And then along comes Mary

Thanks to everybody who left approving comments for my Radio Spirits piece of yesterday—namely, the review of the Shout! Factory release The Jack Benny Program: The Lost Episodes.  I’m sure no self-respecting Benny fan will want to be without this collection so if you haven’t put one in your shopping cart yet, do so at your earliest opportunity.

I mentioned in the review that one of my favorite shows on the set is a December 24, 1961 telecast that is sans big-name guest stars; just Jack and his regulars (Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson).  At one moment during the show, Benny ventures out into the audience and chats with a few of the people watching the performance; some of them are real people like you and me, to paraphrase Lily Tomlin’s Judith Beasley, but a few of them are those marvelous character thesps that the show used whenever they could.  One encounter involves Jack and actress Jesslyn Fax, who made multiple appearances on the show (usually as a member of Jack’s fan club).  On this show, she plays a little old lady who gives Jack a jar of preserves as a gift…then tries to hijack the proceedings with a pitch for “Mother Sara’s Jams” that has the familiarity of a Jell-O commercial (“Strawberry, raspberry, orange…”)

Jack talks to a few more audience members, and then he encounters his nemesis Frank Nelson—who, as you know, always played the one guy who hated Jack Benny.  Maybe it’s the spirit of the season but Frank saves his animosity for the end of the show—for now, he’s genuinely enjoying himself (“My palms are red from all the applauding!”).  He introduces the woman sitting next to him as his wife, and when Jack asks the woman if she really is his wife she screams: “Oooooooooh…am I!”  This is funny in itself, of course…but the in-joke is that the actress is our dear friend Mary Lansing (the long-suffering Martha Clark on Mayberry R.F.D.), who was married to Frank Nelson at the time.

Mary turns up in another one of the shows: a September 24, 1963 telecast with the Reverend Billy Graham as guest.  Jack and Dennis are discussing Dennis’ song when the show is interrupted by Frank and a few people who didn’t get seated before the show started.  (You can see Mary standing there beside her husband; she asks if he can work the logistics so that she’s sitting next to her fake husband in the skit.)

“…third phalanx, fifteenth cohort…”

Over at the Radio Spirits blog, I worked up a review for the recent Shout! Factory release of The Jack Benny Program: The Lost Episodes.  Its official street date is July 23rd…but as I mentioned in this previous blog post, if you pre-ordered the set from the company’s website, a portion of those proceeds would be donated to The International Jack Benny Fan Club…and because I felt rather strongly that doing so was an extremely worthwhile endeavor, I went ahead and ponied up the full asking price (despite my usual tendency to haggle in order to get the best deal I can).

But what I forgot to mention—and I swear I didn’t do this intentionally; it just slipped my mind (memory is always the first thing to go)—is that if you purchased the collection directly from Shout! Factory they would throw in a bonus disc: a November 29. 1953 telecast (recently unearthed in the Library of Congress) of the highbrow Omnibus series featuring Jack performing a version of The Horn Blows at Midnight.

Any Benny fan worth his or her salt knows the significance of Midnight but since I’ve paid the rent on the hall, I might as well use it—The Horn Blows at Midnight was a 1945 fantasy-comedy feature film starring Jack as a trumpet player who dreams he’s an angel named Athanael, sent to Earth to blow the Last Trumpet that will signal the destruction of the planet.  Directed by Raoul Walsh, the movie—which would be Benny’s last starring role—did poorly at the box office; as was often the case with fantasy films—for example, Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), though now acknowledged as a classic, wasn’t a box office smash either.

Benny and his writers decided that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade—they used the poor performance of the film as fodder for jokes on his radio program, leading audiences to believe that Midnight was the equivalent of a stink bomb some prankster set off in the theater seats.  (If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know that it’s actually an enjoyable little comedy—with some funny sequences and performances from the crème de la crème of many character greats.)  Because so many people heard Jack joke about how much he laid an egg with this film, they went back to the theater to see it out of curiosity…and that allowed Midnight to eventually break even.

Be that as it may, it was the gift that kept on giving as far as material for Benny’s radio/TV program went.  Here’s a good example: one of the shows on the Lost Episodes set is a March 9, 1960 telecast that features Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood as guests; Jack has ambitions of directing a production of Playhouse 90 with the two stars, and though “R.J.” is apprehensive, Natalie thinks Jack will do okay.  “After all, if I remember correctly,” Natalie reminds him, “didn’t Jack direct The Horn Blows at Midnight?”

As a janitor (played by Benny regular Benny Rubin) sweeping the floor comes into view, Wagner corrects his wife: “No, honey…he didn’t direct The Horn Blows at Midnight—he was in it.”

“Oh,” Natalie replies.  “Well, then who directed it?”

“I did,” snaps Rubin without missing a beat, as he continues to push his broom.  Later in the program, as Jack demonstrates how thoroughly inept he is when it comes to TV direction, Rubin the janitor attempts to make a helpful suggestion…but Benny waves him off, yelling “You had your chance!”

The Omnibus telecast of The Horn Blows at Midnight is a definite curio—a chance to see Benny perform one of his most famous “works” in a live television venue.  The plot of the TV version differs a bit from the movie, of course (it’s based on the same radio script used on The Ford Theatre broadcast of March 4, 1949): Benny’s character is a legitimate angel and his mission is to blow that trumpet so Earth will be destroyed…but after encounters with a few humans on the planet he makes a plea to his superior (Lester Matthews) to spare everyone, and the production ends on a note of hope and optimism.

The Omnibus episode is a kinescope, so the quality is a bit iffy to say the least.  But it’s always a treat to see Benny, and you’ll recognize a few familiar faces alongside him: Dorothy Malone is his angelic girlfriend and Jeff “Alice” Donnell is a young woman who Athanael the angel takes an interest in (she’s having romantic troubles with her boyfriend, a musician who inadvertently takes Athanael’s trumpet).  Others include Byron Foulger, Rolfe Sedan, TDOY fave Ann Doran, Lou “Shorty the Barber” Lubin, Benny Rubin…

…and that youngster there is Harry Shearer, from his child thespian days.

I enjoyed watching the episode but I’ll be honest with you—you’ll probably get a bigger kick out of the original 1945 feature film (what with its memorable slapstick climax and all—a little out of reach for a TV budget)…which as of this writing still hasn’t received any kind of legitimate DVD release (maybe the Warner Archive has bought into the myth surrounding the film).  Jack once observed: “When the horn blew at midnight, it blew taps for my movie career.”  You’re one of the world’s preeminent funnymen, Jack…but I’ve never believed that statement for a second.

“…’cause Dobie has to have a girl to call his own…”

Next Tuesday (July 2), Shout! Factory is officially releasing what I have often referred to here on the blog as my Holy Grail as far as DVD collections go.  It’s the complete series of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-63), a TV sitcom classic that I have also often talked about at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.  Ever since I was introduced to Dobie and Maynard and the rest of the Central City gang on CBN back in the 1980s, I have been a devoted fan of a show that, while I admit hasn’t aged as well as other sitcoms of the same vintage, still resonates with me as both pointed social satire and a loving paean to nonconformity.

Premiering on September 28, 1959 on a Tuesday night (so the Shout! Factory Tuesday release date is kinda like kismet), The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was created by Max Shulman, an author-playwright who had released a collection of short stories about the character under that same title in 1951.  The book had first been adapted as an M-G-M film in 1953 (starring Bobby Van as Dobie and Debbie Reynolds), The Affairs of Dobie Gillis; when Shulman brought the character to TV he decided to put Dobie in high school (he was a college student in the original book and film) to appeal more to teenaged viewers.  (Later, Shulman penned a novel featuring Dobie and the gang, 1959’s I Was a Teenage Dwarf.)

And for the most part—that’s what set Dobie Gillis apart from most of the family/domestic comedies still on the air at that time.  Shows like The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, etc. featured teenagers as characters…but they often seemed more like mere extensions of their parents than genuine teens.  Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman) was television’s first realistic teenager.  He chased girls; he wasn’t a bright student; he avoided work and schemed for money; he rebelled against his father (who most assuredly did not know best); he hung around weird kids (like our mothers were always telling us: “I don’t want you associating with so-and-so”).  And he talked to himself—well, technically the television audience, in one of the best examples of “breaking the fourth wall” in TV history.  He would sit in the city park underneath a statue of Rodin’s The Thinker, and contemplate where he was in life and what his future would hold—as well as commenting on whatever predicament he had gotten himself into of late.

He was the simple son of a grocer, Herbert T. Gillis (Frank Faylen)—whose store at 285 Norwood often provided a backdrop for Dobie’s escapades.  The social satire of the show was particularly pungent for sitcoms of that era: it was stressed that Dobie, because of his low intellect and even lower status, had precious little prospects in life; all Dobie knew was that he did not want to end up a grocer like his father.  Herbert loved his son, but in the early years of the show (primarily the first season), there was a prickliness to their relationship: Dobie was always exploiting his Dad to cadge money despite the senior Gillis being a tightfisted cheapskate.  After skirmishes with his son, Herbert would stare at the camera and say: “I gotta kill that boy…I just gotta.”  CBS wasn’t particularly wild about this aspect of the series and in the second season (with the episode “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Houn’ Dog”), the Herbert Gillis character was toned down and made more sympathetic.  It didn’t necessarily ruin the series, but it kind of muted its edginess a bit.

Dobie’s mother, Winifred (Florida Friebus), doted on her boy (often slipping him money behind his father’s back for dates) and occasionally could be a little smothery.  But she was also his fiercest champion; the only one capable of calming her husband down after Dobie had done something to drive him to distraction.  Amusingly, both Herbert and Winnie, despite their imperfections, were one of TV’s most loving couples—you often got the idea that the two of them snuck into the back storeroom for a little what-have-you from time to time, as much as they hugged and cuddled and danced and sang.  Dobie also had a brother Davey (played by Dwayne Hickman’s real-life bro Darryl) who turned up in a few episodes during the first season (he was away at college) but he soon vanished, never to be heard from again.  (In the fourth and last season, Bobby Diamond turned up in several episodes as Dobie’s cousin Duncan “Dunky” Gillis—a younger version of Dob who was added when his older cousin’s girl-chasing escapades had become a little stale.)

Dobie’s best friend was TV’s first beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver).  (Incidentally, the “G” stands for “Walter.”)  A nonconformist regularly clad in a dirty, torn sweatshirt and sporting a goatee, Maynard loved jazz, playing the bongos and collecting esoterica like petrified frogs and tinfoil.  In the early episodes of the series, there was a teensy hint of menace about the character (he’s picked up and briefly jailed for vagrancy in the premiere episode, “Caper at the Bijou”) but as the series went on, he morphed into a naïve manchild merely at odds with the world, with no one to lean on but his “good buddy” Dobie.  He hated work almost as much as his best friend did (often reacting to the mere mention of the word with a screechy “WORK?!!”) and would frequently make his entrance after a character commented (as an example) that something was “vile, disgusting and low.” (Maynard: “You rang?”)  This gimmick was later “borrowed” for whenever Lenny & Squiggy would burst into the apartment of TV’s Laverne & Shirley.

As for “the many loves of Dobie Gillis”—two female characters that would appear on multiple occasions made their debut during the first season: “Love is a Science” introduced Dobie’s nemesis Zelda Gilroy (Sheila James Kuehl), whose devotion and love for the Dobster wasn’t quite reciprocated by the man for which she had set her cap.  Zelda, the smartest girl in the school, explained to Dobie that there was “propinquity” between the two of them: it was no use for him to fight it…they would eventually end up together.  (And they did…but I’m kind of getting ahead of the story.)  Zelda’s pet name for Dobie was “Poopsie,” and she would often wrinkle her nose at him like a rabbit while he helplessly wrinkled back.  (“Now cut that out!” he would yell in a dead-on impersonation of Jack Benny.)  Although Zelda was not the most attractive of girls, she was sensible, down-to-earth and knew what was best for Dobie; in one episode (“Dobie, Dobie, Who’s Got the Dobie?”) a girl also decides that Dobie is worth chasing after simply because Zelda wants him…and Zelda wants only the best.

The other frequent female character was the woman that Dobie would give his life, his love, his all—the money-hungry blonde temptress Thalia Menninger (Tuesday Weld).  Thalia’s obsession with money—for that was the only way she could see herself spending the rest of her life with a pauper like Gillis—fueled many of the program’s plots in the first season…though it would do Thalia a disservice to call her greedy, because the money wasn’t for her, you understand.  Her father was sixty years old and had a kidney condition and her mother wasn’t getting any younger; her sister had married a loafer (who daily ate his weight in groceries) and her brother was on his way to becoming a public charge.  Thalia owed it to her family to be their salvation, and when Dobie would protest that because he loved her money shouldn’t matter she would dismiss him with “Love won’t butter parsnips.”  The Thalia character disappeared after the first season (Weld and Hickman apparently had difficulty getting along) but returned for guest appearances in Season 3’s “Birth of a Salesman” and Season 4’s “What’s a Little Murder Between Friends?”

Dobie’s rival for the attentions of Thalia, BMOC Milton Armitage, appeared in five episodes during the first season—it was one of the first notable acting gigs for Warren Beatty before his breakthrough film role in Splendor in the Grass (1961).  It also wasn’t Beatty’s finest hour—he pretty much slept-walked through the role (he later dismissed the part as “absurd”) though one or two people have suggested to me that he was distracted by Weld, whom he had hoped to make one of his romantic conquests.  (The fact that Beatty only comes to life—doing a hilarious Marlon Brando impression—in “Dobie Gillis, Boy Actor,” the only installment in which he appeared that does not feature Weld’s Menninger would seem to support this.)  They replaced Milton Armitage with another privileged rich boy, Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. (Steve Franken), who proved to be a funnier antagonist for Dobie with his exaggerated Darien accent and frequent references to his “Moms” (“Moms will ship me off to military school faster than you can say ‘federal reserve note’”).  “Moms” was played by Doris Packer, who had also played Milton’s patrician matriarch—the first name, Clarice, remained the same.

Thanks to Shout! Factory rep Tom Chen, I was the beneficiary of a review copy of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis: The Complete Series.  It is a handsome box set, containing all 147 episodes from the program’s four-year-run…and a bonus disc in the Season 4 case has some interesting curios including the CBS pilot for the series (which is the same as the inaugural episode, “Caper at the Bijou,” except with extended footage at the end featuring messages from the cast urging on sponsors), three episodes of The Bob Cummings Show (a.k.a. Love That Bob) which Dwayne Hickman co-starred on from 1955-59 and an episode of The Stu Erwin Show (a.k.a. The Trouble with Father), which was one of James Kuehl’s early gigs.  There are clips from a 1960 telecast of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show featuring Hickman (a Dobie Gillis skit in color!) and from The Coke Time Special (also from 1960), hosted by Pat Boone and featuring Bob Denver and Edd Byrnes in their Maynard and Kookie (from 77 Sunset Strip) personas.  An interview with Dwayne Hickman (in which he does admit that he did channel Jack Benny often playing Dobie) and some PDF files from Max Shulman’s “vault” round out the goodies (the pilot for the potential Zelda spin-off is included in these).

Some of the episodes are a little rough.  20th Century Fox didn’t seem to be too dedicated to cleaning up some of the shows (I’ve noticed the same issues in watching reruns of Dobie on Me-TV) but I’ve noticed this mostly occurs in the first season (and Shout! issues a disclaimer on one of the episodes, “Rock-a-Bye Dobie,” that the elements aren’t completely up to snuff).  Diehard fans are going to overlook this; I know I am because I’m just giddy that the show has finally made it to DVD, and in spending a few days watching selected episodes I’ve discovered why I fell in love with the show in the first place.

I mentioned at the beginning of this review that Dobie Gillis was a unique sitcom because it looked at life through the eyes of a teenager—that and the snap, crackle, pop of the series makes it so refreshing to watch today.  And by “snap, crackle, pop” I mean the innovative editing of the series, the punchy, funny dialogue, the fresh characterizations.  You always expected the unexpected on Dobie Gillis; people popped up out of nowhere and the characters’ dialogue exchanges had a rhythm that was almost like jazz.  There was also a sentimentality about the show, which would always be cut with a lemon-like tartness to keep it from being too gloppy (Maynard’s frequent admission of “I’m gettin’ all misty, Dob”).

One of my favorite episodes is a first season installment entitled “Room at the Bottom”: Thalia, discouraged that Dobie is not going to amount to much in life, is nevertheless convinced that because her paramour is so likable he might be able to muddle through by making the right contacts…especially if his father allows him to attend an exclusive preparatory academy, Willoughby Hall.

Dobie is secure in the knowledge that his father will never agree to an extravagance…but he hasn’t counted on the persuasive powers of Ms. Menninger.  Herbert has a vision of his son becoming the BFF of the wealthy Winthrop van Money (Steve Franken, before he started playing Chatsworth) and the senior Money bestowing a chain of grocery stores upon Herbert T. in grateful acknowledgement of Dobie being a pal to young Winthrop.

So Dobie is going to be packed off to Willoughby…but there’s a chance for a stay of execution.  If he can get a perfect grade on his mathematics test (scoring 100), it will prove to Thalia that he’s is not a complete clod and that Dobie might be able to get ahead in life without having to schmooze.  But Mrs. Menninger did not raise any foolish girls; Thalia knows Dobie can’t pass that test.

Dobie and Maynard go over to the home of their math teacher, Mrs. Ruth Adams (Jean Byron), to ask for a little tutoring help.  Mr. Adams (John Bryant) takes advantage of the situation by asking the boys if they’ll baby-sit their son (Ronny Howard) while he and Mrs. A go out to the movies (to see The Monster That Devoured Cleveland, one of the show’s running gags in that it always seemed to be the only movie playing at Central City’s theater).  Disgruntled that they’ve been shanghaied into sitting, the two of them find a copy of the test they’re supposed to take the next day…and though they know it’s wrong, they agree to copy down the answers so Dobie can get a perfect grade and not have to go to Willoughby.

The next day, Ruth confesses to her husband that she suspects Dobie and Maynard cheated on the exam after she hands out the papers to the class and Thalia is delighted with Dobie’s perfect score.  She acknowledges it’s possible Dobie could have done that well but Maynard…anyway, Ruth is disillusioned and vows to her husband that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to trust Dobie and Maynard again.

And then Dobie and Maynard return to the classroom…to confess their vile deed.  Mrs. Adams is overjoyed (“You’ve made me very happy”), and while she will have to flunk both of them (Maynard: “This makes you happy?” ) her faith in her students has been restored.  She tells Thalia as she and her husband leave: “You have a fine, sweet, sensitive, wonderful boy.”

Thalia responds: “Yes, I have a fine, sweet, wonderful, sensitive boy…who’s never going to make a dime!”

“Room at the Bottom” was later recycled into a third season episode, “Dobie Gillis: Wanted Dead or Alive,” with Leander Pomfritt (William Schallert) the instructor and his poetry exam the test Dobie and Maynard cheat on.  Pomfritt was another great character on the show; a cynical-around-the-edges teacher (he often greeted his class with “Hello, my young unemployables…”) whose dedication to his profession often trampled on his pessimism.  (He’s the subject of another favorite Dobie episode of mine, the second season closer “Goodbye, Mr. Pomfritt – Hello Mr. Chips.”)  Pomfritt taught at Central High School in the first two seasons of the show, then became the gang’s instructor at S. Peter Pryor Junior College when the series shifted gears in Season 3 (Dobie and Maynard also served a temporary hitch in the peacetime Army in the latter part of Season 2).  Jean Byron returned to the show in the guise of a different professor, Imogene Burkhart (the in-joke was that this was Byron’s real name)—and it always amused me that after Dobie Gillis ended its run Schallert and Byron played husband and wife on The Patty Duke Show.

By its fourth and last season, Dobie Gillis had sort of lost its mojo; interestingly, Hickman’s Dobie started to recede into the background as more of a straight man while Denver’s Krebs took center stage in many of the episodes (some with a surrealistic, fantastical bent like “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Gillis” and “Requiem for an Underweight Heavyweight”).  I remember reading one time a critique of Gilligan’s Island in which the author tried to argue that while Denver made a great second banana on Gillis he simply wasn’t capable of carrying the star load on Gilligan (I get the feeling he didn’t watch Dobie much…and as Peter Nellhaus suggested to me on Facebook, there’s a reason why Shout! features Denver prominently on the cover).  There was an attempt to rekindle interest in the series in 1977 with a half-hour pilot entitled Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis?—I never saw it; our CBS affiliate in Charleston, WV refused to air it for some reason or another—and in 1988, a reunion TV-movie aired entitled Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis that brought back most of the still-living cast with the exception of Beatty and Weld (Connie Stevens played Thalia, and I thought she did rather well).

If you’re a fan of the show, you are going to move Heaven and Earth to get a copy of this box set; despite imperfections in some of the episodes (hey…you work with the tools you get) Shout! Factory has done a bang-up job on bringing one of the essential cult TV sitcoms to DVD.  (Did you know Frank Zappa was a big fan of this show?  Honest to my grandma!)  I’m just grateful that it’s here at long last, and I hope the clips I included in the essay (heck, even the essay itself) have stoked your interest to make The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis: The Complete Series your very own.  (“Dobieeeee…”)

Doris Day(s) #3: “The Friend” (10/08/68, prod. no #8505)

It’s the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear feature that is making news all over social media—and generating the type of buzz that sounds amazingly like: “That guy must have eaten a lot of school paste as a kid.”  Yes, it’s Doris Day(s)…and this week’s episode just goes to demonstrate that despite its stupefyingly bland trappings, The Doris Day Show was fearless when tackling controversial issues of its day.

Our episode unfolds in the barn at Rancho Webb, where we find Toby (Tod Starke)—the youngest and painfully slow son of The Widow Martin—peering into bales of hay as his older brother Billy (Philip Brown), family dog Nelson (Lord Nelson) and farmhand Leroy B. Semple Simpson (James Hampton) look on:

TOBY: I can’t see anything…

BILLY: What are we gonna do, Leroy?

TOBY: Yeah!  What are we gonna do, Leroy?

LEROY: Gonna have to move that hay…that’s all there is to it…

BILLY: All of it?

TOBY: Boy…

Wow!  Major family crisis!  Buck Webb (Denver Pyle), the boys’ grandfather and Mr. Simpson’s employer, enters the barn and his lackey greets him with “Oh…hi there, Mr. Webb!  What are you doin’ here?”

“I own the place,” is his curmudgeonly response.

BUCK: Whatcha doin’ up there, Tobe?

TOBY: Just lookin’…

BILLY: Leroy lost somethin’…

LEROY: Figured it might be in the haystack...

BUCK: Oh…whadja lose?

LEROY: Tractor…

Ha!  That’s something Goober Pyle would have…on second thought—even Goober was never dumb enough to misplace a tractor.

BUCK: Now let me get this straight…you lost the tractor…and you think it might be in that haystack?

LEROY: Well…that’s where the tractor was this mornin’ before them fool Carson brothers delivered the hay…

BUCK: And…uh…you told them to stack it on top of the tractor?

LEROY: Oh…no sir, Mr. Webb… (Pointing to his right) I told ‘em to stack it over there on the north wall…

BUCK: Leroy…that’s the south wall…

Oh, Leroy.  You’re incorrigible.  Well, as if it were scripted, The Widow Martin (that’s Dodo) comes riding in on the very tractor Leroy thought he misplaced.  “Hi, gang!” she greets all assembled as she turns the tractor off.

DORIS: Hey, Tobe…what are you doing up there?

TOBY: Just looking for the tractor…

DORIS (to Buck): Looking for the tractor?

BUCK: Doris…don’t get into it…

DORIS: Oh… (After a pause) What’s the hay doing over there—it belongs over here…

BUCK: Doris…

DORIS: I shouldn’t get into it…

Doris asks Buck if it’s okay to ask why Mr. Digby’s Edsel is in the driveway…and her father tells her that Digby’s waiting in the house with a Mrs. Henley.  Doris remembers that she has a meeting with the two of them in reference to one of the school committees she signed up for, and so she heads up to the house to meet with two of this week’s special guests, who are being served coffee and refreshments by Doris’ soon-to-be-unemployed housekeeper, Aggie Thompson (Fran Ryan).

We met Maxwell Digby (Woodrow Parfrey) in last week’s episode, “The Uniform,” so let’s concentrate on our female guest, shall we?  She’s character great (Margaret) Peggy Rea—who’s perhaps best known as Rose Burton, the cousin of Olivia Walton on the TV drama The Waltons; Rea’s Rose appeared in the last two seasons of the series to compensate for the departure of some of the adult actors.  Rea also had regular roles on The Dukes of Hazzard (as “Boss” Hogg’s wife Lulu), Step by Step (Ivy Baker) and Grace under Fire, where she played the titular character’s horribly racist mother-in-law.  If you keep an eye peeled while watching reruns of Have Gun – Will Travel, you’ll see Peggy in occasional small parts but you’ll also become familiar with her name because she worked as a casting director on that show.  Peggy plays “Grace Henley” in both this episode and “The Clock”…then later turns up in a third first season episode (as a different character) in addition to an episode in the show’s last season.

Doris comes into the kitchen, and like the courtly gentleman he is, Digby rises from his seat and reaches out to her in a greeting…but she waves him off, owing to the fact that she’s been working and is all sweaty (“I’m just a mess!”).  She asks Aggie to throw her a towel, and then the conclave commences.

GRACE: Doris…just wait until you hear the news…well, Mr. Digby—you tell her…I’m just too excited!

DORIS: Really?  What?

DIGBY: Well, Mrs. Martin…at yesterday’s committee meeting at school…I was appointed faculty advisor for the milk fund drive…

(Long pause)

DORIS: Oh!  Isn’t that…isn’t that interesting, Mr. Digby!

GRACE: Oh, well that’s not the news…

(Aggie serves Doris a cup of coffee)

DORIS: Oh…it isn’t?

GRACE: No…no…Mr. Digby?

DIGBY: Well, I recognized something had to be done when I discovered your committee couldn’t possibly fulfill its pledge of 200 pints of milk a day for the children…

DORIS: Well, the profits from the bingo tournament were supposed to cover it…

GRACE: Well, Margie Benson marked the cards all wrong and everybody won!  There weren’t any profits!

Incidentally, the character that Rea plays in the later first season episode is Dorothy Benson…and if Cotina is anything like Mayberry there’s probably…well, forget I mentioned it..

DORIS: Then how do the kids get their milk?

DIGBY: Mrs. Martin…last summer I developed a new feeding formula for Henry Pritchart…

GRACE: The owner of the Sunnyvale Dairies…?

AGGIE: He’s still on formula?

Yes, I did laugh out loud at this.  (Last week, Digby was a music teacher…now he’s some wizard/genius solving Cotina’s hunger problems.  Science!)  Grace reveals that the two of them went to see Mr. Pritchart, “and to make a long story short…” well, it’s a little late for that.  Be that as it may, Pritchart has graciously agreed to supply 200 pints of milk a day for the school kids.

DORIS: Oh, Grace…that’s marvelous!  Oh…isn’t that generous of him!

DIGBY: Oh, yes…yes…yes…he is very generous…

Sheah…he’s probably writing it off on his tax return.

DIGBY: …and he is perfectly willing to donate the milk…

GRACE: But on one condition…

“That’s why Mr. Digby has the French maid costume and the riding crop out in the Edsel…and we have to hurry, because the rental place closes at five…”

GRACE: …in return for his generosity…we have agreed…to let him photograph a typical American farm mother and her children…

“Thus the maid’s uniform and riding crop…”

GRACE: …for his new advertising campaign!

DORIS: Who?

GRACE: You!

DORIS: Me?!!  What?!!

GRACE: Then you’ll do it…?

DORIS: Uh…to get milk for the kids, I’ll do anything—of course!

Yay Doris and milk!  After a round of applause from Grace and Digby, the scene shifts to the offices of Henry R. Pritchart, milk mogul…in this instance played by another character veteran, the legendary R.G. Armstrong.  As you may be aware, Armstrong passed away in July of 2012 at the age of 95…and left behind a resume of TV and film appearances that threaten the very bandwidth of the Internets.  In addition to regular roles on such series as T.H.E. Cat, Friday the 13th and Millennium he guested on all the greats: Perry Mason, The Rifleman, Maverick, Rawhide, Gunsmoke, The Fugitive and on and on and on.  A majority of his high-profile film roles involved westerns: No Name on the Bullet, Ride the High Country, El Dorado, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, etc.

PRITCHART (seated at his desk, looking at photos): Perfect…absolutely perfect!  What do you think, Mitchell?

MITCHELL: Very nice…

PRITCHART: Very nice?

MITCHELL: Perfect!

Pritchart’s “yes man” is identified in the credits as Brig Mitchell, and he’s played by an actor named George Morgan.  Before the Day gig (sorry about the pun), Morgan appeared in Chafed Elbows, a 1966 movie directed by indie film provocateur Robert Downey, Sr…and in fact, George would have small roles in Downey’s best known vehicles, Putney Swope and Greaser’s Palace.  Morg did some other guest roles—The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Bonanza, etc.—but his big break was playing Father Mulcahy in the 1972 TV pilot for M*A*S*H.  Unfortunately for George, two episodes later they recast the part with the now better known William Christopher.

PRITCHART: Exactly…now that’s what I’m talking about!  Real kids…not those model types I keep seein’ on TV…

MITCHELL: You’re absolutely right…congratulations, sir!

PRITCHART: For what?  They’re her kids!

MITCHELL: Of course…congratulations, Mrs. Martin…

DORIS (as she’s handed the photos): Thank you…they were taken at Billy’s birthday…that’s why that little one has a…candle in his ear… (She laughs)

MITCHELL (as Pritchart joins in laughing): Well, at least it wasn’t lit!

We may have a record here.  This is the second time I laughed out loud…though admittedly it was at the thought of Doris’ dumb kid with a candle in his ear, sitting at a table surrounded by kids .

PRITCHART: Mitchell’s our advertising man…I brought him here from Phoenix to spread the word about the dairy and create a…create a…what was that?

MITCHELL: An image, sir…

Pritchart explains that while Mitchell may know images, he knows families…and that’s why he wants Dor to be the spokesperson for Sunnyvale Milk.  But Mitchell has a thought—which pleases his boss, because that’s what he’s paying him for…

MITCHELL: Mrs. Martin…you don’t happen to have any little girls at home…do you?

DORIS: Oh, no…no…I wish I did…uh…of course, I have enough to do to keep up with the little fellow with the candle in his ear…

MITCHELL: That’s too bad…

“Do you think Candle Boy would agree to wear a blonde wig and a dress?”

PRITCHART: Uh…what do you mean, “too bad”?

MITCHELL: Oh, I don’t mean bad too bad, sir…I mean that…according to the latest survey…America’s ideal family is 3.8 children…two boys, and…well…almost two girls…

Doris is worried that this will disqualify her from hawking Pritchart’s milk, but the boss man will have none of that—he wants Doris and her family, and Mitchell goes from zero to suck-up in five-point-two seconds.  The simple solution?  They’ll find two girls to be the Martin boys’ sisters, even though Doris is a little apprehensive about this because everyone who knows her knows that she has only the two kids…and you know how small-town folk like to talk.

MITCHELL: Well, we’re not asking you to represent yourself really, Mrs. Martin…the picture will simply represent…an image…

PRITCHART: Uh…where are you going to get the little girls?

MITCHELL: From an agency…

PRITCHART (slamming a hand down on his desk): No models!

MITCHELL: Now, Mrs. Martin…the one thing we don’t want is models…

Doris suggests that her two sons pick a couple of classmates to play the parts of their “sisters,” and so with everyone in agreement Mitchell breaks up the meeting because he has a few more asses in the executive offices to kiss.  The burly Pritchart vigorously shakes Doris’ hand to show his gratitude for her thinking outside the box…and she makes a comical face once she turns away to indicate that there may be a few metacarpals broken.

I’m going to skip over a lot of this next segment because it’s mostly a lot of alleged visual comedy: Mitchell has hired a photographer to take the snap of Doris and her extended family, and for some odd reason Buck keeps wandering into the picture, only to be shooed away by Mitchell.  I do want to take a quick moment to show you the man behind the camera…

…he answers to “Harvey,” but he’s played by actor Raymond Kark—whom you might remember as a government underling in a Mayberry Mondays installment, “The Mayberry Road.”  He had guest roles in such series as Green Acres, Here’s Lucy and Here Come the Brides—but here at Rancho Yesteryear, we remember him best as “Homer Watson,” the representative of the law in teensy Eagle Rock, Iowa in the 1971 comedy Cold Turkey.  The reason why I’m mentioning this is because two of our other guest stars in this episode, Woody Parfrey and Peggy Rea, were also in that film—he plays one of the tobacco executives pissed off at advertising weasel Merwin Wren (the incomparable Bob Newhart), while Rea was the wife of nicotine junkie Dr. Proctor, played by the equally incomparable Barnard Hughes.

So most of this is just Buck sneaking back into the viewfinder of Harvey’s camera and Mitchell removing him…finally, maid Aggie descends the backstairs that lead from the kitchen to the bedrooms and looks at Buck:

AGGIE: What are you all dressed up for?

BUCK: What do you mean, all dressed up?

AGGIE: Well, you’re wearing a tie…

BUCK (after a pause): I’m chilly…

AGGIE: Stand by the fireplace…you’ll get warm and be in the picture…

Doris has also come downstairs by this time, wearing a dazzling outfit purchased at That Girl Creations.  Once again—because it was so funny the first gazillion times—Mitchell repositions Buck away from the camera while showing Doris where to stand, then he goes back over to the camera to look through the viewfinder and check the photo’s composition.

HARVEY: Could I see it with the milk? (Pause) Uh…Doris?

DORIS: Oh!  I thought you were talking to Mister…wait…there is no milk…where is it?

MITCHELL (almost to himself): I forgot the milk…I forgot the milk!

DORIS: Mr. Mitchell…we have some…that’s all right…

Doris walks over to the one thing I really admire about her TV kitchen: that refrigerator the size of Rhode Island.  She pulls out a pitcher of fresh milk…because unlike on a certain farm in Mayberry, they actually milk cows at her place.

MITCHELL (looking at it suspiciously): Is it ours?

DORIS: No…it’s homegrown…

MITCHELL: That’ll never do…

DORIS: Aggie—can I have a glass? 

AGGIE: Mm-hmm…there…

DORIS: Thanks…

(Aggie brings a glass over to Doris, who pours a generous amount of milk into it.  Mitchell looks at it again.)

MITCHELL: Well…it looks like ours—doesn’t it?

DORIS: Exactly…

Billy arrives via the back door, and he’s brought a playmate!  The character goes by “Jackie Clements” in the credits, though she’s only identified by her first name.  (The reason for this is that the character makes a return appearance to the series in the later “The Black Eye.”)  But you shouldn’t have any trouble recognizing her as actress Lisa Gerritsen, who played Bess Lindstrom—the daughter of Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman)—on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off, Phyllis.

Now…there have been more than a few of you who have taken perverse delight at my revulsion with child actors (don’t think I didn’t see those Twitter rumors saying I live in a house made of gingerbread) but Gerritsen was an exception to the rule—I never found her insufferably cloying, like many of her kiddie thespian ilk.  A lot of this has to do with the fact that Lisa also starred on the short-lived Emmy Award-winning sitcom My World and Welcome to It, which has now become my new Holy Grail as far as a DVD release is concerned.  She was sensational on that as daughter Lydia.  Gerritsen is also the granddaughter of legendary screenwriter True Boardman (Jr.) who, in addition to penning such Abbott & Costello films as Ride ‘Em Cowboy and Pardon My Sarong, was a radio announcer (The Silver Theatre, Favorite Story) and writer (Family Theatre).

Jackie is warmly welcomed by Doris, and Mitchell (after running Buck off for the umpteenth time) starts to arrange the members of the photo in the fashion he desires.  And look!  Here comes Toby, who announces “I brought my sister!”  Doris greets this girl as well…yet oddly enough, the camera stays on Doris, Billy and Jackie as the other “sister” talks to Doris on the soundtrack.  Here’s the shorthand version of why this is so—though if anyone’s ever seen the classic Dick Van Dyke Show episode “That’s My Boy??” you’ll have seen this punchline coming a mile away.

MITCHELL: And now the other little boy…

MITCHELL: Perfect…and now his little pretend sister…

MITCHELL: Perfect…perf…

Cue the sad trombone!

Back from the Ralston-Purina break, the sticky wicket of Toby’s little school pal being blah isn’t addressed immediately—they have to ease into this, you know.  They do this by featuring more alleged comedy with the doltish farmhand known as Leroy, who’s playing “hide-and-seek” with the kids as opposed to getting his chores done.  With the mood lightened, we then get to the serious issue at hand.

MITCHELL: Mrs. Martin—what are we going to do?

DORIS: About what?

MITCHELL: About what?  About your son’s choice…what in the world did you tell him?

DORIS: Oh…well…I told him to bring home a little girl that he would like to have for a sister…that’s exactly what he did…

“I guess he just took ‘sister’ a little too literally.”

MITCHELL: Mrs. Martin, be reasonable…we can’t use her in the picture!

DORIS: Why not?

MITCHELL: Why not?  Because…because we just can’t!

DORIS: Well, then I…I don’t know…what do you suggest?  I mean…she’s his choice…

MITCHELL: Well, we just have to replace her…

DORIS (after a pause): You’ll do what?

MITCHELL: We’ll just have to replace her…

DORIS: Do you mean to tell me…that you are going to tell that little girl…that she can’t be in the picture with her friends?

MITCHELL: No…no, I was planning on you doing that…

“Oh, don’t look so surprised—I’m in advertising…of course I’m going to behave like a douchebag!”  Doris begins yelling at Mitchell, standing firm that she won’t tell the little girl—identified as “Patty,” and played by Cheri Grant—that she can’t be in the milk ad with her lily white friends.  Mitchell says simply that he’s just thinking about his job.  It just makes Doris so darn mad.

Well, we go back to the barn to ease the palpable dramatic tension.  Buck enters carrying a tray with cookies and some milk that is definitely not that of the Sunnyvale variety.

LEROY: For me?  You didn’t have to do that…

BUCK: This is for the kids, you nincompoop…

“Nincompoop,” as Doris Day(s) fans (both of you) will learn, is Buck’s term of endearment for his farmhand…because at that particular time CBS wouldn’t let him say “sh*thead.”

BUCK: Finished cuttin’ them fence posts?

LEROY: Uh…no, sir…I’ve just been workin’ around here…

Lord Nelson commences to barking as Jackie and Patti come running into the barn yelling “Free!”—an indication that Leroy’s dedication to getting his work done has taken a back seat to his joining the children in their youthful romps and games.

BUCK: Just…uh…been workin’ around here, huh?

LEROY: Well…yes, sir…Mr. Webb…I moved all that hay over on the south wall where you said it was supposed to go…

BILLY (running up to the two of them): You’re “it,” Leroy…Grandpa—they already take your picture yet?

BUCK: No…your mama’s still talkin’ to that Mr. Mitchell fellow…

BILLY: Okay…when they want us, we’ll be here…come on, Leroy—you’re “it” again…

BUCK (to Leroy): What do you…uh…plan on doing after you finish playing hide-and-seek with the little kiddies?

LEROY: Oh…I’m gonna cut them fence posts…

BUCK: What with?

“That rapier-sharp wit of yours, you old fossil…”

LEROY: Chainsaw…

BUCK: And where is it?

LEROY: I don’t know, Mr. Webb…but you used it last…where’d you leave it?

BUCK: Where we always keep it…right over there on the south wall…

Oh, Leroy…will you ever win?  Buck cracks a lame hide-and-seek joke, and then a dissolve finds he and Doris seated in the breakfast nook as Dor watches the kids at play and Buck drinks from that gi-normous coffee mug of his.  Little known trivia fact that I just made up: Buck was one of the masterminds behind 7-Eleven’s “Big Gulp”—because when your coffee intake results in your being up 22 hours each day, you tend to think about things like this.

Doris’ finely-honed sense of fighting injustice has been stoked by the fire that her life threatens to become a Cheerios ad campaign.  Buck puts the issue to her plainly: “The way I see it, you got two choices—either disappoint those four kids out there or milk for 200 of their friends.”

DORIS: What would you do?

BUCK: Resign the committee…

BILLY (appearing at the back door): Hey, Mom—Patty and Jackie have to go pretty soon…where’d everybody go?

DORIS: Uh…uh…they had to leave for a little while, honey…there was just a…a problem…

BILLY: Oh…you mean because of Patty?

(Buck and Doris look at one another)

DORIS: What about Patty, honey?

BILLY: Oh…I guess maybe I should have told you, huh…?

BUCK: Told us what?

BILLY: Patty hates milk…

Kids.  You know I love ‘em!

BUCK: Then why’d Tobe ask her to be in the picture with him?

BILLY: ‘Cause he likes her!

“I believe his words were: ‘You’re sweeter than the honey that the bees make…soul sister…you’re brown sugar.’”  Okay, I’m just funning—Billy’s explanation has something to do with the fact that Toby and Patty are the dodgeball champions in their class, and the ball they use belongs to Patty.  I don’t buy this, by the way—only because that little mook Toby doesn’t look as if he’s aggressive enough to play dodgeball…if memory (and bruises) from high school haven’t failed me.

DORIS (slamming her hand down on the table): That settles it…there’s either going to be a picture with Patty in it or there’s no picture at all…

BUCK: No picture means no milk…

Maybe this isn’t the time to bring this up…but couldn’t you people supply “homegrown” milk to those kids?  Just a thought…

DORIS: Exactly!  So there has to be a picture and she has to be in it!

BUCK: You’re forgettin’ just one thing…

DORIS: What?

BUCK: They said they wouldn’t take it…

DORIS: Well, they will take it—I’m telling you, every time I think about that Pritchart it just makes my blood boil…

BUCK: I know Emery Pritchart…and it wasn’t Emery who said he wouldn’t take the picture—it was that…that…that know-it-all fellow, that Mitchell…

Here is what is so interesting about Buck’s line—he identifies R.G. Armstrong’s character as “Emery Pritchart”…and yet the closing credits clearly identify him as “Henry R. Pritchart.”  (Also, Parfrey’s Digby identifies him as “Henry” as well.)  So there appears to be a major continuity boo-boo here.  This is not just nitpicking; Buck later vouches for “Emery” by commenting that he “knows him” (I’m assuming this is not in the biblical sense)…and since the dialogue also establishes that the two of them (Doris and Buck) are talking about the same person—it’s interesting to note this in light of what transpires in the upcoming paragraphs.  It’s a little disturbing because Emery/Henry turns out to be a bit of a racist dink.  (Maybe Buck knows him from the Klan meetings.)

(Also, too; Doris has a line—“Yeah, well, he works for him and I know that type…just because he owns a big factory he thinks that he can go around bullying everybody and just getting away with everything.”  Doris Day is a lifelong Republican and she’s upset by people like this?  Welcome to the one percent, sweet cheeks.)

Buck suggests to Doris that she sit down with “Emery” and have a chinwag with him about the Patty controversy.  A transitional scene finds Pritchart and Mitchell listening on Pritchart’s intercom as Doris tells the secretary that she’s going in there and no underpaid office drone is going to stop her.

DORIS: Mr. Pritchart…I want to talk to you…

PRITCHART: And I want to talk to you!

DORIS: We’ve got a problem…

PRITCHART: No…you’ve got a problem…we made a deal…I would deliver 200 pints of milk a day to your school and you would let us take a picture of your family…

DORIS: And I’m ready to do just that, sir…

PRITCHART: Your family, Mrs. Martin…now does that little girl…what’s her name?

DORIS: Patty…

PRITCHART: Does she look like a part of your family?

“Mrs. Martin, that child is a (bell clang)…”

DORIS: Oh, you are missing the whole point…

PRITCHART: I don’t think so!  My truck has already delivered 200 pints of milk to your school…now we expect you to keep your part of the bargain…

DORIS: Even if it means breaking a little girl’s heart?

PRITCHART: Oh, come now, Mrs. Martin!

DORIS: Don’t ‘come now’ me, Mr. Pritchart!  I’m thinking about that little girl!  And what about my own children?  How do I explain this to them—would you tell me that, please?

PRITCHART: Explain it biologically…

“I’ll lend you my copy of Murray and Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve…”

DORIS: We’re talking about children!  All they’re going to understand is that Patty is different…

PRITCHART: Well, she is different!

DORIS: Not to my son, she isn’t…as far as they’re concerned, the only thing different about Patty is that she’s a dodgeball champ!  And that’s the way I intend to keep it!

PRITCHART (getting up from his desk): We’ve spent a lot of time and money on this campaign…what do you expect us to do?  Change it?

“Boss…I’m just motherhenning this but...what’s your reaction to this slogan: ‘Sunnyvale Milk—Why Do You Think It’s White?’”  Doris tells Pritchart that, yes—he should change the campaign.

DORIS: Mr. Pritchart…what’s the first thing you think of when you think of the word ‘milk’?

PRITCHART: Cows!

Ohhhh...I'm sorry.  The answer we were looking for was "breasts."

DORIS: No…children!  Because all children drink milk…

Theoretically, maybe.  My sister Kat—couldn’t stand the stuff.  Our family went to a Howard Johnson’s one time when we were on vacation, and to get rid of her milk (ordered at breakfast by my Doris Day-like mom, natch) she downed it in one breath.  Seeing that her glass was empty, the waitress took her glass…and brought her back a fresh serving.  (Forty years later and we’re still laughing like hell about that.)

DORIS: …children of every size, shape and color…now the picture that you’re asking for shows one family drinking Sunnyvale Milk…is that the image that you really want?  I mean, what about all the other families in town?  What kind of milk are they drinking?  So I say—why not make Sunnyvale everybody’s milk?  Why not take a picture of me, my children and their friends drinking Sunnyvale Milk…that’s the image that you want, Mr. Pritchart…that’s the image to be proud of…and I guarantee you…it will help business… (She gives him a big wink)

“All right, Mrs. Martin…you win.  But we don’t want the Irish!”

PRITCHART: Are you finished?

DORIS: Yes, sir…I’m finished…

PRITCHART: Mitchell…I hired you to take care of my advertising campaign…is there any reason why I have to listen to this?

“No, sir…I shall release the hounds post haste!”

MITCHELL: Oh no, sir…no, I’ll get rid of her…come along, Mrs. Martin… (He takes Doris to the office door) That’s right, just right out there…

PRITCHART: Mitchell!  When you get back…be sure and have the picture…

What picture?  The picture that’s going to get Sunnyvale all that bidness!  Yes. Emery or Henry or whatever-the-hell-his-name-is Pritchart is a bidnessman…and he’s not about to let an opportunity like this pass him by, so the campaign is back on.  The disturbing implication here, though, is that he’s only doing this for bidness reasons…otherwise, he’s still a nasty bigot.  They do the lame shake-Doris’-hand-so-vigorously-it’s-sore bit again, and with that…coda time!

We’ll cut to the quick on this one: Dodo and Aggie are in the kitchen, where Dor tells her that Pritchart is so excited about his new campaign he’s planning to run it again next year.  Mitchell has also come up with a smashing idea—not only do women and children of all races and creeds drink Sunnyvale, but so do the men in the family!

So Doris calls Buck into the kitchen (she calls him “Buckaroo”) and tries to tell him about Mitchell’s new campaign idea:

BUCK: …how’s our friend Mr. Mitchell?

DORIS: Great…just saw him and he wants to have a little talk with you…

BUCK: Well, I don’t want to talk to him…in fact; he’s the last man on earth that I want to talk to…

Lovers’ quarrel?  No, Buck is hurt because Mitchell kept moving him out of the photograph during the first milk campaign, so Doris assumes out loud that he’ll want no part of the new idea in which her father will pose for the photo.  She phones Mr. Mitchell to tell him “no dice” and that’s when Buck starts to have second thoughts, grabbing the phone away from his daughter.  “You big phony!”  Doris hisses at Buck.  (Doris—you watch your phraseology!)

Next week on Doris Day(s): an episode that finally gets around to exploring Doris’ love life…a subject that sort of went unexplored in the first season owing to the fact that she was living in B.F.E.  The guest star is a man who directed more episodes of Barney Miller than any other director (so Andrew Leal should get this one right away).  Be here next week for “The Matchmakers.”