| The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis | |
|---|---|
.png) First season title card | |
| Also known as | Dobie Gillis (seasons 2–3) Max Shulman's Dobie Gillis (season 4) |
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Created by | Max Shulman |
| Based on | The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf by Max Shulman |
| Directed by | Rod Amateau Stanley Z. Cherry David Davis Robert Gordon Tom Montgomery Ralph Murphy |
| Starring | Dwayne Hickman Frank Faylen Florida Friebus Bob Denver |
| Theme music composer | Lionel Newman Max Shulman |
| Opening theme | "Dobie", performed byJudd Conlon's Rhythmaires (season 1–2) "Dobie" (Instrumental) (seasons 3–4) |
| Ending theme | "Dobie", performed by Judd Conlon's Rhythmaires (seasons 1–2) "Dobie" (Instrumental) (seasons 3–4) |
| Composer | Lionel Newman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 147(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Martin Manulis |
| Producer | Rod Amateau |
| Production location | 20th Century Fox Studios –Hollywood, California |
| Cinematography | James Van Trees |
| Editors | Johnny Ehrin Willard Nico Robert Moore |
| Camera setup | Single-camera setup |
| Running time | 26 min |
| Production companies | 20th Century-Fox Television Martin Manulis Productions (1959–1961) (seasons 1–2) Marman Productions (1961–1963) (seasons 3–4) |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | September 29, 1959 (1959-09-29) – June 5, 1963 (1963-06-05) |
| Related | |
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The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (also known as simplyDobie Gillis orMax Shulman's Dobie Gillis in later seasons and in syndication) is an Americansitcom starringDwayne Hickman that aired onCBS from September 29, 1959, to June 5, 1963. The series was adapted from the Dobie Gillis short stories written byMax 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 forMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1953, titledThe Affairs of Dobie Gillis, which featuredBobby Van in the title role.
Hickman inDobie Gillis was among the first leads to play a teenager on an American television program.[1]Dobie Gillis broke ground by depicting elements of the contemporaneouscounterculture, particularly theBeat Generation, primarily embodied in a stereotypical version of the "beatnik," mainly in the character ofMaynard G. Krebs, portrayed by actorBob Denver.[2] Hickman wrote in 1994 thatDobie represented "the end of innocence of the 1950s before the oncoming 1960s revolution."[2]
The series revolved around teenager Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman), who aspired to have popularity, money, and the attention of beautiful and unattainable girls.[1] 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 firstbeatnik,Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver), who became the series'sbreakout character. An enthusiastic fan ofjazz music (with a strong distaste for the music ofLawrence Welk), Maynard plays the piano andbongos, 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 towardsmalapropisms. The main running gag onDobie 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 theMidwestern United States (the original short stories are explicitly set in theMinneapolis–Saint Paul area). One of the show's running gags is that Maynard is going downtown "to watch them knock down the oldEndicott Building" (which is inSaint Paul, Minnesota). Another running gag is the reference, especially by Maynard, to a film calledThe Monster that Devoured Cleveland and its sequels, one of which always seems to be playing at the local cinema.
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 theGreat Depression andWorld 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.[3]
Dobie's two mainantagonists were rich kids Milton Armitage (played byWarren Beatty), who appeared in five episodes, and after Beatty's departure, Chatsworth Osborne Jr., Milton's cousin (played bySteve 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.Doris Packer played Clarissa Osborne, Chatsworth's overbearing and snobbish mother, whom he affectedly 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 typicallyseated together in class).[4] 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-offDobie 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 ofdeadpan 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.
Most of the action for the first season-and-a-half ofDobie Gillis centered on the Gillis grocery store, Central High School, and the Central City park. The park scenes are used as the show'sframing device, with Dobie sitting on a park bench in front of a reproduction ofAuguste Rodin's statueThe Thinker. Breaking thefourth 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 ofThe Thinker – head planted on fist in deep contemplation – before turning and acknowledging the camera).[3]
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 theU.S. Army.[3] Dobie continued to break the fourth wall and narrate the episodes, with the park set eschewed for an abstract set with the same reproduction ofThe 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 PryorJunior 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.[5]
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | Rank/Rating[7] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | ||||
| 1 | 39 | September 29, 1959 (1959-09-29) | July 5, 1960 (1960-07-05) | Not in Top 30 | |
| 2 | 36 | September 27, 1960 (1960-09-27) | June 27, 1961 (1961-06-27) | 23/23.0 | |
| 3 | 36 | October 10, 1961 (1961-10-10) | June 26, 1962 (1962-06-26) | 21/22.9 | |
| 4 | 36 | September 26, 1962 (1962-09-26) | June 5, 1963 (1963-06-05) | Not in Top 30 | |
Max Shulman's first Dobie Gillis short stories were printed in 1945, and a short-story compilation,The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, was published in 1951.[8] These stories were originally published in such magazines asCosmopolitan andThe Saturday Evening Post.
A follow-up collection,I Was a Teen-age Dwarf, appeared in 1959. The titular character appeared at various ages in these stories, all of which are set inSt. Paul, Minnesota, though the majority of the stories centered on his college years at theUniversity of Minnesota.[9] Aside from Dobie and his parents, Zelda Gilroy was the only other character from the books directly adapted to the series as a regular or recurring character.[4]
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced the first media adaptation ofThe Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in 1953 asThe Affairs of Dobie Gillis, a black-and-whitemusical film starringDebbie Reynolds,Bob Fosse, andBobby Van as Dobie Gillis. Following its release, Shulman set about attempting to bringDobie Gillis to television. An initial pilot was produced by comedian and producerGeorge Burns in 1957, with his sonRonnie Burns starring as Dobie.[3]
After this pilot did not sell, Shulman tookDobie Gillis to20th Century Fox Television, run at the time byMartin Manulis. Manulis asked Shulman to reduce the Dobie character's age from 19 to 17, making him a high-school student instead of a college student and an age peer ofRicky Nelson fromThe Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet andWally Cleaver (Tony Dow) fromLeave It to Beaver.[10] Shulman agreed to the change after negotiating employment for himself on the series asshow runner.[10] The Fox pilot, "Caper at the Bijou", featured Dwayne Hickman as Dobie, Frank Faylen and Florida Friebus as his parents, newcomer Bob Denver as a new character, Dobie's beatnik best friend Maynard G. Krebs, and Tuesday Weld as Dobie's unattainable love interest Thalia Menninger.
First pitched to and rejected by NBC,The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was greenlit for series by CBS.Phillip Morris'Marlboro was the program's primary sponsor, and it sold a week-to-week alternating co-sponsorship toPillsbury Company for the first two seasons, with Dwayne Hickman appearing in one of the Pillsbury commercials.[4]Colgate-Palmolive replaced Pillsbury as the alternate sponsor in season three.[4]
While the pilot forThe Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was shot at the main20th Century Fox lot inCentury City, California, principal photography and production for the series proper took place at the original Fox Film Corporation studio at the intersection ofSunset Boulevard andWestern Avenue (next to the headquarters ofDeLuxe) inHollywood.[3]Dobie Gillis wasfilmed with two cameras, a method that producer and directorRod Amateau had learned while working onThe George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. Fox turned out one episode ofDobie Gillis a week, working from May to December of each year. Dwayne Hickman's fourth wall-breaking monologues were saved for the end of the production of each episode; their length resulted in Hickman requesting and getting ateleprompter from which to read them for season two forward.[2]
The show was not filmed before alive studio audience; during the first season, a live audience viewed each episode and provided itslaugh track.[11] Subsequent seasons used a standard laugh track provided by technicianCharles Douglass.[12]
Creator Max Shulman served as the show runner for and an uncredited producer ofDobie Gillis.[13] He contributed scripts for episodes of the show during all four seasons, with several stories – including "Love is a Science" (season one, episode three), "Love is a Fallacy" (season one, episode 22), and "Parlez-Vous English" (season two, episode 11) – directly adapted by Shulman from his original Dobie Gillis short stories.[4][13]
During its fourth season, the show, by then known asMax Shulman's Dobie Gillis, suffered both from competition with NBC's color WesternThe Virginian and from the growing inattention from Max Shulman.[2] Shulman began spending increasing amounts of time at his home inWestport, Connecticut, while the show was in active production,[2][13] ceding his role as show runner to associate producers Joel Kane and Guy Scarpitta. CBS decided not to renewDobie Gillis after production had concluded on its fourth season.[2]
The theme song "Dobie" accompanying theUPA-style animated titles was written by 20th Century-Fox musical directorLionel Newman, with lyrics by Shulman. The theme was sung byJudd Conlon's Rhythmaires, with music conducted by Newman. Session singerGloria Wood of the Rhythmaires provided the scat singing used as incidental score during the first two seasons.[14][15]
Dwayne Hickman, at the time the breakout star onThe Bob Cummings Show (also known asLove That Bob) as nephew Chuck MacDonald, gained the part of Dobie Gillis over several other candidates, includingMichael Landon.[1] Despite being cast as a 17-year-old, Hickman was 24 when he starred in the pilot in the summer of 1958. Because Hickman had appeared for several years onBob Cummings as Chuck, he was required by Shulman and CBS to bleach his dark brown hair blond for the role of Dobie to distance himself from that character in the public's (and the sponsors') minds.[16] By the second season, however, Hickman was permitted to return to his natural hair color, after he had complained to the producers that the constant bleaching required to keep his lowcrew cut hairstyle blond was causing his scalp to break out.[3]
Bob Denver, a 23-year-old grade-school teacher and postal worker with no previous professional acting experience, won the part of 18-year-old Maynard G. Krebs after his sister, a casting director's secretary, added his name to a list of candidates auditioning for the role.[17] Denver and Hickman had both attendedLoyola University together several years earlier and were casually acquainted beforeDobie Gillis.[2] After filming the third episode ofDobie Gillis, Denver announced that he had received hisdraft notice. The character of Maynard enlisted in the Army and was given an elaborate sendoff in the show's next episode, "Maynard's Farewell to the Troops". Stage actorMichael J. Pollard was brought out from New York to play Maynard's cousin, Jerome Krebs, who was introduced at the end of "Maynard's Farewell to the Troops" and was to assume Maynard's role in future scripts.[17]
Before Pollard had completed his first episode, "The Sweet Singer of Central High", however, Denver returned and announced that he had been designated "4F" – unfit for service – during his physical because of a neck injury he had sustained some years earlier.[17] After completing "The Sweet Singer of Central High", Pollard was bought out of his contract – he had signed a "play-or-pay" contract and was paid for all 30 episodes in which he was to have appeared, while Denver was rehired. Maynard's return was explained by stating that the Army had given Maynard a "hardship discharge" – the Army's hardship, not Maynard's.[17][18]
Initially only a supporting character, Denver's Maynard had graduated to co-lead by season two, as the character's "beatnik" mannerisms and eccentricities made him a hit with the viewing audience.[17] For a handful of episodes towards the end of season three, Maynard became the show's lead character while Dwayne Hickman was hospitalized with and later recovering frompneumonia.[2]
Despite Maynard's increasing screen time, however, Denver – who had signed on as a Fox contract player without an agent – was unable to negotiate a raise in his $250 a week salary until season four.[12][17] Denver was able to parlay his role onDobie Gillis into lead roles on later television series, in particular the one for which he is best remembered, the 1964–67 CBS sitcomGilligan's Island.[17]
Established actors Frank Faylen, a longtime acquaintance of the Hickman family and a fellow parishioner at their church,[2] and Florida Friebus were cast as Dobie's parents, Herbert T. Gillis and Winifred Gillis. Faylen's gruff, no-nonsense father character, which according to Hickman, was essentially the same as Faylen's real-life personality,[2] was more of an antagonist to Dobie during the first season of the show, his demeanor underscored by his often-repeated catchphrase "I gotta kill that boy! I just gotta!" Both CBS and Marlboro strongly disapproved of the catchphrase and the Herbert T. Gillis character's hard edges.[2] An early season-two episode, "You Ain't Nothin' But a Houn' Dog" (episode two), in which Dobie inadvertently wins a father-and-son essay contest, was produced to explain why Herbert ceased use of his catchphrase. Herbert was further softened as the series wore on, the character's anger tempered to frustration.[2]
Experienced child actress Tuesday Weld was cast as Dobie's love interest in "Caper at the Bijou" and stayed on as a semiregular. Weld and Dwayne Hickman had previously appeared as a teenaged couple in the 1958 Fox feature filmRally 'Round the Flag, Boys!, based on a Max Shulman novel, though produced without his input.[2] Neither Hickman nor Weld was fond of the other, with Hickman later stating he felt Weld was not as dedicated as necessary to rehearsal and referring to her as "a pain in the neck". Weld reportedly found Hickman pushy and out-of-touch. Aged 15 at the time of shooting the pilot, Weld had to legally spend much of her time on set in school with a tutor,[2] and the production periodically ran into issues involving Weld's later publicly known difficult home life.[8]
Her work inDobie Gillis and the feature filmThe Five Pennies made Weld a star, leading to substantial publicity.[12] She departed the series after the first year to star in features, although she was persuaded by Max Shulman to return for two guest appearances, "Birth of a Salesman" (season three, episode 21) and "What's a Little Murder Between Friends?" (season four, episode two).[2]
Herbert Anderson was cast as Mr. Pomfritt, Dobie and Maynard's English teacher at school. Anderson appeared in a lead role in the pilot forDennis the Menace; when that show was picked up (also by CBS), he chose to stay with that cast, and actor William Schallert appeared in the recurring role of Mr. Pomfritt through the end of season three.
Warren Beatty was cast as Milton Armitage, a recurring rival of Dobie's at his high school, during the first half of season one.[19] Hickman later recalled that Beatty "looked at me like I was a bug" while on set.[2] Beatty did remain friends with his brief co-starMichael J. Pollard. The two co-starred inBonnie and Clyde eight years later. He quit the series in September 1959, midway through production of the first season after filming his fifth and finalDobie episode, "The Smoke-Filled Room", to appear inA Loss of Roses onBroadway.[19]
Former child actress Sheila James, who, playing daughter "Jackie" onThe Stu Erwin Show, had worked with Dwayne Hickman on that series andThe Bob Cummings Show, was cast without an audition as Zelda Gilroy, the tomboyish brainy girl who was in love with Dobie.[4] Originally intended as a one-shot character for the episode "Love is a Science" (season one, episode three), Max Shulman liked both Zelda and Sheila James and had Zelda retained as a semiregular character. Signing a contract withDobie Gillis necessitated James, then an 18-year-old college student, changing her major from theater to English, so Shulman could assist her with her studies on set.[4]
After the third season ofDobie Gillis, Rod Amateau and Max Shulman produced a pilot for aZelda spinoff starring Sheila James as Zelda Gilroy, withJoe Flynn and Jean Byron cast as her parents.[4] However, CBS presidentJames Aubrey lingered over moving forward with theZelda series for a long time before firmly rejecting the series, with Amateau telling James in private that Aubrey had foundZelda (and by extension James, then a closeted lesbian) "too butch".[8] James' contract for the pilot and the resulting waiting period caused her to be absent from much of the fourth and final season ofDobie Gillis, though Amateau was able to hire her to return as Zelda for four episodes towards the end of the season.[4] Acting roles became sparse for James by the late 1960s; she went into law and politics under her birth name of Sheila Kuehl, and later became the first openly gay person elected to theCalifornia State Legislature.[8]
Steve Franken, a 28-year-old character actor, was cast immediately after Beatty's departure as Chatsworth Osbourne, Jr., a replacement character for Milton Armitage. While both Milton and Chatsworth were rich rivals of Dobie Gillis's (and both characters shared the same actress,Doris Packer, for a mother) and were, according to canon, cousins, where Beatty's Milton was a menacing and athletic physical threat, Franken's pompous, foppish Chatsworth tended to plot and scheme his way through competitions with Dobie, more often than not using his riches to get ahead.[13] The Chatsworth character became popular enough that the producers had to consciously limit his appearances on the series to roughly one per month to prevent Franken from upstaging Hickman and Denver, but Franken stated both during and afterDobie Gillis that playing Chatsworth led him to be typecast and stifled his career.[13]
Young actorBobby Diamond was brought on at the beginning of season four as Dobie's teenaged cousin, Duncan "Dunky" Gillis. By 1962, the 28-year-old Dwayne Hickman had begun to look too mature to carry the teenager-based plot lines,[2] and instead Diamond's "Dunky" was given this material, with the older yet immature Maynard as a running partner. The character was dropped midway through the fourth season, with attention shifting back to the characters of Dobie, Maynard, Chatsworth, and Zelda for the remaining episodes of the series.[2]
Actresses who played Dobie's love interests includedCheryl Holdridge,Michele Lee,Susan Watson,Marlo Thomas,Sally Kellerman,Ellen Burstyn (then billed as Ellen McRae),Barbara Babcock,Sherry Jackson, andDanielle De Metz.Yvonne Craig appeared in the opening credits and the closing sequence of the pilot film used to sell the series to CBS, but did not appear in the actual episode, "Caper at The Bijou", when it was broadcast. She eventually played five different girlfriends on the show, more than any other actress.[citation needed]
ActressSherry Alberoni, an original Mickey Mouse Club "Mouseketeer", played one of Zelda Gilroy's sisters in the 1960 episode "Dobie Spreads a Rumor".
After the first season ofThe Many Loves of Dobie Gillis had aired,Capitol Records attempted to make a recording star out of Dwayne Hickman, ignoring the fact that Hickman, by his own admission, was not a singer.[2] Recording engineers had to piece together numerous takes to get a usable vocal track from Hickman for each song. Hickman introduced several of the songs from theDobie! album on the show during its second season, including "I'm a Lover, Not a Fighter" and "Don't Send a Rabbit".[2] Earlier, while Hickman was appearing onLove That Bob, he had recorded a single, "School Dance", forABC-Paramount Records, but both the single and the later Capitol album sold very few copies.[20]
DC Comics published aMany Loves of Dobie Gillis comic book that ran for 26 issues from 1960 to 1964, featuring artwork byBob Oksner. Stories from this comic-book series were later reprinted, with updates to the artwork and lettering to remove any references toDobie Gillis, by DC as a short-lived series titledWindy and Willy in 1969.[21]
The program spawned two 20th Century Fox-produced sequels, thepilotWhatever Happened to Dobie Gillis? (1977) and theTV movieBring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis (1988).Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis? was an unsuccessful pilot for a new weekly sitcom series, which was produced, directed, and developed byJames Komack after creator Max Shulman was fired from the production.[3] It was broadcast by CBS on May 10, 1977, as a one-shot special. In the pilot, Dobie had married Zelda and is helping his father Herbert run the Gillis Grocery when Maynard comes back to Central City from his world travels.[22]
Depressed over turning 40 and not living the life he had dreamed of as a teenager, Dobie goes to his belovedThinker statue and attempts to destroy it, landing in jail.[22] The production starred Dwayne Hickman, Bob Denver, Sheila James, Frank Faylen, andSteven Paul as Dobie and Zelda's teenaged son Georgie, who was a lot like Dobie had been at his age.[citation needed]
Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis, first aired as theCBS Sunday Movie on February 22, 1988, was directed and co-written by Stanley Z. Cherry after Dwayne Hickman, who was the film's producer, was forced by the network to fire Max Shulman and Rod Amateau, with whom he had originally conceived the film.[4][3] The plot features the married Dobie and Zelda running the Gillis Grocery—now also a pharmacy—on their own, Dobie's parents having died. Meanwhile, Thalia (played byConnie Stevens after Weld declined to reprise the role) returns to Central City—with Maynard, whom she has rescued from a deserted island (a homage toGilligan's Island)—after 20 years. She offers a $50,000 bounty to anyone who will kill Dobie when he refuses to divorce Zelda and marry her. Hickman, Denver, and James returned forBring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis, which featured Steve Franken as Chatsworth, William Schallert as Mr. Pomfritt, andScott Grimes as son Georgie Gillis.[4][3]Connie Stevens' daughter,Tricia Leigh Fisher, played Chatsworth's daughter Chatsie, who chased Georgie Gillis with the same zeal Zelda had once used chasing Dobie.
On July 2, 2013,Shout! Factory releasedThe Many Loves of Dobie Gillis – The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.[23] The set included all 147 episodes of the series, plus the original prenetwork version of the pilot and appearances by Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver on other television programs of the time.Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis? andBring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis were not included, the latter due to music clearances, and the former because the master copy could not be located.[4] The first season of the show was also made available onAmazon Prime Video on this date.
Shout! subsequently released each season individually, season one on September 10, 2013,[24] season two on January 14, 2014,[25] season three on May 6, 2014[26] and the fourth and final season on December 16, 2014.[27]
In addition to the physical releases, all episodes ofDobie Gillis are also available on thestreaming servicesShout! Factory TV,Amazon Prime Video,Tubi, andVudu.[28]
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was a major influence on the characters for another successful CBS program, theHanna-BarberaSaturday morning cartoonScooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which ran on the network from 1969 to 1970 followed by several spin-offs. As confirmed by series creatorsJoe Ruby andKen Spears[29] and writerMark Evanier,[30] the four teenaged lead characters ofScooby-Doo were based on four of the lead characters fromDobie Gillis:Fred Jones on Dobie,Daphne Blake on Thalia,Velma Dinkley on Zelda, andShaggy Rogers on Maynard.[29][30]
Garry Marshall said that he drew inspiration fromDobie Gillis when he created theABC sitcomHappy Days.[2][31]
Singer-songwriterDobie Gray'sstage name served as a reference to the Dobie Gillis character.[32]
Fred was based on Dobie, Velma on Zelda, Daphne on Thalia and Shaggy onMaynard.
