby and has a weak chin…I know he don’t look like much, but he’s my good and best buddy…and whatever will make him happy will make me happy, too…and then I want a brand-new sports jacket for Dunky…he’s the little one over there with the weak chin…I know he don’t look like much, too—but somebody he’s going to grow up and be as sweet and lovable and flabby as Dobie…

HERBERT: But what do you want for you?

MAYNARD: An automatic washer and an automatic dryer…

HERBERT: For you?

MAYNARD: No…for Mrs. G…sloshing around in those suds and dirty water all day, the poor old thing…

HERBERT: All right—I’ve got it all now…except…what do you want?

MAYNARD: A fishing rod…

HERBERT: A-ha!  A fishing rod!

MAYNARD: For Mr. G…you know him, don’t you?  He’s that loudmouthed fellow who’s all the time screamin’ and hollarin’…

HERBERT (interrupting): I know him, I know him…

MAYNARD: …but underneath that mean inside there’s a good outside…and maybe if he had a fishing rod he’d take a couple days off from work…and he wouldn’t be so mean no more…

HERBERT (quietly): You know…maybe you got a point there, Maynard…but what do you want?

Maynard wants for nothing, explaining:  “I’m one of them lucky fellows—I got everything I want!  I got the biggest ball of tinfoil in town…I got a petrified frog…and I got a stuffed owl, all paid for and clear!  I also got the best friends in the whole wide world…or anyplace else…so you can skip me this year—but you’re true blue for asking.”

Mr. Gillis is so taken aback that he just can’t shatter Maynard’s illusions—but his family presses him to do it, reminding him it’s for Maynard’s own good.  It doesn’t matter anyway—Maynard knew it was Mr. G the entire time…and as he snuggles into bed, he runs over to the window to see a silhouette of the jolly old guy hisself and his reindeer:

So why was Mrs. Gillis acting like a female Scrooge at the beginning of the episode?  Well, it turns out her husband spent so much money on the renovations to the home and chimney and the presents that he decided to cut his losses by allowing the neighborhood women to use Winnie’s new washer and dryer…for a nominal fee, of course.

“Will the Real Santa Claus Please Come Down the Chimney?” airs on MeTV Sunday, November 29th at 5:30am…with an encore performance on Sunday, December 20th at 5am.  It’s all part of the network’s A Very Merry TV, which will feature such TDOY favorites as The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Our Miss Brooks, Petticoat Junction and many, many more!