More trivia about the show:
Sheila Kuehl (billed as “Sheila James”), who played Zelda Gilroy, eventually went to Harvard Law School. She became a lawyer, a law professor, a member of the California State Assembly, and a member of the California State Senate. She is now a Los Angeles County Supervisor.
I always liked that the Internal Monologues (well, directed at the TV audience with pretty clear Fourth Wall Breaking) were done in front of a replica of Rodin’s The Thinker.
One thing I didn’t reralize until well after I had last seen the show was that they based that characters in Scooby Doo on them – Fred was Dobie, Thalia was Daphne, and Velma was Zelda (really close name there). Shaggy was obviously Maynard G. Krebs.
I loved the character names on Dobie. Milton Armitage, Chatsworth Osborne, Jr., Thalia Menninger.
Plus there was Maynard G. Krebs, Dobie Gillis, Zelda Gilroy, Leander Pomfritt, Imogene Burkhardt, Edwina Kegel, Aphrodite Millican, Grover P. Wister, Laurabelle Eddingboe, Rochelle Kincheloe, Anastasia Dimitrov, Giselle Hurlbut, Blossom Tarantino, . . . The weird names just went on and on.
One of the first openly gay politicians, IIRC.
Actually it was his cousin, played by Michael J Pollard, who lasted two shows but apparently got to known Warren Beatty (who is very reluctant to acknowledge he was on the show) well enough to get cast in “Bonnie and Clyde”. The last season they did have a 14ish cousin of Dobie (named Dunky, not Oliver or Seven) for a few episodes to try to have Dobie as an older, guiding spirit. Actually the first season there is an older brother of Dobie, who no doubt was a college roommate of Chuck Cunningham.
Interesting the Dobie Gillis character in the 1953 movie “The Affairs of Dobie Gillis” is a lot different than the later tv show. He’s a student at Grainbelt University (motto: “Study, Study, Study, Work, Work, Work”) who manipulates teachers and women such as Debbie Reynolds and Barbara Ruick want to date him.
In the tv series Maynard was quickly discharged for the benefit of the army but in the second season he and Dobie were allowed to enlist, with Chatsworth Osborne Jr shortly following them.
“I gotta kill that boy, I just gotta”
“Work?”
“You rang?”
“Good morning, students, and I use that term loosely”
"My father is 60 and has a kidney condition, my mother isn’t getting under younger, my sister is married to a loafer and my brother is giving every indication of being a public charge’
Of course the in-joke is that Imogene Burkhardt was the real name of Jean Byron, the actress who played her
Played by Dwayne Hickman’s real-life brother.
I’ve been working my way through the series via Netflix over the last few months; I’m near the end of season three now. Maynard gets noticeably more snarky this season…and really runs the “Oh come now” catch phrase into the ground.
Where are you watching the program?
Netflix (DVD service; they don’t have it streaming).
More about Sheila Kuehl/Zelda Gilroy: A spinoff show, Zelda, was planned and a pilot shot, but the CBS brass quashed it because the character was “too butch.” Since the whole point of the Zelda Gilroy character, at least on TMLODG, is her relentless pursuit of a boy, this can only reflect on the execs’ feelings about Kuehl herself.
Winnie: “Now Herbert, he’s my son too.”
Herbert: “Well, I’m gonna kill my half!”
Points for Discussion:
“W.W. TWO-- the Big One”
Professor Pomfritt. He was always finally getting ready to discuss his favorite topic–and the bell would ring. What was it…? Some romantic poet, wasn’t it? Wordsworth?
Thank you for correcting the spelling in the thread title.
*With *the Good Conduct Medal!
“Love doesn’t butter any parsnips”- Thalia Menninger
Yvonne Craig, who played five different characters, played a Thalia-like woman named Linda Sue Faversham. Her stock phrase was “You can’t fly to the moon with gossamer wings”
“Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis.”
Nah. Zelda was kinda butch, er, tomboyish herself. I preferred her. In my 7-yr-old mind she was more “real” than the bombshells who ignored Dobie.
Thanks to this thread I had to edit Darryl Hickman’s Wikipedia entry. Something was wrong, or uncited, on the internet.
Max Shulman anecdote I’ve told before! He was at the University of Minnesota at the same time as my father, writing headlines for the school paper. W. W. TWO, the Big One, was on and there were all sorts of drives collecting recyclables for the war effort. One sorority was collecting candles for their paraffin (wax, for you Brits). Shulman’s headline was, “Co-eds Prepare Boxes for Candle Stuffing.”
The last season tends to have Maynard story lines. Maynard finds a caveman living on the outskirts of town, Maynard drinks a potion that turns him into Mr Hyde, Russian spies (Barbara Bain) mistake Maynard for a scientists. Add a couple Dunky episodes, Shulman was definitely running out of ideas about what to do with Doble “that’s Dobie with a B”.
Amen, brother. Zelda was smart, funny, cute, a true friend, and adored Dobie for who he was. Even as a ten year old I thought he was an imbecile for being so shallow. She even called him “Poopsie” - what more could a man ask for?
Damned straight!
She didn’t exactly adore Dobie.