In June, our theme is “Funny Duos,” and we are taking a look at a few shows that are not so well-known.
Up first is The Governor & J.J. This show debuted in September of 1969 and ran for one season on CBS. Starring Dan Dailey and Julie Sommars, it was about a Midwestern governor and his daughter Jennifer Jo, or JJ, who acted as first lady for him. Her day job was an assistant curator at a local zoo. Of course, she and her dad had very different opinions as he was more conservative and she was more liberal. Although in real life, Sommars was a dedicated Republican. Rounding out the cast were secretary Maggie (Neva Patterson), press secretary George (James T. Callahan), and housekeeper Sara (Nora Marlowe). Eventually the Drinkwaters’ basset hound Guv also became a character.
The casting of Sommars and Dailey was true chemistry. Dailey became a surrogate father for Sommars and was reportedly the first one at the hospital pacing the floors when she had her baby.
Leonard Stern created the show. He was the producer and writer behind many successful shows including McMillan and Wife, Holmes and Yo-Yo, The Honeymooners, The Phil Silvers Show, and the amazing Get Smart.
Although it didn’t get nominated for any Emmys, it did win the Golden Globe for best comedy, best actress in a comedy and best actor in a comedy. Dailey was a well-known and respected actor when this show began and would have been a big draw for the show, although it was created to showcase Sommars.
The show was on Tuesday nights for the first few months and then was switched to Wednesday nights an hour earlier. Tuesdays it was up against the movie of the week on both ABC and NBC. When it moved to Wednesdays, if faced Room 222 and The Men from Shiloh.
Leonard Stern discussed the casting of the show during his interview with the Television Academy. He said one night his kids were watching The Man from UNCLE and he heard a voice and called his wife in and said he wanted to write a script for the character. He watched the rest of the show, trying to find the actress’s name and later asked Casting to send her over for a meeting. When the woman showed up, it was the wrong actress. He said it was a Bronx accent he heard on the show and this was a very Midwestern actress wearing gloves. However, he subsequently learned that she was the same actress when she went into her Bronx accent. So, he wrote the show for her. Then Sommars and Stern went to see Dan Dailey in “The Odd Couple” and he was hired. Carroll O’Connor was brought in as an Archie Bunker type of character, Orrin Hacker. He had starred in the pilot for All in the Family, but it had not sold. However, during this show, another network bought it and O’Connor left. Stern replaced him with one of his favorite actors from Get Smart, Edward Platt.
Fun fact is that in 1970 three comic books were issued by Gold Key.
Many viewers seemed to enjoy the show. However, one of the faults might have been that father and daughter, while on separate sides of political issues, they really weren’t in much conflict. I would say their differences of opinion weren’t so much left vs right as doing things the way they have always been done vs trying something new. That might have been fine for the show had All in the Family not debuted the same season. The differences between Archie Bunker and his son-in-law Mike were truly conflicting. When the Governor and J.J. was canceled after 39 episodes, it was replaced with To Rome with Love which got displaced for All in the Family. To Rome with Love made it 48 episodes before its removal while All in the Family not only lasted for 207 episodes but then morphed into Archie Bunker’s Place about Archie’s life after Edith passed away; it ran for another 97 episodes.
This seemed to be a well-written and well-casted show. In the episodes I watched for this blog, I admit that I had a hard time with the shows. I liked the interactions between the Governor and JJ, but I found the laugh track annoying and some of the characters like Jack Cassidy’s role as a speech consultant were a bit grating. If it had debuted five years earlier, it would probably have been a hit for a few seasons, but things were changing so much in television at this time, it never caught on.
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