The Wackiest Ship in the Army: Couldn’t Find Its Viewers

July 20, 2026January 22, 2026 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are half-way through our blog theme for July, which is Military Upended as we look at military sitcoms that all debuted in the mid-sixties.

Like our show from last week, Mister Roberts, this one debuted in 1965 and ran for one season. This hour-long NBC series was produced by Harry Ackerman and Herbert Hirschman. It was loosely based on a film from 1960. Our show last week, Mister Roberts, was also based on a movie that starred Jack Lemmon. Lemmon was in this movie as well with Ricky Nelson.

The show is set in World War II and focuses on the crew of the USS Kiwi in the Pacific theater. This old schooner, flying a Swiss flag, carries out covert missions behind Japanese lines. The commander is Major Simon Butcher (Jack Warden) and Lieutenant Richard Riddle (Gary Collins). Butcher controls land operations while Riddle commands at sea. The Kiwi was previously owned by New Zealand.

Also in the cast were Chief Petty Officer Willie Miler (Mike Kellin), Radioman Patrick Hollis (Mark Slade), Machinist Seymour Trivers (Fred Smoot), Gunner’s Mate Sherman Nagurski (Rudy Solari), and Pharmacist Charles Tyler, the cook, (Don Penny).

The Kiwi was based on the USS Echo, a 40-year-old schooner given to the US Navy by New Zealand to use during the War. The ship was returned in 1944. Its poor condition made it useful for spying. The wooden hull did not show up on radar, its sailing power didn’t register on sonar, and the shallow draft allowed it to travel in shallow waters.

The show was scheduled for Sunday nights. The tough part of the schedule was that it was up against Candid Camera and What’s My Line, very popular programs at the time. However, it was helped by following Bonanza, the number one show that year.

The composer of the theme song was the celebrated Nelson Riddle. With more than 100 credits he worked on films including High Society and Guys and Dolls; did variety shows for Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Julie Andrews, and Rosemary Clooney; and lots of television series including The Untouchables, Route 66, Emergency, and Newhart.

Eddie Foy III talked about casting this show during his Television Academy interview. He said it was one of the best casts of any show he worked on. He said their producer brought the dramatic style the show needed to uphold the comedy. He said Danny Arnold was the talent behind this series and that Danny used to always say that writers aren’t funny and actors aren’t funny, but writers and actors who are successful think funny. Foy worked with him on That Girl and then continued as his casting director for years. Arnold gave everyone on the show freedom to do what they did best, so Foy did not have to run every casting decision by him.

The show was canceled after one season due to low ratings. I’m not sure if it was the quality of the show or if it was a victim of too many shows like this one. During the year this one debuted, we also had McHale’s Navy, F-Troop, Hogan’s Heroes, Gomer Pyle USMC, as well as tons of westerns, and extremely popular sitcoms like I Dream of Jeannie, Green Acres, Bewitched, That Girl, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, Get Smart, Batman, Petticoat Junction, and My Three Sons.

When you take into account that you had to watch shows live and there were only three choices at a time, it’s easy to understand how some good shows that might be recorded now received low ratings then. That said, this show never seemed to be sure what it was either. It was listed as a sitcom, but it was an hour-long show which was unusual. It wasn’t filmed before an audience, nor did it include a laugh track. And, it sometimes had episodes where people died, not so funny. If you wanted to see a funny military show, there were a lot of other options. There were also lots of good sitcoms and good dramas that all knew what their genre was. If you want to give it a try, it’s available on Philo.

Mister Roberts: The Third Time Was Not the Charm

July 13, 2026January 22, 2026 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we continue with our theme of Military Upended where we are taking a lot at several military sitcoms, today we delve into Mister Roberts.

This series was based on a novel of the same name from 1946. The novel became a play in 1948 and a movie was released in 1955. A decade later, it hit the television air waves.

The show was set in World War II and follows the crew of the USS Reluctant AK-601 cargo ship, which the men called “The Bucket.” Like F-Troop that we discussed last week, it was a Warner Brothers show, produced by William T. Orr.

Lieutenant Roberts (Roger Smith) wasn’t happy on a cargo ship and wanted to be directly involved in the war. Ensign Pulver (Steve Harmon) tried to make things fun on the ship. Like McHale’s Navy, the entire crew was happy to stymie Captain Morton (Richard X. Slattery) in all of his efforts. Roberts wrote letters asking for reassignment to active duty, but they were all intercepted by Captain Morton and never sent.

Rounding out the cast was Doc (George Ives), Seamen Reber (Ray Reese), D’Angelo (Richard Sinatra), and Mannion (Ronald Starr).

The theme song was composed by Frank Perkins. Perkins had more than 70 music credits; he composed all the music for Hawaiian Eye.

The show debuted on NBC on Friday nights. Its competition was The Smothers Brothers Show and The Farmer’s Daughter. The Smothers Brothers Show followed three very popular shows. The Wild Wild West (a top 40) began the night, with Hogan’s Heroes and Gomer Pyle USMC, both top ten shows, following. I’m guessing many viewers stayed with CBS all evening, and if they did not, perhaps after watching two military sitcoms, they were ready to watch something different the rest of the night.

It sounds like this show could not draw viewers and could never it the same quality that the movie provided, so it was cancelled after the first season. Jack Lemmon won the Oscar for his role in the big-screen version. In 1984 a made-for-television movie was aired based on the play. I guess they just wanted to make it successful somehow. Currently, it’s not available for streaming. If you do have fond memories of this one, let me know.

F-Troop: Braving Fort Courage

July 6, 2026January 22, 2026 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we start our July blogs, the theme is Military Upended. We’re taking a look at military sitcoms and up first is F Troop. This was a western sitcom set in the 1860s. It debuted on CBS in September of 1965 and ran for two seasons.

If you and your siblings argue about whether this show was in color or black and white, you’re both right. The first season was in black and white, and the second season was produced in color.

The characters lived at Fort Courage, an army outpost. Captain Wilton Parmenter (Ken Berry) runs, or tries to run, the fort. One of the running gags is that Parmenter comes from a long line of military heroes that stopped with him. However, he served during the Civil War. After being told to pick up the general’s laundry near Appomattox, he begins sneezing. Union soldiers think it’s a command to charge which turns the tide of the battle. Then while Parmenter’s father is pinning the Medal of Honor on him for this feat, he pricks his chest, drawing blood for which they gave him a Purple Heart.

Parmenter is sent to Fort Courage where all the captains have failed. Two of the three commanders before him deserted, and one had a nervous breakdown there.

Parmenter is “aided” by Sergeant O’Rourke (Forrest Tucker) and Corporal Agarn (Larry Storch). However, these two are there just to make a quick buck however they can; they often work with Chief Wild Eagle (Frank de Kova) to find the next shady business deal. For example, the government thinks 30 men are at the fort; in reality, it’s 17 and the pay for the other 13 is put into a fund by the two men to fund their plans. However, the two men, while willing to take advantage of his gullibility, do like Parmenter and protect him. Parmenter is kind and well meaning.

What Wil really needs protection from is marriage. The local store owner-postmistress Jane (Melody Patterson) has set her cap for him. She’s a beautiful tomboy who knows what she wants and usually gets it. She is also a telegrapher and is the best sharpshooter in the territory. She often rescues Wil with her good aim.

Patterson auditioned for this role at age 15, lying about her age. The show didn’t find about that till half-way through the first season. When the series started, she was 16 and Berry was 32. During the second season, when she turned 17, the producers allowed a more serious relationship between the two.

Rounding out the cast was Private Dobbs (James Hampton), a bugler who only knows two songs; Trooper Vanderbilt (Joe Brooks), the lookout who is almost blind; and Trooper Duffy (Bob Steele) the lone survivor of the Alamo who is too old to help much.

We also get to know several members of the Hekawis tribe headed by Chief Wild Eagle. They are 50/50 partners with O’Rourke and Agarn. They make souvenirs for sale and produce whiskey. They claim to be a peaceful nation because most of them are cowards like the men at the fort. The Chief has many wise sayings and often gives advice although when asked to explain some of them, he says he has no idea. His second in charge is Crazy Cat (Don Diamond).

Not surprisingly for the time, none of the tribal members are played by Native Americans. There is a lot of politically incorrect dialogue on the show. The Hekawe (pronounced “heck-ow-ee”) tell the story of how they got their name: Two indigenous people fell off a cliff and one asked “Where the heck are we?” which they chose for their name.

A lot of stereotypes exist not only about Native Americans but military heroes and the west in general. History is presented tongue in cheek with characters showing up who never would have been there and sly references to things that were happening in the sixties.

A number of guest stars somehow end up at Fort Courage. These include Jamie Farr, Bernard Fox, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Harvey Korman, Paul Lynde, Lee Meriwether, Julie Newmar, Vincent Price, and Don Rickles.

The popular theme music was composed by William Lava with lyrics by Irving Taylor. Lava had more than 500 television credits for composing. While he worked in animation a lot, he composed for Dr. Kildare, The Twilight Zone, Wagon Train, and 77 Sunset Strip. His collaborators included Henry Mancini and Sammy Kahn.

The series featured a lot of great writers including Stan Dreben who wrote for Green Acres, Seaman Jacobs and Howard Merrill from The Dick Van Dyke Show, and James B. Allardice who wrote for a lot of shows including My Three Sons and Hogan’s Heroes.

Storch was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role. His competition included Brian Keith for Family Affair, Bob Crane from Hogan’s Heroes, and Don Adams from Get Smart who won. I admit I was surprised to see his nomination given the classic television sitcoms that were on the air at the time.

ABC placed the show on Tuesday nights for season one which helped its ratings because there wasn’t a lot of competition. It was up against Red Skelton which was waning in its popularity, and it followed McHale’s Navy, and the same type of audience who enjoyed that show probably liked F-Troop as well.

After the second season, the show was ranked 40^th out of 113 shows. According to Forrest Tucker, Warners Brothers was sold to Seven Arts, and they made the decision to cancel the show because they felt it used too much of the Warner Ranch for its setting and they weren’t thrilled about the added costs of producing this one in color.

Fun fact, a replica of the fort was built in Houck, Arizona on Route 66. The Fort displayed F-Troop props, and they sold F-Troop merchandise. Among the amenities were a coffee shop, gas station, grocery store, pancake house, trading post, motel units, trailer park, and campground.

This show is a tougher one to evaluate now. Like so many shows from this era, Native Americans were not portrayed respectfully. However, truth be told, Natives were often portrayed as smarter than white men on this show. Like The Simpsons, everyone on this show was made fun of. It could be compared to The Phil Silvers Show or Hogan’s Heroes. It does have the military money-making schemes that Sergeant Bilko attempted but that was seen as a small part of a respectable military.

For me there was too much emphasis on slapstick humor apart from some of the uncomfortable dialogue. If you want to check it out and see what you think, which is what I always recommend, the series is available on DVD. It’s also on Prime and Roku.

Diana: Might Have Moved Too Quick

December 22, 2025August 3, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 4 Comments

As we take a peek at some one-named sitcoms, today we travel back about fifty years to 1973 and visit Diana which debuted on NBC. Created by Leonard Stern, the show was filmed in front of a live audience. Stern was the creator behind several series including McMillan and Wife and He and She. In addition to this show, he wrote for several series including The Phil Silvers Show, Get Smart, and Holmes and Yo-Yo. He has a decent amount of producing credits including executive producer for Get Smart.

The premise is that divorced Diana Smythe (Diana Rigg) moves from London to New York City as a fashion coordinator for a department store. Her brother lets her live in his apartment while he’s out of town. Not only does Diana have to deal with learning about life in America, she has to take care of her brothers great dane Gulliver. Quickly, she realizes a lot of women have keys to her brother’s apartment and they show up regularly.

Rounding out the cast was neighbor Holly (Carole Androsky), copywriter Howard (Richard B. Shull), window decorator Marshall (Robert Moore), her bosses Norman and Norman Bronik (David Sheiner and Barbara Barrie), and friend Jeff (Richard Mulligan), a mystery novel writer.

Jerry Fielding composed the Diana theme. Fielding was a three-time Oscar nominee with 115 composing credits including McMillan and Wife, Mannix, Hogan’s Heroes, and Star Trek. He also was listed as part of the music department for lots of great series and movies.

Riggs took on the role due to the success of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and wanted to do something similar. I will say they tried a bit too hard to be similar. Their apartments are almost identical, and the work set was also set up with one coworker next to Diana and her boss’s office to the right. The show was placed on the Monday night schedule before Here’s Lucy. It was up against Gunsmoke and The Rookies. Gunsmoke had been on forever and was still in the top 20 while The Rookies was in the top 30. While a lot of shows debuted in 1973, the only real hit was Happy Days.

This show might have wanted to emulate The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but it lacked a few things including the amazing cast, the great writing, and the perfect timeslot. Fans never warmed up to this show and the ratings never took off, so the show was canceled before the end of the season.

It wasn’t a terrible show, but it wasn’t anything worth watching either. I thought the dialogue was not great and it tried way too hard. The jokes seem a bit tired. While the cast also wasn’t awful, they weren’t overly likable either. I think that there were valid reasons this one was canceled after only 15 episodes. At least she had The Avengers to remember which was a much better and beloved show. Diana summed up how this series fared when she related a story that when she arrived in American, the network had her picked up at the airport in a limousine and when she left America after a canceled show, they sent her to the airport in a shabby, yellow cab. I guess limousines and shabby cabs are part of all of our lives.

The Tom Ewell Show: Surrounded by Women

September 15, 2025July 18, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Thanks for joining me today. We are having fun with this month’s blog series, “It’s Their Show,” and today we are taking a closer look at The Tom Ewell Show. The shows we are delving into this month were all movie stars jumping from the big screen to the small screen. Some of them landed on their feet and some didn’t.

While most of the shows we are covering have a star we all know, Tom Ewell is no longer a household name. His first movie was in 1940, and he’s probably best known for The Seven-Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe. He did become a television fixture, starring in the soap Search for Tomorrow as well as a cast member of Baretta in the seventies and Best of the West in the eighties.

The Tom Ewell Show debuted on CBS in 1960 and was on for one season. The premise is about a guy who has to navigate life with a lot of women: his wife (Marilyn Erskine), daughters (Cynthia Cherault, Sherry Alberoni and Eileen Chesis), mother-in-law (Mabel Albertson), and a female dog and a parakeet.

Tom Potter is described as a “bumbling” father. I’m not sure why so many shows in the early days featured a wife who caused complications for her husband or a bumbling husband. Potter was a real estate agent. Rounding out the cast are friends pharmacist Howie Fletcher (Norman Fell) and Jim Rafferty (Barry Kelley).

Potter loves sports, but the rest of his household is not too interested. Often, he is watching a sporting event on television while telling his family about the high points when they obviously could care less.

The concept of the show was set up in the opening which showed Tom looking around and then being put into a house before seeing the house overrun by women.

The show was created by Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. who wrote for I Love Lucy. Pugh Davis said she based the show on her family. Her family had all girls and a mother-in-law in the house.

Ewell owned the production company in partnership with Davis and Carroll and Four Star Productions. Quaker Oats and Proctor and Gamble alternated sponsorship of the show.

Time reviewed the show after its debut and said “The Tom Ewell Show leads a relentless parade of situation comedies, all designed to show that American family life is as cute as a freckle on a five-year-old. The show, which might also be titled Father Knows Nothing, presents the comic with the excavated face as a bumbler named Potter who is trapped in the customary format: Harassed Man Beaten Down by Wife, Three Daughters, Mother-in-Law. In the opening episode, Ewell could find no better way to outsmart his spendthrift women than closing his bank account and ruining his own credit. For those who may have tuned out early, the women were all set to start spending again.” Not a great review.

This makes the female characters sound very unappealing, but on the show, his wife and daughters were delightful. His mother-in-law liked him and they often bantered back and forth; I think it’s worth watching the show just to see Mabel Albertson in action. However, the plots left a bit to be desired: Tom teaching his wife to drive a car, his daughter learning to play the tuba; and the typical sibling issues of everyone wanting to use the phone and the bathroom at the same time.

The show struggled finding viewers. Associated Press television critic Cynthia Lowry interviewed Ewell that fall, and he said that he had read both the positive and negative reviews of the show. He agreed with the critics who felt that Potter was too inept, and the comedy centered more on that and their family life. He said for December episodes, that issue would be addressed in the writing, and the family dog and parakeet were being dropped from the show. Unfortunately, it was not enough to attract viewers, and the show was canceled after one season.

In an episode I watched, “The Spelling Bee,” from late November, Tom is trying to interest his family in golf. When he finally got them to watch a golf match, the females were more interested in what the golf spectators were wearing. And then his youngest daughter ran in and turned the station to a kid’s show. One of his girls is practicing her spelling to try to win a trip to Washington DC by winning the all-state spelling bee.

When Tom leaves the house, he continues to run into fathers and sons who are playing baseball, going fishing, working together, or talking about sports. Tom daydreams he has three boys, but we realize that he is holding a skein of yarn for his daughter while he does so. He tries to talk his oldest girl into going into the real estate business. Later he tries to talk his middle daughter Debbie into giving up spelling for golf. He also tries to get his wife to go bowling with him. When Tom realizes that one of his friends has a son trying to win the spelling bee as well, he turns it into a big sports event and is determined to beat them.

He buys a bunch of dictionaries and then gets up early to “train” Debbie. However, she had already left the house and when she returns, he finds out she’s been on the driving range practicing her golf, so they can be in a father and child golf match. He drills her on spelling the rest of the day. That night Debbie comes down with laryngitis.

Her grandmother gives her honey and lemon. The following night they attend the spelling bee, and Tom gives Debbie a pep talk, but then he reminds her he loves her no matter what. Of course, the final two contestants are Debbie and the son of Tom’s friend. She wins, and she and her dad get to travel to Washington, DC where they meet the President. The show ends with Tom telling his friend about all the great non-sport talents his girls have. It was a cute show, and the characters were all likable. There were a few great one-liners. It would not make my top 25 shows, but it was much better than many of the sitcoms in the sixties.

The show had a decent time slot. It was on Tuesday nights at nine, competing with Stagecoach West and Thriller. While both of those shows garnered decent ratings, neither of them was in the top thirty. The primary director was Hy Averback, who would later direct twenty episodes of MASH. So, they had the right elements in place, but the show just could never find its fans.

Larry Rhine talked about writing for the show. Rhine said Ewell was a nice man, but he said Ewell didn’t think the kids should be involved in the show much because they didn’t have the caliber of other actors. Rhine told Ewell they could consider them more as props which seems like a strange concept for a family show, considering that the episode I watched revolved around the daughters.

Rhine said Ewell found the show was over when he was on the set one day and he was called to the telephone about a trip he was supposed to take with CBS, and he was told that he was no longer part of the group because he had been fired.

I’m guessing part of the problem with this show getting renewed is that it debuted when westerns were still king and many of the television schedule spots were already filled with them. While it was definitely not a terrible show, the sixties were on the cusp of introducing very different sitcoms than the family-based ones that filled the fifties’ slots. By 1965 we would be tuning into Batman, Honey West, Hogan’s Heroes, The Smothers Brothers Show, and I Dream of Jeannie. However, that said, there are worse ways to spend a weekend than viewing a season of The Tom Ewell Show.

Cimarron Strip: Steak, Anyone?

June 30, 2025May 7, 2025 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As we wind up our “Go West Young Man” blog series, we turn our attention to Cimarron Strip for the last blog of the series. This show was only on the air for one season, from 1967-68. It was produced by the creators of Gunsmoke, America’s most beloved western. Like The Virginian, it was a 90-minute show.

Set in the Oklahoma in 1890, the series occurred in a geographical region called No Man’s Land, an ungoverned area for several decades. Marshal Jim Crown (Stuart Whitman) tries to bring law and order there. Crown arrives only to learn that the sheriff has resigned, and it’s up to him to bring peace to the area with no Army support. We get to know Dulcey Coopersmith (Jill Townsend) who comes to live with her father, but upon her arrival, she discovers he is dead. Her father’s partner MacGregor (Percy Herbert) has let their Wayfarer’s Inn become a bit dilapidated, but Dulcey is determined to bring it back. Marshal Crown stayed there when he was in Cimarron City. Francis Wilde (Randy Boone) often served as Crown’s deputy.

Rounding out the cast is the bartender at the Inn, Fabrizio (Jack Braddock); Major Covington at a nearby Army fort (Andrew Duggan); a Dr. Kihlgren (Karl Swenson); and Hardy Miller (Robert J. Wilke).

The show was on Thursday nights, up against Batman, The Flying Nun, and Bewitched on ABC. It faced Daniel Boone and Ironside on NBC. Definitely some tough competition.

The theme song was composed by Maurice Jarre, who was the scorer for the films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago for which he won two Oscars.

The show never attained the ratings numbers it needed to keep its place on the schedule. From what I have been able to find out, it was well written and well cast. Guest stars kept it interesting, and the scenery was beautifully filmed.

I’m guessing the main reason the show didn’t make it was just viewer fatigue with the western genre. There were already shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke which were hugely popular. One more western might just have been one too many, no matter how good it was. In addition to the western series, some of the shows that were on the air when Cimarron Strip debuted included That Girl, Hogan’s Heroes, Mannix, Batman, Lost in Space, Get Smart, and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In—very different choices than westerns. I do remember Arnold the pig on Green Acres always wanting to watch westerns on television. We still fall prey to this on the major three networks. After ER became popular, the next season featured ten new medical shows. And then most of them get cancelled, not necessarily because they’re bad but because it’s just an overload of medical shows.

Most people don’t want the same supper every night even if it’s steak or lasagna. That said, this seemed to be a steak kind of show, so just because it couldn’t survive the mass onslaught of westerns in the sixties doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching. If you check it out, let me know what you think.

Camp Runamuck: Campers Loved It More than Viewers

May 26, 2025April 27, 2025 / thewritelife61 / Leave a comment

This month we are checking out a few sitcoms that are rarely remembered anymore. Today we are exploring the show Camp Runamuck. It debuted on NBC in 1965 and featured campers for 26 weeks before being cancelled.

Dave Madden was counselor Pruett; Commander Wivenhoe was played by Arch Johnson, and senior counselor Spiffy was played by David Ketchum. In the pilot, one of my favorites, Frank DeVol, played Doc Joslyn but illness forced him to hand over the part to Leonard Stone. Bobby Darrin sang the theme song.

If you are a fan of The Partridge Family, you will appreciate that this show was the introduction of actor Dave Madden, later Rueben who would manage the Partridges. Johnson began on television in the fifties, but this was his first cast role. Ketchum started his career a decade after Johnson and this was his second starring role after being in I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster in 1962. One camper who is featured in two of the 26 episodes is Maureen McCormick. This was the year she started her acting career, also appearing in Bewitched, The Farmer’s Daughter, and Honey West. Before becoming Marcia Brady, she would also show up in My Three Sons and I Dream of Jeannie.

Wivenhoe was an interesting camp leader. He didn’t like kids, didn’t like to part with his money, and didn’t appreciate the 6am morning wake-up song sung by the girls across the lake accompanied by a bugle. He did like playing golf and enjoying a quince for breakfast.

Across the lake was Camp Divine owned by Eulalia (Hermione Baddeley) who was helped by counselors Mahalia May (Alice Nunn) and Caprice Yeudleman (Nina Wayne).

The opening featured a peppy tune with fifes and you see the lake and hear the music before you see the camp counselors leading the campers (all in white; the poor laundry crew) marching down the road.

Most of the plots featured the counselors as opposed to the campers. Typical plots were the female campers being ordered to steal Wivenhoe’s bathtub so they could take a real bath and the boys getting it back. In another episode, the campers learn a civics lesson. They are given the task of electing a camp commander. However, the candidate who gets in becomes a dictator and tries to put everyone who had been in charge, namely the adults, in jail. This sounds vaguely familiar from the recent news.

In the credits I learned Cal Howard was in charge of visual gags. I never had seen that designation before in a sitcom. Howard, who was born in 1911 and passed away in 1993, had a long career as an actor and writer. He received 178 writing credits, mostly in animation. He worked for Walter Lanz and Walt Disney and wrote a few Bugs Bunny and Alvin and the Chipmunks episodes.

Just to add a sense of weirdness and whimsy to the series, two bears named Irving and Virginia would share their opinions of what was going on around the camp.

The series was up against The Wild Wild West and The Flintstones, pretty tough competition for the time. First of all it was on Friday nights when many viewers might be starting their weekend celebrations. The Flintstones was originally written for adults, but by 1965 families were watching the show together. The Wild Wild West was new, but immediately hit the top 30, and it was followed by another new CBS show, Hogan’s Heroes, and then Gomer Pyle, USMC, so most television fans were glued to that network Friday nights. Other new NBC shows included Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, and I Spy so competition was tough to retain a schedule spot. ABC didn’t have a lot of hits that year but they did debut three shows that I liked but all faded away within two seasons: Batman, Honey West, and Gidget.

Camp Runamuck might have gotten a second season if it didn’t have so much competition to deal with. If you loved camp as a kid, or hated camp as a kid, it might be worthwhile to watch a few shows and see what you think.

Noam Pitlik: What a Character

December 16, 2024March 16, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 6 Comments

This month we are right in the middle of one of my favorite blog series, What a Character. This week we are delving into the career of Noam Pitlik; in addition to his acting, he won an Emmy for his work as a director. Which show? Let’s find out.

Pitlik was born in Philadelphia in 1932. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at Gratz College and later was a theater major at Temple University in 1954. Pitlik had a two-year stunt in the Army and earned a master’s degree in theater at New York University.

He began his acting career on WCAU in a western. In 1951, he was hired for the set design and construction crew for the Philadelphia Experimental Theater. He carried a bit of his hometown with him when he was part of the Summer Theater Guild in Indiana, Pennsylvania in the “Philadelphia Story.” He was hired for his Broadway debut in an off-Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera.”

In 1961 he moved to Los Angeles and received his first television roles, appearing on Cain’s Hundred and Dr. Kildare. Cain’s Hundred was not a show I remembered hearing much about. It was about a former underworld lawyer who works with the federal government to bring the top 100 criminals to justice. The show lasted one season. Pitlik had a variety of offers for shows throughout the sixties. Most of them were dramas and westerns, but we also see him on My Favorite Martian, The Munsters, Gidget, The Flying Nun, The Monkees, The Andy Griffith Show, The Doris Day Show, Get Smart, That Girl, and I Dream of Jeannie.

During the sixties, he married for the first time. His marriage with Jesse Blostein in 1967 would only last three years.

Pitlik also appeared in fourteen films and eight made-for-tv movies. The most memorable films are The Graduate, Fitzwilly, and The Fortune Cookie.

The seventies were his most prolific decade of acting. He appeared in 26 different series, often in 2-5 different episodes. You’ll see Pitlik in reruns in a variety of genres including Hogan’s Heroes, Room 222, Bewitched, Love American Style, All in the Family, The FBI, Cannon, Mannix, The Partridge Family, The Bob Newhart Show, The Odd Couple, and Barney Miller. His last acting appearance was in Becker in 1998.

The seventies were also when he tried the role of husband again, marrying Linda Hirsch in 1974; this marriage also lasted three years.

He began directing in the seventies and obtained 39 directing credits throughout the next two decades.

In an interview with Temple University for the Alumni Review in 1979, Pitlik said that the switch in his career was not “a case of my needing to change functions for economic reasons. I used to figure out what I made a day as an actor, and it was obscene. I changed for emotional reasons. I had become very frustrated by the kinds of things I was doing in acting, and I was looking for a change in my life that would be more challenging. I enjoyed acting, but I never seemed to get enough to do.” His first episode as director was on The New Dick Van Dyke Show. He directed 12 episodes for The Practice and 11 for Taxi.

However, Barney Miller was where he perfected his skill as director for 102 of its 171 episodes. In 1979, he won an Emmy as Director for the show. He beat out Paul Bogart for All in the Family, Alan Alda and Charles Dubin for M*A*S*H, and Jay Sandrich for Soap. He also received a Peabody Award and a Directors Guild of America Award for his work on Barney Miller. He lost the Emmy in 1981 to James Burrows for Taxi. His co-nominees included Jerry Paris for Happy Days, Linda Day for Archie Bunker’s Place, Burt Metcalfe and Alan Alda for M*A*S*H, and Rod Daniel for WKRP in Cincinnati.

In the Temple interview, Pitlik said that his “main responsibility is to create an atmosphere in which each of the people involved in the production can conform to their best work. Although a director oversees all aspects of the production, there are many people involved, and he’s dependent on all of them. There’s no more collaborative business than the television business. Each person contributes to the success or failure of a show whether he or she is a writer, actor, cameraman, or whatever.”

In 1995 he began directing episodes of The Home Court and did so for 14 of the 20 episodes. I must admit I do not remember this show at all. The synopsis was Sydney Solomon was a family court judge who had to deal with the toughest prosecuting attorneys and repeat offenders. However, her biggest challenges came when dealing with her kids, four boys aged 11-19.

Pitlik had better luck with his third marriage to Susan Whittaker which lasted from 1986 until his death in 1999. Whittaker was a television producer. Noam passed away from lung cancer at age 66.

Like Jerry Paris, Pitlik had a very successful acting career before finding his passion behind the camera. If you are responsible for directing a series, Barney Miller is a great accomplishment. It was fun to learn more about his career both in front of and behind the camera.

Jo Anne Worley: What a Character

July 29, 2024March 14, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

We are winding up a blog series about Supportive Women. One of the women I wanted to include was Jo Anne Worley. I didn’t know much about her apart from her appearances on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and being in my favorite made-for-television movie, The Feminist and the Fuzz.

Jo Anne was born in 1937 in Lowell, Indiana. Her loud voice was not an acting tool. She always felt she was loud. She said, “I have a big mouth, and I’m sorry to say I’ve always had one. When I was young, in church, I never sang with everybody else. I only mouthed the hymns, so I wouldn’t drown anyone else out. I have my quiet moments. But I don’t have many.” She was named school comedienne at her high school.

In one interview with a Lowell reporter, she said “I’ll never forget the place I’d work every summer while in high school. It was called Robert’s Hotel, Gas and Café, and it was at the intersection of US 41 and Highway 2. They had an old juke box in the café where I worked, and I’d sing and joke around whenever the business was slow, which seemed like most of the time.”

After graduation, Worley moved to Blauvelt, New York to work with the Pickwick Players. She was later offered a scholarship to Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. After two years at the school, she moved to Los Angeles City College and enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse. Her first musical role was in “Wonderful Town.”

In 1961 she was in the off-Broadway musical show “Billy Barnes Revue” with Charles Nelson Reilly and Larry Hovis (who was Carter on Hogan’s Heroes). The original show in 1959 featured Bert Convy, Joyce Jameson, Patti Regan, Ken Berry, Ann Guilbert, Jackie Joseph, and Len Weinrib.

Jo Anne was in two episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in 1961-2. During the rest of the sixties, she was offered several big-screen roles.

In 1964 she was given a role in “Hello, Dolly.” A year later she developed her own comedy and singing act in Greenwich Village where she was discovered there by Merv Griffin.

Griffin encouraged her to appear on his show which she did forty times. Like Marcia Wallace, who we learned about last week, her appearance on Merv Griffin was seen by someone who recommended her for a new show. In this case, George Schlatter cast her in Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.

Worley left the show in 1970. She made guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She also appeared on several game shows, including Super Password, Hollywood Squares, and many versions of Pyramid.

In 1971 she made the television movie I discussed above, The Feminist and the Fuzz. It starred David Hartman, Barbara Eden, Farrah Fawcett, Worley, Julie Newmar, and Henry Morgan. I would love to see it again.

For most of her career, Worley would be providing voices for animation. However, she appeared in a handful of shows during the seventies and eighties, including Adam 12, Love American Style, Hawaii Five-0, CHiPs, Murder She Wrote, The Love Boat, Mad About You, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Middle.

In 1975, Worley married Roger Perry. They would stay together for 25 years, divorcing in 2000. Perry has 95 acting credits and appeared in many popular shows in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. He was also in The Feminist and The Fuzz. After divorcing Worley, he would marry actress Joyce Bulifant.

During the seventies and eighties, Worley did a lot of regional theater in Milwaukee and several cities in California.

In the 1990s she got involved with Disney and provided her voice for Beauty and the Beast and A Goofy Movie. She also was on several Disney series including Kim Possible and the Wizards of Waverly Place.

She was in a limited run of a musical production of “The Wizard of Oz,” playing the wicked witch of the west in 1999. In 2007, she appeared on Broadway as Mrs. Tottendale in “The Drowsy Chaperone,” and she reprised the role in 2015 at The Cape Playhouse. She was also cast in “Wicked” as Madame Morrible in 2008.

Jo Anne Worley once said, “my goal in life is to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.” That seems to be good advice for all of us. It was fun getting to know a little more about this funny woman. We love her as much as her dog did.

Frank Gorshin: Batman’s Most Puzzling Villain

March 18, 2024March 18, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month, our theme is Bam! Pow! Batman Villains. We have learned a bit about the careers of the Joker and Cat Woman, and today we are spending some time with the Riddler, portrayed by Frank Gorshin.

Gorshin started out as an impressionist and comedian before transitioning into acting.

Frank was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 into a blue-collar, middle-class family. His mom was a seamstress, and his father was a railroad worker. His paternal grandparents arrived in the US from Slovenia and his mother was born in Slovenia, coming to the Pittsburgh area as a young girl; his parents were very involved in the Slovenian community, both singing with the Preseren, a Slovenian singing society.

When he was 15, Gorshin got a part-time job as an usher at the Sheridan Square Theatre. He studied the mannerisms of the actors he watched in those movies and developed an impressionist act. Some of his favorite actors to mimic included James Cagney, Cary Grant, Al Jolson, and Edward Robinson. After entering a talent contest in 1951, he won a week-long engagement at the Carousel nightclub in New York.

Sadly, Gorshin’s older brother was hit by a car two days before and died. His parents convinced him to keep his performance schedule and sent him to New York.

After high school, Gorshin enrolled at the Carnegie Tech School of Drama (now Carnegie Mellon University).

At age 20, Frank was drafted into the US Army and sent to Germany. He was an entertainer in Special Services for a year and a half. When Gorshin left the Army, he began his acting career, appearing in four movies and on television in Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

I can’t imagine the horror Gorshin’s parents felt when getting a call in 1957 that their son had fallen asleep while driving from Pittsburgh to Hollywood, a 39-hour trip for a screen test. With their other son passing away from a car crash six years earlier, now they had to deal with the fact that their other son was in a coma with a fractured skull. Luckily, he made a full recovery.

Another big event occurring in 1957 was his marriage to Christina Randazzo. They had a son and separated later in life, but they never did divorce as far as I could tell.

Until his death, Gorshin would appear in more than sixty big-screen films. During the fifties, he only appeared in a handful of television series, but that would change in the 1960s. Some of the most memorable shows included The Defenders, The Munsters, Star Trek, and The High Chapparal. With his comedy act, he visited The Ed Sullivan Show four times. The first time he did his impressionist act on the series, he would be scheduled with this new band called The Beatles.

The sixties also found him on Batman, his reason for being in this month’s blog series. He said that he developed a fiendish laugh at Hollywood parties. “I listened to myself laugh and discovered that the funniest jokes brought out the high-pitched giggle that I use on the show. With further study, I came to realize that it wasn’t so much how I laughed as what I laughed at that created the sense of the menace.”

He did not love the unitards that many of the comic book villains wore, so he asked for a green business suit and bowler hat, covered with question marks since he always left riddles for Batman and Robin to solve. He often said “Riddle me this, Batman” which became a catchphrase of the mid-sixties.

Gorshin said “When I was first approached to play the Riddler, I thought it was a joke. Then I discovered the show had a good script and agreed to do the role. Now I am in love with the character.”

Gorshin was the only villain to be nominated for an Emmy. He got the nod in 1966 for the episode “Hi Diddle Riddle.” He had some tough competition, going against Werner Klemperer as Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes, Morey Amsterdam on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and winner Don Knotts on The Andy Griffith Show.

Gorshin was in ten episodes of the show, but after appearing numerous times, he was unavailable, and the producers replaced him with John Astin. I realized hindsight is 20/20 as they say, so the producers were never considering the effect the show would have on pop culture and the decades it would be a fan favorite, but that switch seems extreme. However, they did it with Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt as well, so maybe they figured if you have to replace a villain, let’s replace them with someone very different from the original. Gorshin, however, was not a fan of being replaced but did get over it enough to accept his tenth episode role in season three and appeared as Riddler in the 1979 made-for-television movie Legends of the Superheroes.

Frank made his Broadway debut in 1969 in the musical biography, “Jimmy” which was about the controversial life of New York mayor Jimmy Walker.

Gorshin was very busy in the seventies and eighties. Among the twenty plus shows he appeared on were The Virginian, Martin and Rowan’s Laugh In, Ironside, Hawaii Five-0, Charlie’s Angels, and Murder She Wrote.

In the last three decades of his life, he spent more time making big-screen films. One thing I found surprising is that Gorshin appeared in three soap operas, all at different times in his career: General Hospital in 1963, The Edge of Night in 1982, and The Bold and the Beautiful in 1999.

In the early 2000s, Gorshin did a one-man Broadway show, portraying George Burns. He was reunited with his Batman cast in a made-for-tv movie, Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt. His last appearance was on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on “Grave Danger” on which he played himself. The episode was directed by Quentin Tarantino and was dedicated to Gorshin.

Unfortunately, Gorshin was a heavy smoker throughout his life. Adam West once said that “Frank could reduce a cigarette to ash with one draw” and his nightclub performances warned patrons they would be exposed to a lot of second-hand smoke if they attended. Not surprisingly, he died from lung cancer, complicated by emphysema and pneumonia.

I enjoyed getting to know Frank Gorshin in this blog. While I was much more familiar with the careers of Burgess Meredith and Julie Newmar, Gorshin and Cesar Romero are actors I knew very little about. I hope you are also enjoying getting to know these fun “villains.”