Don Adams: Always Smart

March 31, 2025November 13, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month our blog series is titled “All About The Bill Dana Show.” The first week in March we learned about the show and now we have been spending time with some of the cast. We end our series with Don Adams.

Adams was born Donald James Yarmy in Manhattan in 1923. Don was a blend of cultures, Hungarian Jewish on his dad’s side and Irish-American on his mom’s. Don was raised Catholic while his brother Dick was raised Jewish. I could not find out what their sister decided to do. She later became a writer under the name Gloria Burton and wrote a script for Get Smart. His brother was also an actor. Dick has about 50 acting credits and appeared in many of the most popular sitcoms during the sixties and seventies, including three appearances on Get Smart.

Adams dropped out of high school and went to work as a theater usher. In 1941 he joined the US Marine Corp. At one point he was injured during a Japanese assault on Tulagi. He was the only survivor from his platoon. While recovering, he came down with blackwater fever, a side effect from malaria and was evacuated to New Zealand. He was not expected to recover, but when he did, he was sent back to the US as a Marine drill instructor.

After his discharge, he moved to Florida to work as a comedian. He refused to do material he considered “blue” and was fired.

In 1947 he married Adelaide Efantis, and her stage name was Adelaide Adams. Don decided to take the name Adams as well for his stage name. He worked as a commercial artist and cashier to support their family.

In 1954, Don was the winner of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts with a comedy act written by Bill Dana. He began making appearances on The Steve Allen Show, where Dana was a writer. In 1961 he became a regular on the Perry Como Show.

About this time, Don and Adelaide divorced, and Adams married Dorothy Bracken, another actress. They split up in 1977 when he married Judy Luciano, also an actress but that marriage also ended in divorce. (I could only find one credit for his last two wives; Bracken was on Get Smart, while Luciano appeared on The Love Boat.)

While discussing his marriages, Don said “I’m no longer independently wealthy. I guess it’s the result of too many wives, too many kids and too much alimony. I’ve been paying alimony since I was 14 and child support since 15. That’s a joke, but not by much. . . I like getting married, but I don’t like being married.”

In 1963 Adams was offered the role of Byron Glick, hotel detective on The Bill Dana Show. As we’ve discussed this month, the show was on the air for a season and a half. While working on the show, Don was also the voice of cartoon Tennessee Tuxedo which he continued doing until 1973.

During those years he also made an appearance on The Danny Thomas Show and on Pat Paulsen’s Comedy Hour.

In 1965 he was offered the role of Maxwell Smart in a new spy satire, Get Smart.

The sixties saw westerns being overtaken by spy shows such as The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, The Pink Panther, and The Avengers. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry decided to try their hand at writing a campy sitcom and Get Smart was born.

The role of Smart was created for Tom Poston, but ABC turned it down, and NBC said yes. They had Adams under contract, so he got the part. Rounding out the cast was Edward Platt as the Chief and Barbara Feldon as Agent 99.

Smart and 99 had great chemistry and married in a later season. Feldon and Adams remained life-long friends.

One of the most memorable parts of the show was all the catch phrases Adams created on the show including “Sorry about that Chief,” “Would you believe,” and “Missed it by that much.”

In addition to acting, Adams worked as a producer and director on the show. He was nominated for an Emmy from 1966-1969. He won three of those, losing to William Windom for the little-remembered one-season show, My World and Welcome to It. Lloyd Haynes from Room 222 and Bill Cosby for The Bill Cosby Show were also nominated that year.

The show moved to CBS for the final season, but the ratings never recovered, and the show was canceled after that year.

Like so many of our successful actors with unusual characters, Adams suffered from typecasting after the show ended. He did become part of two additional sitcom casts during his career.

In 1971 he was on The Partners. According to imdb.com, the plot is that “Lennie Crooke and George Robinson are inept detectives teamed up to solve crimes. Captain Andrews is their exasperated boss, Sgt. Higgenbottom is a smarmy co-worker, and Freddy confesses to most of the neighborhood crimes.” Adams played Crooke, but the show only produced 20 episodes.

In 1985, Adams tried a sitcom again on Check it Out. This one was about a grocery store and its employees. Adams played Howard Bannister. The show lasted three seasons, ending in 1988. The show was not very popular in the US but was a hit in Canada.

In between those two shows, Adams appeared in a handful of series including Fantasy Island, The Fall Guy, The Love Boat, Empty Nest, and Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher. He made most of his salary appearing in nightclubs. He also had his Smart character resurrected in several big screen films and television series.

Because of the typecasting, he returned to animation and found a lot of success, especially with Inspector Gadget which he voiced from 1983-1999.

He also tried his hand at a game show. Called Don Adams’ Screen Test, it had an interesting concept. The show was filmed in two 15-minute parts; Adams would randomly select an audience member to recreate a scene from a Hollywood movie such as From Here to Eternity with Adams as director. It ended after 26 episodes.

In his spare time, it sounds like he visited the racetracks, betting on horses. He also spent a night a week at the Playboy Mansion playing cards with Caan and Rickles. He loved history and studied Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler in depth. He also wrote poetry and painted.

Don passed away in 2005 from a lung infection and lymphoma. The eulogists at his funeral included James Caan, Bill Dana, Barbara Feldon, and Don Rickles.

It’s hard to know what to make of Adams’ career. Obviously, he was hard working, an excellent Marine, and a man of many interests. He was fired for not performing blue material but then put horse racing and gambling above the needs of his family, according to several of his friends. He created the amazing role of Maxwell Smart, one of the best characters in television history, but that feat kept him from achieving other great roles in the following decades due to typecasting. It sounds like Check It Out was very popular in Canada, so maybe if he had been given a few chances to create characters different from Smart in a couple other sitcoms, it would have helped.

I feel bad for those actors who are so successful in the characters they help create that they are barred from future jobs, but then again, those characters are some of the best actors in television: George Reeves as Superman, Ray Walston as My Favorite Martian, Henry Winkler from Happy Days, Frank Cady from Green Acres, and Jack Klugman from The Odd Couple. I guess you trade being warmly remembered for fewer quality roles.

Apart from Get Smart, I knew little about Adams before writing this blog, so it was fun to get to know him a bit.

Little House on the Prairie: Drama On and Off the Set

February 12, 2024December 5, 2023 / thewritelife61 / 4 Comments

This month we are visiting with some of our favorite families. I absolutely would have included The Waltons this month if we had not covered the show recently. However, another historic family, the Ingalls, is on the schedule. Little House on the Prairie was on the air for nine seasons. Many of us got to know the family through Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books.

Television producer Ed Friendly acquired the film and television rights from the books. Oddly enough, the other show Friendly is known for as producer is Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In. He decided to make Little House a two-hour pilot and asked Michael Landon to direct it. Landon agreed to do so if he could also play Pa, Charles Ingalls. The pilot aired in March of 1974, and in September the series began.

Along with starring in the show, Landon continued to direct as well; he directed 87 of the 204 episodes. The other directors included William F. Claxton, Victor French, Maury Dexter, and Leo Penn.

Landon also got in on the writing of several episodes. He had written several scripts for Bonanza when he appeared on that show, and several of them were recycled for Little House.

Like The Waltons, while this series was often happy with comedic notes, it dealt with many serious issues as well, including alcoholism, drug addiction, poverty, racism, child abuse, and rape. The show focused on the struggles and joys of a pioneer family living in the late 1800s.

Along with Landon, Karen Grassle played Ma, Melissa Gilbert played Laura, Melissa Sue Anderson was Mary, with Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush alternating as Carrie. In addition to the Ingalls family, other town folk on the show included Nellie Oleson (Alison Arngrim), Nels Oleson (Richard Bull), Harriet Oleson (Katherine “Scottie” MacGregor, and Miss Beadle (Charlotte Stewart).

Some of the guest stars included Willie Aames, Anne Archer, Lew Ayres, Hermione Baddeley, Ken Berry, Ray Bolger, Ernest Borgnine, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Burl Ives, Charles Lane, Vera Miles, Sean Penn, and Ray Walston.

The theme song, “The Little House,” was written and conducted by David Rose. Rose won two Emmys for his work on the show.Although the pilot ranked #3 for the 1974 ratings, the first two seasons were much lower. Season 3 found the show on Monday nights where it remained one of the highest-ranking series through season 7. Season 8 had a significant decline and season 9, with the loss of most of the family members, never really caught on with viewers. However, season two is the only year the show was not in the top 30. The schedule was a bit crazy when you analyze it. Although, this show did have to compete with The Jeffersons and WKRP in Cincinnati, because they were half-hour shows and this was an hour show, many people probably continued watching the second half. For many of these years, there were up to six different shows in this time spot on CBS and many of them changed from year to year, so there were rarely shows in this spot against Little House for more than a month or two.

After eight seasons, both Michael Landon and Karen Grassle were ready to move on; however, Landon did stay on as a director and writer. The show focused on Laura Almanzo and the younger generation for the ninth and final season.

The show was loved by critics as well as viewers and received sixteen Emmy nominations. The series won four of them, all for music and cinematography. The only cast member nominated was Melissa Sue Anderson; she lost to Sada Thompson for Family.

Viewers were not ready to leave the Ingalls for good. Three made-for-tv movies were written: Little House: Look Back to Yesterday in 1983, Little House: The Last Farewell and Little House: Bless All the Dear Children, both in 1984. In 2008 the Ingalls’ lives also became a musical at the Guthrie Theater.

One fun story is when the show moved from Paramount to MGM Studios in the late seventies, they were uncovering sets so they could build new ones and found the yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz which delighted the kids in the cast; I’m guessing it delighted many of the adults as well.

Another fun story was learning what the cast ate on the show. Since beef stew was a popular meal in the 1800s, the family often had that for its meal and when they did, they were actually eating Dinty Moore Beef Stew. When they had chicken, it was KFC that appeared on their plates.

The kids must have been troopers because each episode took about seven days to shoot. They were on location at Big Sky Ranch for four days and in the studio for interior shots about three days. In addition, they were probably witnesses to off-air scenes that were not the best. Grassle and Landon were not close, probably because his role seemed much bigger than hers and he was directing as well. Unfortunately, both Grassle and Landon were alcoholics, and alcohol was part of their life on set. During season four, Grassle quit when she realized the seriousness of her problem. Landon was never able to kick his dependence and died from pancreatitis.

Gilbert said that Michael Landon had interesting ways to inspire his kids to get emotional on the set. He worked himself up to become very emotional and with eyes full of tears would ask her “Do you know how much I love you?” which would bring tears to her eyes as well.

It might have been a way to get her to cry, but it was not a lie. Gilbert lost her own father when she was eleven, and Landon became a second father to her. He often had Gilbert at his house on the weekends. She said it was a huge house and the kids ran through the house at will. Often Landon would hide behind doorways and jump out and scare them. Gilbert said Landon provided her with a lot of great advice. The most memorable for her was that nothing is more of a priority than home and family, and no success is as important as loving your people and contributing to a community. And to have fun above all in your career.

That is sage fatherly advice for us all to remember.

Tom Bosley Scores a Home Run on Any Team

August 2, 2021August 2, 2021 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Since January was all about female sitcom actresses, this month we give the men their fair due. We begin this series, “The Men of August,” with Tom Bosley. Anyone who was a Happy Days fan knows why Bosley is part of this line-up.

Image result for images of tom bosley — Photo: quotetab.com

Bosley was born in Chicago in 1927. His father was in real estate and his mother was a concert pianist. After graduating from high school, he served in the Navy during WWII. His father was in WWI and then served again in WWII, building army bases on the coast.

Following the war, he attended DePaul University in Chicago, declaring his major as Pre-Law. He had to take night classes because the day classes were full, and after getting tired of teachers not showing up, he switched to a radio school, hoping to be an announcer because he loved baseball, but acting eventually tugged at his heart.” In 1949 and 1950 he performed at the Woodstock Opera House in Woodstock, Illinois with Paul Newman. He was in the first live television show ever done in Chicago which was a production of Macbeth, about 1948 (on WBKB).

In the early fifties, he moved to New York and held a variety of jobs, including coat checker at Lindy’s restaurant, doorman at Tavern on the Green, and Wall Street bookkeeper. He continued to audition for his big break. During the fifties while he was looking for work, he shared rent with another Chicago actor trying to make it in the entertainment business: Harvey Korman.

With one foot in Broadway and one in television, Bosley took on a variety of roles in his early career. In 1955 he appeared in a television production of “Alice in Wonderland” as the Knave of Hearts. In 1959, he won a lot of acclaim as New York mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia in the Broadway musical “Fiorello!” and won a Tony award. Bosley would later return to Broadway in the 1990s taking on the roles of Maurice in “Beauty and the Beast” and as Cap’n Andy in “Show Boat.”

In the 1960s he explored motion pictures and landed his first role as a suitor of Natalie Wood in Love with the Proper Stranger.

Although he continued to appear in the big screen, the little screen took up most of his time in the sixties and early seventies. In 1962 he played opposite Tony Randall and Boris Karloff in “Arsenic & Old Lace.” His face became a familiar one showing up in Car 54, Where Are You?, Bonanza, Get Smart, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, The Mod Squad, The Streets of San Francisco, Bewitched, McMillan and Wife, and Marcus Welby, among others.

It was also during this decade he married Jean Eliot. They were married until she passed away in 1978.

In 1974 he accepted the role that would make him a household name. “Love and the Television Set” was one of the four skits appearing on an episode of Love American Style, and I actually remember watching it. Garry Marshall developed it as a pilot, but the network wasn’t interested in turning the pilot into a show when it first came up. However, once George Lucas released American Graffiti in 1973, also starring Ron Howard, ABC took another look at the period show. The first two seasons, the show focused more on Richie Cunningham as he interacted with his friends and family. Jerry Paris (Jerry Helper on The Dick Van Dyke Show) directed 237 of the episodes. Happy Days was described as relentlessly ordinary. The plots revolved around the same types of problems most teens experienced in the fifties: dating, wanting to be popular, peer pressure, and similar issues.

Bosley originally turned down the role but reconsidered after reading the script more thoroughly; he was drawn to a scene between Howard and Richie that moved him. Bosley said he also was looking for some security. His wife was sick at the time, and they thought she might have epilepsy, which was later determined to be a brain tumor; he wanted an easier schedule in order to care for his wife and help raise his daughter.

He captured the sometimes cranky, but lovable, Howard Cunningham perfectly. He might not agree with his children, but he was always there for them, and he was apparently always there for his castmates who all remembered him as a kind, fatherly figure.

For a decade, Bosley developed the role of Howard into a much-loved sitcom father. Bosley said none of the characters were well defined in the early scripts. The cast developed their characters as relationships developed. He described the actors as a baseball team that never made errors; they just clicked and had a wonderful rapport.

During the run of the show, his wife passed away from her tumor, and in 1980 he married actress Patricia Carr whom he stayed married to until his death.

When the show ended, Bosley was immediately offered another role. Although he appeared in a variety of shows in the early eighties, including five episodes of Love Boat, he moved from Milwaukee to Maine to help Jessica Fletcher solve mysteries on Murder, She Wrote. Bosley said the role of Jessica was written for Jean Stapleton, but then she did not want to do it so it was offered to Angela Lansbury. He and Angela had worked together in the past, so he did the pilot. It was supposed to be a one-time role, but they brought him back nineteen times without a contract. As Sheriff Amos Tupper, he spent four years trying to figure out why so many murders took place in peaceful Cabot Cove. He then retired from the police force and moved to live with his sister.

Image result for images of tom bosley father dowling — James Stephens, Tracy Nelson, Bosley, Mary Wickes Photo: pinterest.com

He actually did work with a sister in his next role on Father Dowling Mysteries. As Father Frank Dowling by day, he moonlighted, solving mysteries with his assistant Sister Stephanie Oskowski (played by Tracy Nelson, Rick Nelson’s daughter and granddaughter of Ozzie and Harriet).

Bosley described Father Dowling as being a lot like himself: calm, quiet, and caring. While murders occurred on the show, there was no violence. When they were casting the part for the housekeeper, they described the character as a Mary Wickes type, and Bosley told them to just get Mary Wickes, and he loved working with her. He enjoyed that show more than any of the other shows he worked on. The cast was totally caught off guard when it was cancelled. The network wanted to do a show with James Earl Jones and Richard Crenna. They gave Crenna’s agent a short-time period to agree to the show and he agreed before the limit ended, so the network was forced to delete a show from the current schedule to make room for this new show and they chose Father Dowling; the James Earl Jones show, Pros and Cons, also about several private detectives, and was dropped after 12 episodes.

When the show ended in 1991, his career definitely did not. When asked if he was going to retire, he replied, “Don’t be silly—actors spend half of their careers in retirement.” He continued appearing in a variety of shows (39 in all) until his death in 2010 from a staph infection.

There are several actors I get confused by at times because of their similarities. One is Ray Walston from My Favorite Martian with Jonathan Harris from Lost in Space. The other is Tom Bosley with David Doyle from Charlie’s Angels. At least I felt better about my mental error after doing research on Bosley. Apparently, David Doyle was named “Bosley” on the show because people confused the two actors so often.

I’m sure Tom Bosley would have made an excellent attorney or announcer, but I’m happy that he followed his acting passion, and I’m thankful for the five decades he was willing to entertain us with his special gift.

Sherwood Schwartz: A Brand New Look

November 26, 2018 / thewritelife61 / 3 Comments

Sherwood Schwartz was born in November of 1916 in New Passic, New Jersey. The Pawnshop starring Charlie Chaplin was showing in theaters. These silent films would lead to radio and television developments that would change the course of Schwartz’s life.

Photo: charliechaplin.com

After getting his undergrad degree in New York, Sherwood moved to California to attend school and get his Masters in Biology. His goal was to have a career in endocrinology doing research. Unfortunately, he was put on a waiting list because the medical schools he applied to had a quota for the number of Jewish students they would accept. It was suggested that he change his name and religion. He refused and never did get into medical school.

Photo: tvparty.com

While waiting, he submitted jokes to Bob Hope for his radio show. He picked Hope’s show specifically because his brother Al worked for the show. (Al wanted to be a comedy writer, but his parents made him get a degree first. After passing the bar, he informed them he was off to California.) Bob Hope asked Sherwood to join his brother on staff and he accepted. He honed his comedy skills writing for four years with Bob Hope.

In 1941 he married Mildred Seidman and they had a family of four children. Sherwood also wrote for the Alan Young Show on radio.

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During World War II, he wrote for the Armed Forces Radio and when the war was over, he joined the staff of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Ozzie Nelson has a reputation for being a perfectionist. When Schwartz was asked about this, he gave the following example: “Oh absolutely. Absolutely true. That is the only man I know who, after his show was in reruns would take the reruns and re-edit them because he wasn’t happy with something. When it was too late to do anything with them, he still did it.”

Photo: wikipedia.org

In the 1950s, Schwartz made the move to television. He took a position with the writers on I Married Joan starring Joan Davis and Jim Backus. He described the difficulty in writing for her show. “She refused to do the show unless a writer was on the set. She wanted to be able to say I need a better line and have that provided to her right then and there. Since there were only three writers for the show, one had to be on the set while the other two continued working on upcoming scripts.” As he put it, “The stage would be quiet for a moment, 75 production people were scattered around the stage and you had to get a better line or a better blackout. That’s enormous pressure for a writer. It was a rough week (when it was his turn to be on set).”

He became the head writer on The Red Skelton Show where he also worked with his brother. He did not enjoy working with Skelton. Skelton had a reputation for treating writers badly. Schwartz received an Emmy for his work on the show. The final straw was when Sherwood was listening to an interview with Skelton. He was asked why his show was so successful, and he replied, “Every week, when I get those lousy scripts from the writers I yawn. And the voice of God tells me how to fix things.” Sherwood decided the pay was not worth the grief of working for Skelton, so he left the series.

He was then hired to retool My Favorite Martian in 1963 co-starring Bill Bixby and Ray Walston. CBS asked him to do some “reconstruction” work for the series, and he worked on seven episodes. He said the pilot was a great blueprint, but the writers were not following it as well as they should have. They were concentrating on Tim and his problems when the show needed to feature the challenges the Martian was having adapting to life on earth.

During this time, he was thinking about his own series. When he and his brother worked in the radio industry, they came up with an idea for a show called Help, about seven servants who work for a rich family. He now began to take that idea and expand it. What if he took seven people from all different walks of life–but how to get them in one place was the stumbling block.

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It began to come together when he placed them on a deserted island. Later that year the pilot was shot with a movie star, a professor, a millionaire and his wife, a farm girl, a skipper, and his first mate inhabiting an island while waiting to be rescued. It was not an elite or snobby show to be sure. FCC chairman Newton Minnow is the person who called television a “vast wasteland,” and in his honor, the Skipper’s boat was christened The SS Minnow.

Viewers always loved the show, but critics not so much. Schwartz said the critics never understood “the big picture” of what the characters represented. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Terrence O’Flaherty wrote that “It is difficult for me to believe that Gilligan’s Island was written, directed and filmed by adults.” UPI’s Rick DuBrow wrote “It is impossible that a more inept, moronic or humorless show has ever appeared on the home tube.” Ouch!

Schwartz said he was not “disheartened by the reviews . . . only a bit angry with the lack of understanding of what was being attempted.” As he continued, “these are the same men who are forever saying ‘For heaven’s sake, won’t somebody give us something other than the wife and the husband and the two children?’”

He once admitted “I honestly think I could sit down and write a show tonight that the critics would love, and I know it would be canceled within four weeks. I know what the critics love. We write and produce for people, not for critics.”

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The show also gave him a new skill as a lyric writer. Along with George Wyle, he wrote the theme song for Gilligan’s Island.

Although the show was popular with viewers, executive William Paley never liked it. The show was being moved around the schedule, and in order to move Bonanza to a different time spot, he cancelled Gilligan’s Island. Gilligan’s Island was on the air for three years, but it established Schwartz’s reputation as a producer and writer.

Apparently, many people felt the show was realistic. A coast guard colonel called Sherwood and later showed him letters from people who were concerned about the castaways being stranded on the island and asking the coast guard to rescue them.

Although the show was cancelled, it never really went away. Two animated series and three TV movies would spin off the show. It has also been on air in reruns since 1967. In 1988, Sherwood wrote a book, Inside Gilligan’s Island.

With the cancellation of Gilligan’s Island, Sherwood began work on another new show. He had read an article that reported nearly one-third of American households included at least one child from a previous marriage. He decided to feature this sociological change and wrote a script about a woman with three daughters who marries a man with three sons. The networks all liked the idea but were asking for some major changes which he refused to make.

In 1968 the movie, Yours, Mine and Ours came out about a blended family and the networks now wanted the show. The series, starring Robert Reed and Florence Henderson as Mike and Carol Brady, aired on ABC from 1969 to 1974. The Brady kids were played by Maureen McCormick, Barry Williams, Eve Plumb, Susan Olsen, Christopher Knight, and Mike Lookinland. Ann B. Davis played Alice, the housekeeper.

Photo: boston.cbslocal.com

Again, the critics dismissed the show. What surprised me was that The Brady Bunch never did as well as Gilligan’s Island in the ratings. When it debuted, I was eight, and we all looked forward to Friday night when we would plant ourselves to watch The Brady Bunch and beginning in 1970, The Partridge Family, The Odd Couple, and Love American Style.

While the critics wrote the show off as unrealistic, many of the scripts were taken from the Schwartz family’s life. His daughter said she was not thrilled to watch the show and see a story about her life as part of the plot.

Similarly to Gilligan, once again, Schwartz wrote The Brady Bunch theme song, this time with Frank DeVol.

Photo: youtube.com

There are a lot of rumors that Robert Reed and Sherwood did not get along. After a lot of research, I’ve determined that Reed was never happy about what he saw as an inferior role. I think he wanted to do Shakespeare-quality shows in a time when there was not a need for that type of show. He seemed to nitpick the scripts too much and was too literal. Although I’ve read some memos where I totally agree with his interpretation, you can only spend so much time dissecting everything. On one show, he walks into the kitchen where the women are cooking strawberries and his line is, “This smells like strawberry heaven.” He wasted time writing a memo about the fact that he researched what strawberries smell like cooking and determined that they had no smell. He needed to learn to pick his battles, I guess.

In another similarity to Gilligan’s Island, not only did The Brady Bunch never leave the air after it was cancelled, but it too resulted in many other versions. An animated series, The Brady Kids, appeared on Saturday morning. Several TV movies, including The Brady Girls Get Married and A Very Brady Christmas were produced in the 1980s. That movie spawned a reboot of the original tv series which didn’t last long on the air. Finally, Sherwood also produced a movie for Paramount, A Very Brady Sequel, a satire of the original television show, in 1994.

Sherwood’s son Lloyd helped produce and write the tv movies and the Paramount film. In addition, they wrote a book together, Brady, Brady, Brady: The Complete Story of The Brady Bunch as Told by the Father/Son Team Who Really Knew. The reviews of Sherwood’s book about Gilligan’s Island are mostly positive. This book had very mixed reviews. Most fans seemed to enjoy the first part of the book told by Sherwood, but the majority of readers dismissed the second part, primarily written by Lloyd, as insensitive and egotistical. Few people had any positive comments about Lloyd’s involvement.

Although Schwartz would never repeat the success he had with The Brady Bunch or Gilligan’s Island, he did create several other series.

Photo: metv.com

In 1966 after Gilligan ended, he produced It’s About Time where two astronauts end up in a prehistoric era and must learn to live with the natives. This show lasted one year, and 26 episodes were written.

Photo: metv.com

In 1973, Bob Denver again worked with Leonard in Dusty’s Trail. Seven travelers similar to the castaways get separated from their wagon team heading west and must work together to try to catch up to their group. Sounds rather familiar. Season one ended up with 27 episodes.

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Big John, Little John aired in 1976 and was a situation comedy on Saturday mornings featuring a man who turns into a 12-year-old after drinking from the fountain of youth. Only 13 episodes were produced.

Photo: sitcomsonline.com

Finally, in 1981, Schwartz took the song “Harper Valley PTA” and turned it into a series with Barbara Eden and Fanny Flagg. Once again, Sherwood wrote the theme song. The show was on the air for two years and produced 30 episodes.

Photo: wikipedia.org

In 2008 he was awarded both a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

In 2011, Sherwood died peacefully in his sleep from natural causes. Although he and Reed may not have been close, the rest of his cast seem to have nothing but good things to say about him.

Photo: emmytvlegends.org

Florence Henderson quoted, “Sherwood was a wonderful writer and producer, but more importantly he was a wonderful husband, father, grandfather and friend. I don’t ever remember him losing his temper. Ultimately, he was a wonderful teacher in life and again, in death, he taught us how to leave with dignity and courage.”

Barry Williams who played Greg, the oldest Brady, said, “As much as Robert Reed was like a dad to me, Sherwood was like a grandpa.”

Photo: today.com

Oldest daughter Marcia played by Maureen McCormick, noted that “My mom, father and I would all go to Sherwood for advice because he always had a great answer.”

Tina Louise, Ginger from Gilligan’s Island, said he “brought laughter and comfort to millions of people. Gilligan’s Island was a family, He will be in our hearts forever.”

Photo: tabletmag.com

Bob Denver who always had wonderful things to say about him, summed up working with him on a radio interview he did with Peter Anthony from Montreal radio station CJAD 800 AM on January 6, 1994. “Sherwood, as a producer, he was one of the best writer producers. It’s amazing. That man was just amazing. We never knew there were any problems when we were shooting. He kept all the network craziness away from us. He was writing scripts literally four months in advance, so that special effects and props always got them in plenty of time . . . you just memorized your words and went down there and had a great time. It wasn’t until afterwards when I left that I realized that not everybody was in the same situation. So, every time I had a chance to work with him, I did.”

Schwartz had two unbelievably successful television series. But more than that, he knew how to use their brand and marketing to keep them going. Here we are 50 years later, and kids today still understand references to both shows. They have both been on the air continuously since they were first cancelled. Generations have watched the shows. The two theme songs, co-written by him, are two of the best-known songs from television history.

Photo: npr.org

I thought Paul Lieberstein (producer of The Office) summed up Schwartz’s influence best. In an email to Vulture, he wrote, “There was no one who shaped my childhood more. I could easily draw you a map of Gilligan’s Island and a floor plan of the Brady Bunch house—and I’m not even sure if my own childhood home had two stories.” And speaking of that blueprint, in 2019, exactly 50 years since The Brady Bunch debuted, HGTV has bought the house used for exterior shots for The Brady Bunch and will be renovating it. Once again generations will be watching The Brady Bunch cast with HGTV and learning about the show as the brand continues.