Posted on 11/24/2004 6:40:07 PM PST by Captain Peter Blood
I was listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show today and heard Rush start talking about last night's Crossfire Show.
I was only half way paying attention when he mentioned a question by Chatsworth Osborne, Jr..
Well I had to think a minute because I knew that name from someplace and then all of a sudden it came to me that it was a character on the old Dobie Gillis show and was played by a very fine character actor named Stephen Franken.
The it hit me that Rush was using that moniker for our old friend Tucker Carlson. Well that fit could not be better. Tucker really has a number of the charactistics of that old Dobie Gillis character and I have say I laughed until I fell on the floor.
That was almost as much fun as when Rush rechristened Wesley Clark into General Ashley Wilkes from "Gone With The Wind". That also was just perfect.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/m/manylovesofdobie_7774210.shtml
Cast
Dwayne Hickman - Dobie Gillis
Frank Faylen - Herbert T Gillis
Florida Friebus - Winifred 'Winnie' Gillis
Bob Denver - Maynard Krebs
Sheila James - Zelda Gilroy
Tuesday Weld - Thalia Menninger (1959-60)
Warren Beatty - Milton Armitage (1959-60)
Darryl Hickman - Davey Gillis (1959-60)
Steve Franken - Chatsworth Osborne Jr (1960-63)
Bobby Diamond - Duncan 'Dunky' Gillis
William Schallert - Professor Leander Pomfritt
Doris Packer - Clarice Armitage (1959-60)
Doris Packer - Clarissa Chatsworth Osborne Sr (1960-63)
William Schallert - Leander Pomfritt
Tommy Farrell - Riff Ryan
Yvonne Lime - Melissa Frome
One of the great character actors, ever. He went from things like The Patty Duke Show to Wild Wild West and on to Collossus: The Forbin Project (playing Donald Rumsfeld, just 30 years early). I will always remember fondly the recurring character he played on Get Smart, the very ancient "Admiral," or some such title. The character was the doddering old retired director of CONTROL who would fill in for The Chief when he was away from the spy agency. The best running gag was when he'd use a pointer to reach for a map and be just a bit too far way. "Oh Dear" he would mumble, as he surrendered to gravity.
And, except for the obvious heavy makeup of that character, he always looked to be about 50. Even when he was probably 32. what's scary is he still looked 50, last time I saw him. Dorian Grey, your pictures are ready.
I'm old enough to remember the show when it first aired. About the third season, Dobie and Maynard enlisted in the Army. They didn't last long. Dobie was a great show that still holds up today.
Another oddity on the show was that when Dobie and Maynard went from high school to the local college, it seemed like their whole high school class -- including the teacher, Mr. Pomfritt -- went with them!! I know, I should be expecting reality from a sitcom.
I met both William Schallert and Dwayne Hickman in LA about five years ago. In person, you can see they've both had their share of skin "enhancement." Dwayne had a very poor hair dye job, the classic shoe polish look. Both were very nice guys and loved talking about the show.
I've very envious.
Schallert has touched on more of the mid level popular culture than most any other character actor in my lifetime. Hickman has apparently had a very successful career as a "suit" in TV production for 40 years. Both would be amazing to talk to. I would have particularly liked to talk to Schallert about Collossus and Hickman about what I consider the greatest western comedy ever (take that Mel Brooks), the Academy Award winning (best actor) Cat Ballou. I bet both would have had fun stories.
Thalia
Dobie
Zelda
That was an amazing show. That and the Bob Cummings show and The Thin Man, with his Facel Vega...
I think he hit the jackpot with Leslie Caron, and about 300 others.....
There was a blonde manipulatrix in the show too. Perfectly described by the Bob Dylan song line "girl by the whirlpool, lookin' for a new fool!"
I knew a guy who was at a Hollywood party with Tuesday Weld.
She was shuffling around the room, tugging on the sleeves
of various men, saying "Save me......."
"Save me......."
Aah, wish I had your extensive knowledge of film to have asked about all of that. I pretty much focused on "Dobie" and "Patty Duke" questions, plus some SAG questions for Schallert. He is very well-spoken. Both men had nothing but good to say about their TV experiences. I was fortunate to meet a lot of my 50s and 60s TV heroes when I lived in LA in the 90s through a friend in the biz. Most of them were great to talk to and surprisingly normal human beings.
Zelda used to call Dobie "Poopsie," if memory serves.
You mistake me, as most do. I don't have extensive knowledge of film or any other topic, hence my current tagline. What I do have is very broad knowledge about a lot of what to me are very interesting things. I cover an area three miles wide but one inch deep. If one of the pieces of useless knowledge gets bumped into I haul it out and sound profound. Most people do this. I have just collected more useless knowledge about more topics than is the norm. But expertise or extensive knowledge? Hardly.
I was really sincere when I said I envied you. That sort of opportunity would have been neat and the questions you got to ask were probably above average, witness the SAG comment (not many would have touched on that... did you go so far as to touch on Patty Duke's tenure as head of SAG?)
It's a pity he's a typical Hollywood Lefty.
"Bonnie and Clyde" was his second film. His first was the very strange "Mickey One", directed by Arthur Penn, where he co-starred with Hurd Hatfield, who had been MGM's pretty boy back in the Forties.
Beatty was in more than one film before Bonnie. His big break came in the classic "Splendor in the Grass" with Natalie Wood.
No question he's a lefty, like most of them. But he was a pretty nice guy for the short time I got to talk to him; maybe that's because we were talking sitcoms instead of politics.
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