The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (also known as simply Dobie Gillis or Max Shulmans Dobie Gillis in later seasons and in syndication) is an American sitcom starring Dwayne Hickman that aired on CBS from September 29, 1959, to June 5, 1963. The series was adapted from the Dobie Gillis short stories written by Max Shulman since 1945 and first collected in 1951 under the same title as the subsequent TV series, which drew directly on the stories in some scripts. 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.
Hickman in Dobie Gillis was among the first leads to play a teenager on an American television program. Dobie Gillis broke ground by depicting elements of the contemporaneous counterculture, particularly the Beat Generation, primarily embodied in a stereotypical version of the "beatnik", mainly in the character of Maynard G. Krebs, portrayed by actor Bob Denver. Hickman wrote in 1994 that Dobie represented "the end of innocence of the 1950s before the oncoming 1960s revolution".
Overview Dobie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs
The series revolved around teenager Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman), who aspired to have popularity, money, and the attention of beautiful and unattainable girls. He did not have any of these qualities in abundance, and the tiny crises surrounding Dobie's lack of success made the story in each weekly episode. Also constantly in question, by Dobie and others, was Dobie's future, as the boy proved to be a poor student and an aimless drifter.
His sidekick and best friend was American television's first beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver), who became the series's breakout character. An enthusiastic fan of jazz music (with a strong distaste for the music of Lawrence Welk), Maynard plays the piano and bongos, collects tinfoil and petrified frogs, and steers clear of romance, authority figures, and work (yelping "Work?!" every time he hears the word). Always speaking with the vernacular and slang of the beatniks and jazz musicians he admired, Maynard punctuates his sentences with the word "like" and has a tendency towards malapropisms. 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!"), at which point a previously unseen Maynard would appear (entering the scene in close-up), saying "You rang?"
Dobie Gillis is set in Central City, a fictitious city in the Midwestern United States (the original short stories are explicitly set in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area). 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). Another running gag is the reference, especially by Maynard, to a film called The Monster that Devoured Cleveland and its sequels, one of which always seems to be playing at the local cinema.
Supporting characters Dobie's often apoplectic father, Herbert T. Gillis (Frank Faylen), owned a grocery store and was only happy when Dobie was behind a broom. Dobie's mother, Winifred (Florida Friebus), was a usually calm and serene woman who protected Dobie to the best of her ability and tended to baby him. Herbert Gillis, a proud, hard-working child of the Great Depression and World War II veteran, was often (during the first season of the show) heard to declare, in relation to Dobie, "I gotta kill that boy, I just gotta!" The Gillis family also originally included an older son, Davey Gillis (portrayed by Dwayne Hickman's own older brother, Darryl Hickman), who made three appearances during the first season while home on break from college before being written out of the show.
Dobie's two main antagonists were rich kids Milton Armitage (played by Warren Beatty), who appeared in five episodes, and after Beatty's departure, Chatsworth Osborne Jr., Milton's cousin (played by Steve Franken). Both characters represented the wealth and popularity to which Dobie aspired, but also served as romantic and competitive rivals for Dobie. Beatty's Milton was taller, better looking, and more athletic than Chatsworth (who ultimately proved more amiable/less snobbish than Milton). Doris Packer played Clarissa Osborne, Chatsworth's overbearing and snobbish mother, whom he affectedly (yet affectionately) referred to as "mumsie."
Dobie was hopelessly attracted to the beautiful but greedy blonde Thalia Menninger (Tuesday Weld). 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. Weld returned as a slightly wiser Thalia for two guest appearances in seasons three and four.
Zelda Gilroy (Sheila James) was a brilliant and eager young girl, hopelessly in love with Dobie, much to his annoyance. Zelda did not find Dobie particularly attractive, but fell in love with him because she found him helpless and needing of her care, and also because of the concept of "propinquity" (or nearness; as Gillis and Gilroy, they were typically seated together in class). Despite his protests, Dobie was clearly fond of Zelda, and Zelda claimed Dobie loved her, but just had not realized it yet. To prove this, she would wrinkle her nose at Dobie, who would reflexively do the same back to Zelda and then protest "now cut that out!" Dobie and Zelda later appeared as a middle-aged married couple in the two spin-off Dobie Gillis reunion projects of the 1970s/1980s.
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. A stern educator fond of deadpan quips, Pomfritt referred to his pupils as "my young barbarians" or "students (and I use that term loosely)" and served as a father figure to both Dobie and Maynard.
Format
Most of the action for the first season-and-a-half of Dobie Gillis centered on the Gillis grocery store, Central High School, and the Central City park. The park scenes are used as the show's framing device, with Dobie sitting on a park bench in front of a reproduction of Auguste Rodin's statue The Thinker. Breaking the fourth wall, he would explain to the viewing audience his problem of the week, usually girls or money (in the earliest episodes, Dobie is seen emulating the trademark pose of The Thinker – head planted on fist in deep contemplation – before turning and acknowledging the camera).
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. Army. Dobie continued to break the fourth wall and narrate the episodes, with the park set eschewed for an abstract set with the same reproduction of The Thinker.
At the start of the third season, Dobie and Maynard received their Army discharges, after which they, Zelda, and Chatsworth enroll in S. Peter Pryor Junior College, where Mr. Pomfritt was now a professor after having resigned from his position at Central High. Dobie's science and history teacher at the college was Dr. Imogene Burkhart (Jean Byron, whose real name was used for that of the character). In season four, Dobie's teenaged cousin Duncan "Dunky" Gillis (Bobby Diamond) moves in with the Gillises, and becomes something of a tag-along for Dobie and Maynard. The fourth-season episodes tended more towards surreal plots and situations featuring Maynard as the central character rather than Dobie.
Cast Main Dwayne Hickman as Dobie Gillis is a clean-cut teenager (later young adult) and unremarkable student whose young heart finds poetry and literature resonant. 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. Dobie also serves as the series narrator, relating his observations to the audience from in front of a statue of Rodin's The Thinker. Frank Faylen as Herbert T. Gillis, Dobie's old-fashioned, short-tempered, and gruff father, who runs a small independent grocery store. Florida Friebus as Winifred "Winnie" Gillis is Dobie's doting mother, who tends to baby her son and critique her husband's parenting skills. Bob Denver as Maynard G. Krebs is Dobie's lazy and somewhat goofy best friend. Maynard is a would-be beatnik who shuns romance, authority figures, and work. Like Dobie does later, Maynard briefly joins the Army in season two between his high-school graduation and enrollment in college.
Semiregulars Tuesday Weld as Thalia Menninger (season one) is a beautiful high-school classmate of Dobie's. Thalia is only willing to date Dobie when he has money or helps her in her schemes to make some for herself (with a father in poor health and a sister who married a layabout, Thalia sees it as her duty to bring some money into the family; she acknowledges that were this not a factor, she would date Dobie).The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, episode 1 – 'Caper at the Bijou' Weld departed the series after the first season, later returning to make two guest appearances, as a somewhat chastened Thalia, once in season three and once in season four. Warren Beatty as Milton Armitage (season one) is a rich jock at Dobie's high school and a rival of Dobie's for Thalia's affections. Beatty quit the series midway through the first season. Sheila James as Zelda Gilroy is the smartest girl in Dobie's high school and college. Zelda is in love with the uninterested Dobie and schemes ways to get him to date and marry her. Steve Franken as Chatsworth Osborne, Jr., is a spoiled rich boy and a classmate of Dobie's in high school and college. Chatsworth assumed the role left vacant by the departure of Milton from the series. Like Dobie, Chatsworth also briefly joins the Army in season two between his high-school graduation and enrollment in college. William Schallert as Professor Leander Pomfritt is a dry-wit English and science teacher at Dobie's high school and later one of Dobie's college professors at S. Peter Pryor Junior College (seasons one-three). Herbert Anderson plays Mr. Pomfritt in the pilot episode. Jean Byron as Mrs. Ruth Adams is Dobie's math teacher in high school (season one), and as Dr. Imogene Burkhart, is one of Dobie's professors at S. Peter Pryor Junior College. (seasons three and four). One of the series' inside jokes was that Jean Byron's birth name was Imogene Audette Burkhart. Doris Packer as Mrs. Clarice Armitage is Milton's mother, a rich and eccentric socialite. She shifted to Mrs. Clarissa Osborne (Chatsworth Osborne, Jr.'s mother) when Franken replaced Beatty midway through season one. She has disdain for anyone outside her social class and considers all boys, including her own son, as "nasty".
Notable recurring roles Darryl Hickman as Davey Gillis (season one) is Dobie's older brother, a college student no more responsible and no less girl-crazy than Dobie. Davey was written out of the series after season one and Dobie is regarded as an only child thereafter. Michael J. Pollard as Jerome Krebs (season one) is Maynard's cousin, also a beatnik. Jerome was intended as a replacement for Maynard when Bob Denver was drafted in mid-1959, and was written out of the show after Denver failed his Army physical and returned to the series. Marjorie Bennett as Blossom Kenney (seasons one and two) is a frequent and persnickety customer of the Gillises' grocery store. Tommy Farrell as Riff Ryan (seasons one and two) is a beatnik record-store and coffee-house proprietor who serves as something of a reluctant mentor for Maynard. Lynn Loring as Edwina "Eddie" Kegel (season three) is Chatsworth Osborne, Jr.'s beatnik cousin.