Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: Sweet Sixteen

Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: Sweet Sixteen
Syndicated
January 16, 1973
Cartoon, Sitcom
DVD
B

This starts out with cliches about teenage drivers, especially girl drivers, as Alice is turning sixteen.  (Which messes with the continuity of most of the season, but oh well.)  Then Irma wants to throw a big party for Alice and she hires her friend's caterer, who's voiced by an uncredited but unmistakable Paul Lynde.  And he wants a Roman theme, which makes Ralph assume an orgy, which turns Whitaker on.  There's a sweet scene where Alice says she doesn't want her father to get into debt for her party; she knows he loves her, and she loves him.  Again, not a particularly topical episode, unless you count Ralph thinking that caviar is really made from human cells!

Fred S. Fox and Seaman Jacobs would go on to write for Hong Kong Phooey.  

Gidget Gets Married

Gidget Gets Married
ABC
January 4, 1972
TV-Movie, Dramedy
VHS
B-

It's funny, I recalled this as not as good as Gidget Grows Up, but I think that while Monie Ellis is not a great Gidget, she brings a certain naivete and enthusiasm to the role that works for this story.  (As for her being blonde, well, Gidget is blonde in the books.)  I think it helps that the story, written by Grows Up's John McGreevey, is more streamlined, focusing on Gidget and Jeff's (Michael Burns, looking and acting uncannily like Dean Butler, who'd take the role in the '80s) adjustments not only to married life but to his new job in a very employee-controlling company.  The movie is surprisingly dark, although the Paul Lynde scenes of course lighten the tone, and the story ends on a positive, and feminist, note.

Helen Funai reprises her role from Grows Up as Minnie Chan.  Michael Barbera, who's Chris, would soon be Harvey on The Brady Bunch, while Jimmy Bracken (Andy here) played three Brady parts.  Policeman Dennis Fimple would be Sergeant "Sparky" Pryor on M*A*S*H, while Corinne Camacho, playing Nancy Lewis here, would be Lt. Regina Hopkins there.  If Larry Gelman, as Louis's photographer Anatole, looks familiar, it's because he would shortly be Dr. Bernie Tupperman on The Bob Newhart Show.  And, yes, James B. Sikking plays Jim Johnson, while Elinor Donahue is Medley Blaine.

Gidget Grows Up

Gidget Grows Up
ABC
December 30, 1969
TV-Movie, Dramedy
VHS
C+

Twenty-two-year-old Karen Valentine, around the time she started Room 222, plays the latest but far from the last incarnation of Francie "Gidget" Lawrence.  She has some Sally-Fieldesque mannerisms, like this sort of duck-footed walk when she's in a hurry, but she also makes the part her own.  I wish that the rest of the movie were at her level, but the performances range from pretty good to forgettable.  Bob Cummings is the latest Professor Russell Lawrence, while Donna Reed's Paul Petersen plays Moondoggie, and Irishman Edward Mulhare (the Captain from The Ghost & Mrs. Muir) plays Australian Alex MacLaughlin.  And Paul Lynde is sort of Paul Lynde if he were a grown-up '30s child star.

The main problem is in the writing.  The story is based on the novel Gidget Goes to New York, and John McGreevey had written for the Gidget sitcom, so that would seem to bode well.  But there are too many underdeveloped plot threads, including both of Gidget's romances.  We're supposed to believe Gidget is in love, and the two men are in love with her, but we never really get any sense of it.  She's apparently going to a New York college while working at the UN, after two years of studying in Europe, but we never hear about any of her classes or even see a campus montage.  Her tour guide boss is set up to be a self-described "old biddy" but we never get an actual confrontation.  Also, although this is clearly the '60s (Valentine's white go-go boots are a strong reminder), it feels odd to have Jeff stationed in Greenland and about to be "shipped out to closer to the action," without this discussed any further.  And so on.  Still, I can't really knock a movie that gets Paul Lynde into an Easter Bunny costume.


Helen Funai, as Minnie Chan, would return for the '72 Gidget TV-movie.  Nina Foch, who's Bibi Crosby, would appear on That Girl.  Hal Frederick, who plays Lee Basumba, would do a couple voices for Wait Till Your Father Gets Home.  Harlen Carraher, who's Ben, would have two Brady roles.  Lloyd Kino, who plays the Japanese Delegate, would be a Soldier on M*A*S*H four years later.  And, yes, that's 21-year-old Michael Lembeck as Arnold, his first on-screen role.

Since this closes out the '60s (airdate-wise anyway), I will give you my Top Nine of the decade.  (Too many B's to choose from for a tenth best.)

1. Gilligan's Island: The Producer--The only A- so far and just a delight on so many levels.
2. Gilligan's Island: Castaway Pictures Presents--Both the filming of the movie and the result are funny and sometimes sexy.
3. Gilligan's Island: Don't Bug the Mosquitoes--Three rock bands for the price of one!
4. That Girl: Thanksgiving Comes But Once a Year, Hopefully--Don, Ann, and their parents, the kind of show they should've done more of, especially in the later seasons.
5. That Girl: Decision Before Dawn--Great cameos by Larry Storch and Vic Tayback, mixed with the Don & Ann and Lew & Helen couples.  Donald serenading Lew is hysterical.
6. Gilligan's Island: The Postman Cometh--A shipper's delight and some fun celebrity impressions.
7. That Girl: The Other Woman--Farce that works, with Ethel Merman.
8. Gilligan's Island: The Second Ginger Grant--Identity-swapping, including gender-swapping, plus a new take on Gilligan/Mary Ann.
9. That Girl: Leaving the Nest Is For the Birds--You wouldn't think a nagging aunt and a suicidal Jerry Van Dyke could lead to a funny episode, but this is much better than it has any right to be.

Two's Company: Pilot

Two's Company: Pilot
ABC
1965
Sitcom
DVD
C+

OK, from this point on I'm just going to have to accept that I can't remember all the DVD extras for my TV shows, and if something shows up from earlier, just put it next.  (So this is sort of the 200th entry for the '60s and sort of not.)  We have a failed pilot that brought Marlo Thomas enough attention that she was able to do That Girl.  I can see both why she was appealing, and why this premise, with her married to a man (Ron Husman) who doesn't want her to work, wasn't as appealing.  Paul Lynde appears as an easily infatuated photographer.

That Girl: These Boots Weren't Made for Walking

That Girl: These Boots Weren't Made for Walking
ABC
January 12, 1967
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This is another episode written by Peggy Elliott and Ed Scharlach and it has something odd about it.  No, not the Paul Lynde guest shot, which is no stranger than anything else he's done, or that Ann is a "shoe salesman."  I mean that Donald and Jerry have a new secretary, Margie, who has a crush on Jerry (not seen in this episode), but we never hear anything further about it.  Why not just have her buying slippers for her nameless boyfriend?

Charles Lampkin, who plays the Janitor, would return years later as Horace Hansen, while Art Lewis and Patty Regan (just "Man" and "Woman" here) would each have two more TG roles.

Gidget: Take a Lesson

Gidget: Take a Lesson
ABC
March 10, 1966
Sitcom
DVD
B

Beverly Washburn, who was on the "slumber party" episode, returns, this time with parents who have other Gidget credits.  Her father is played by the incomparable Paul Lynde, who'd be one of the high points in two of the TV-movies.  And her mother, Jeff Donnell, was Gidget's mother in the second and third big-screen movies (which means that she was "married" to Don Porter in another version of Gidget reality).  The fun of this episode is mostly in seeing Field and Lynde play off of each other, with the episode ending with her imitating him.  Also, for a native Californian like me, it's funny to hear the references to the Valley and Pasadena.  Note, the cast seems unsure whether Washburn's character is named Sheryl or Shirley.  And I assume that Lynde having a "Cousin Arthur" is a Bewitched in-joke, not unlike the mentions of Liz Montgomery on the Ding-bats episode.  (Besides the William Asher connection, the Stevenses' house was neighbors with Gidget's.)