Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis? There was no internet or play stations. this is a really funny send-up of high school dating in the late 50s/early 60s. Even in one of my favorites 'Happy Days', the guys got occasional side jobs for after jobs. The sculptures were really interesting and there is a lot to look at, I especially enjoyed the park like environment and the outdoor sculptures. Ahead of its time? ", KLEIN: "A girl? When we purchased the Paris Museum pass, we tried to spread everywhere (A LOT OF PLACES!) Others have commented how this was ahead of its time. And what are the people who live in it except a lot of individuals, like you. This show is consistently underrated in my opinion. NOTE: This is a great film to watch if you love Parisand the literary arts! ", KLEIN: "Ah-ha, that doesn't seem like too much to ask, yet it's everything isn't it? Below is an excerpt from a personal tribute to Bob from Dwayne Hickman. [28], The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was a major influence on the characters for another successful CBS program, the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which ran on the network from 1969 to 1970 followed by several spin-offs. This is a Must in Paris, even for people athat are not Art and Sculpture Lovers. You had your incredibly unrealistic disgustingly "picture perfect" clean and wholesome pleasentville family sitcoms that bared absolutely NO resemblance to real life whatsoever (My Three Sons, Donna Reed, Hazel, Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It To Beaver, etc) or you had these incredibly stupid sitcoms with outrageous premises that were so out of touch with reality that they aren't that watchable now because they appealed to the lowest common denominator of intelligence amongst American people (Mister Ed, Hogan's Heroes, Gilligan's Island, Beverly Hillbillies, etc). The series ran for four seasons on CBS-TV from September of 1959 to the final episode of the series in August of 1963. The gardens are truly amazing. [3] Originally intended as a one-shot character for the episode "Love is a Science" (season one, episode three), Max Shulman liked both Zelda and Sheila James and had Zelda retained as a semiregular character. It is the one seen in the movie Midnight in Paris with Owen Wilson (2011, Woody Allen film). She eventually played five different girlfriends on the show, more than any other actress. The Thinker, bronze statue in the garden of Rodins Museum, Paris, France. He went on to appear in movies and other TV shows and to work as a television executive, but the role of Dobie would dog him for decades. Dobie (played by Dwayne Hickman) would usually open the show next to a statue of Rodin's "The Thinker" where he would give a monologue to the television audience pondering a specific aspect of life. Shulman also wrote a feature-film adaptation of his "Dobie Gillis" stories for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1953, titled The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, which featured Bobby Van in the title role. The Thinker is often parodied, and used in ads and media such as seen in various TV shows (i.e. Dwayne Hickman, the actor and network TV executive who despite numerous achievements throughout his life would always be remembered fondly by a generation of baby boomers for his role as Dobie. (season four, episode two).[2]. I was really excited when the first one I ever saw was in the National Museum in Oslo, Norway. ", KLEIN: "Dobie, at the age when you were dancing with Thalia Menninger (Tuesday Weld), I was locked in a laboratory working out a theory that only a few eggheads like me even cared about. That stopped when his hair began falling out. All Posts. Clearly ahead of its time, "Dobie" was 1959 television's version of hormonal teen love----franker than you would find in "Father Knows Best" or "Ozzie and Harriet"---while still reflecting the social and moral conscience of the time. [2] Recording engineers had to piece together numerous takes to get a usable vocal track from Hickman for each song. It was moved to the gardens of the Rodin Museum in 1922. All Rights Reserved, ve been watching the episodes from the beginning, https://www.facebook.com/JournalofaUFOInvestigator. ", KLEIN: "No Dobie, you're going to give them the message, your own message. He aspires to have dates with all of the beautiful girls he pursues, despite the pressures of home life, high school, and later the military and college. Shout! [8] James' contract for the pilot and the resulting waiting period caused her to be absent from much of the fourth and final season of Dobie Gillis, though Amateau was able to hire her to return as Zelda for four episodes towards the end of the season. Some scholars suggest that the Poet was originally meant to represent Dante, but the muscular and bulky form contrasts with typical sculptures that depict the poet as slender and lithe. When I walked into the labor room, a nurse was asking her questions as she filled out her chart, he wrote. They are massive, impressiveand well worth seeing in person to fully appreciate. | I mean polite inside, in your heart, an honest respect for the other guy's feelings and opinions, even if you don't agree with him. In the course of the show Dobie graduates from high school, briefly joins the army, and returns to the same town to attend college. Mr. Franken, a comedic character actor who appeared in films with Peter Sellers and others, was best known for playing Chatsworth Osborne Jr. on the sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis." Early in the series, Mr. Hickmans hair was bleached blond. The trouble is that the girls he's constantly falling for at school are all looking for money or status, which Dobie doesn't have. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. | Hey, TVLand, I've got your Big Neilsen right here!! And here sits Dobie--ridiculously average, being tossed between them all like a beachball, and trying to make sense of it all. The main running gag on Dobie Gillis would have Dobie or one of the other characters rattling off a series of adjectives describing something undesirable or disgusting ("I'd be a ragged, useless, dirty wreck! Based on stories by humorist Max Shulman, the series lasted four years, during which Dobie's hair turned from blond to brown. And have a great year of learningand thinking!in whatever capacity in which you find yourself! His sidekick and de facto best friend was American television's first beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver), who became the series' breakout character. But the two sitcoms from that era I really remember are The Burns and Allen Show, and Dobie Gillis. [4] It was broadcast by CBS on May 10, 1977, as a one-shot special. but who was deep down a fine guy (he reminded me a lot of one of my uncles). [4], Bob Denver, a 23-year-old grade-school teacher and postal worker with no previous professional acting experience, won the part of 18-year-old Maynard G. Krebs after his sister, a casting director's secretary, added his name to a list of candidates auditioning for the role. Thalia was written out of the series after the first season and was succeeded by a seemingly endless stream of women for whom Dobie hankered. The titular character appeared at various ages in these stories, all of which are set in St. Paul, Minnesota, though the majority of the stories centered on his college years at the University of Minnesota. The series revolved around teenager Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman), who aspired to have popularity, money, and the attention of beautiful and unattainable girls. And if you are visiting New York City, hop the train to the campus of Columbia University and see a large one that you can TOUCHand take photos withwithout a diligent museum guard chastising you! One of the show's running gags is that Maynard is going downtown "to watch them knock down the old Endicott Building" (which is in Saint Paul, Minnesota). He was 87. During the series, Dobie and Maynard join the army. Dwayne Hickman was the all- American boy next door who was always competing for the hand of Thalia Menninger(Tuesday Weld)from either Milton Armitage or the annoying Chatsworth Osbourne, Jr.(who was the rich kid that had everything)with the help of his good friend and sometimes wacky Maynard G. Krebbs(played by Bob Denver) who may have been lazy and sloppy,but he was really cool and down with the beat in other words,the essential beatnick. who was into Dizzy Gillespie and would go berserk if someone mention "work",around him. LOS ANGELES - Dwayne Hickman, the actor and network TV executive who despite numerous achievements throughout his life would always be remembered fondly by a generation of baby boomers for his role. Two years after Leave it to Beaver became the first show to look at life from a child's view, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis becomes the first sitcom to focus on a teenage perspective of life. French Impressionist. Factory TV, Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, and Vudu. He was 87. and Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis were not included, the latter due to music clearances, and the former because the master copy could not be located. To make different sized duplicates, they used a Collas machine, which was based on a pantograph system and resembled a lathe. [17] Denver and Hickman had both attended Loyola University together several years earlier and were casually acquainted before Dobie Gillis. The characters are over-the-top (as are most so-called "sit-coms"). With Dobie himself narrating, the plots shake off at least a grain of their sitcom stiffness. [19], Former child actress Sheila James, who, playing daughter "Jackie" on The Stu Erwin Show, had worked with Dwayne Hickman on that series and The Bob Cummings Show, was cast without an audition as Zelda Gilroy, the tomboyish brainy girl who was in love with Dobie. He got arrested in the first episode, by the way. [17], Before Pollard had completed his first episode, "The Sweet Singer of Central High", however, Denver returned and announced that he had been designated "4F" unfit for service during his physical because of a neck injury he had sustained some years earlier. Corrections? Mr. Denver would go on to star in Gilligans Island.. As a result, his career over the following decades wove in and out of Hollywood, embracing stints as the entertainment director for Howard Hughess Landmark Hotel in Las Vegas, an advertising man, a network programming executive and, in later years, a successful painter of realist landscapes. TRAVEL TIP: Because there are so many copies of this famous sculpturecheck out the website of a museum you plan to visit (anywhere in the world!) Dobie Gillis is set in Central City, a fictitious city in the Midwestern United States (the original short stories are explicitly set in the MinneapolisSaint Paul area). Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Now speak up Dobie, don't be a prima donna. A young man schemes and attempts to get the "better things in life" mostly popularity, success, and most importantly, girls. As "Dobie Gillis" continued on until 1963, and Hickman's and Denver's characters aged (both actors were already in their mid-20s when the show began), viewers saw them go from high school . While I was standing by observing, you were living, you were part of life, I was outside it. Le Penseur is here (the thinker). The teen characters graduated from high school halfway through the second season, and Dobie and Maynard (along with Chatsworth) subsequently did a brief stint in the U.S. I had never watched the series when I was a kid. A wry, hip-for-its-time sitcom that charts the hopes, dreams and frustrations of a typical teen (if sitting under the statue 'The Thinker' while . He was 87. His portraits include monumental figures of Victor Hugo and Honor de Balzac. As "Dobie Gillis" continued on until 1963, and Hickman's and Denver's characters aged (both actors were already in their mid-20s when the show began), viewers saw them go from high school . Silently perched along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Auguste Rodin's iconic sculpture greets visitors as they enter the Rodin Museum. Dobie, 17 when the show begins, is Everyteen. "), at which point a previously unseen Maynard would appear (entering the scene in close-up), saying "You rang?". I'll probably finish watching the series. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was an instant success, with its clever scripts and a cast that also included Bob Denver, Warren Beatty, and Tuesday Weld. Dwayne Hickman as Dobie Gillis is a clean-cut teenager (later young adult) and unremarkable student whose young heart finds poetry and literature resonant. They made me promise to get it to them. ", DOBIE: "Well, for openers, I'd try to make people more polite. I gave it 3 episodes and still do not like it. Dobie Gills and sit-coms in general are mindless entertainment. Ive seen two versions of this door: bronze door at the Rodin Museum garden; plaster cast at the Musee d Orsay, both in Paris, France. I can only hope. [19] Hickman later recalled that Beatty "looked at me like I was a bug" while on set. (It can be seen on YouTubecheck it out!). Rodins Gates of Hell is the other most famous version of The Thinker where a 19 Thinker sits atop a giant door and looks down at writhing bodies being sucked into hell. Nick At Nite used to show it 15 years ago, but I guess it is too intelligent for the types who run TVLand and Nick now, & who refuse to show any comedies unless they got big Neilsen's. That's not how it was back then. For those watching TV political ads in 1998, who can forget the former wrestler/body builder, Jesse Ventura, who was running for (and won!) Though the demands of his screen career caused him to leave before graduating, he later returned and completed a bachelors degree in economics. [22] The production starred Dwayne Hickman, Bob Denver, Sheila James, Frank Faylen, and Steven Paul as Dobie and Zelda's teenaged son Georgie, who was a lot like Dobie had been at his age. [2] Neither Hickman nor Weld was fond of the other, with Hickman later stating he felt Weld was not as dedicated as necessary to rehearsal and referring to her as "a pain in the neck". Leander Pomfritt (Herbert Anderson in the pilot, William Schallert thereafter) was Dobie's English and science teacher at Central High School, and later, when Dobie went to S. Peter Pryor Junior College, Pomfritt (played by Schallert) was on the faculty there, as well. And thinking, thinking, thinking about girls. He died in a North Carolina hospital of complications from cancer treatment. Captures the High School Adolescent Quirkiness of the 1950s/1960s. Weld returned as a slightly wiser Thalia for two guest appearances in seasons three and four. I'm an older guy in my 50's and have been on a 'reliving my childhood movies/television series' kick over the past couple years. ", KLEIN: "You, yes, that's why I'm going back to fundamentals, to the basic primitive things. Moved to the gardens of the series in August of 1963 they made me promise to get it to...., bronze statue in the National Museum in Oslo, Norway that 's why I 'm going back fundamentals... 17 ] Denver and Hickman had both attended Loyola University together several years earlier and were casually acquainted Dobie... Video, Tubi, and Vudu turned from blond to brown if you love Parisand literary. Purchased the Paris Museum pass, we tried to spread everywhere ( a lot of of. To give them the message, your own message before graduating, he returned! To get a usable vocal track from Hickman for each song Shulman, the guys got side. 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