Maynard G. Krebs and Kookie.
OK, Kookie is a clean beatnik.
Thanks, all.
Kookie wasn’t by any means a beatnik. I would call him a James Dean type but not so aloof. I think he defined the type, many others wanted to be Kookie. The wavy hair duck-tail, the constant combing. I remember several guys like that in high school.
Dennis
Yes, a James Dean. A rebel, cool. Fonzie was another one, only aimed at a different age group. It was a common type of character in 50s and 60s movies.
Fonzie? Oye.
Comparing James Dean to Fonzie? Oye gevalt!
Perhaps we could do a thread on Kookie vs. James Dean-Who Would Win? (If they aren’t driving)
My older brother used to watch Dobie. I only peripherally watched it, but Maynard was my crush. Bob Denver was pretty much my type for a long time.
Greaser.
The word “hip” began to supplant “hep” after World War 2, so by 1960 or so, Kookie would definitely be considered hip (as opposed to Dobie Gillis, who was a hopeless square.)
Likewise, “cool” began to take on the meaning of trend-setting/desirable/avant-garde in the 1940’s (both came out of the world of jazz), so it would be accurate to describe Kookie as cool.
Oddly enough, Troy Donohue played a nearly identical role in a nearly identical show called Surfside Six at the same time, and managed to be neither hip nor cool, ending as merely “teen heartthrob.”
Interestingly, Ed Brynes played a contract killer in the series’ pilot, but he was so popular with viewers that the show’s producers brought him back as Kookie. Both characters did the hair-combing bit. Cite
Yes, but a modified greaser.
Real life greasers were nothing like Fonzie. They may have looked and dressed somewhat like him, but most were genuinely badass or badass wannabes and you didn’t want to mess with them. The ones I knew wore heavy shoes embellished with horseshoe and Continental toe taps (all the better for kicking the crap out of you in a fight) and most carried switchblade knives, whose illegality only added to their cachet. They’d have laughed at Fonzie…if he was lucky.
