The Bob Cummings Show | |
---|---|
Also known as | Love That Bob |
Created by | Paul Henning |
Written by | William Cowley Shirley Gordon Paul Henning Bill Manhoff Lawrence Menkin Phil Shuken Dick Wesson |
Directed by | Rod Amateau Bob Cummings Fred DeCordova Edward Rubin Norman Tokar |
Starring | Bob Cummings Ann B. Davis Rosemary DeCamp Dwayne Hickman |
Narrated by | Bill Baldwin |
Theme music composer | Del Sharbutt Frank Stanton Richard Uhl |
Opening theme | "A Romantic Guy, I" |
Ending theme | "A Romantic Guy, I" |
Composer | Lou Kosloff |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of seasons | 5 |
No. of episodes | 173 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | George Burns |
Producer | Paul Henning |
Production companies | Laurel Productions McCadden Productions Henning Corporation |
Original release | |
Network | NBC (1955; 1957–1959) CBS (1955–1957) |
Release | January 2, 1955 – September 15, 1959 |
The Bob Cummings Show (also known in reruns as Love That Bob) is an American sitcom starring Bob Cummings, which was broadcast from January 2, 1955, to September 15, 1959. [1]
The program began with a half-season run on NBC, then ran for two full seasons on CBS, and returned to NBC for its final two seasons. The program was later rerun on ABC daytime and then syndicated under the title Love That Bob. A similar (but less successful) follow-up series, The New Bob Cummings Show , was broadcast on CBS during the 1961–62 television season.
The series stars Cummings as dashing Hollywood photographer, Air Force reserve officer, and ladies' man, Bob Collins. The character's interest in aviation and photography mirrored Cummings' own, with his character's name the same as the role he played in the 1945 film You Came Along . The series also stars Rosemary DeCamp as his sister Margaret MacDonald. In some episodes, Cummings also doubled as Bob and Margaret's grandfather, Josh Collins of Joplin, Missouri.
The Bob Cummings Show was important in the development of several careers including series creator, producer, and head writer Paul Henning. Henning, who a decade earlier was a major force in the character development and writing of The Burns and Allen television and radio shows, was a co-producer with George Burns of the Cummings show. He later produced such major 1960s hits as The Beverly Hillbillies , Petticoat Junction , and Green Acres. Regulars in the show included Ann B. Davis, who twice won Emmy Awards for playing Bob Collins' assistant Schultzy. Henning apparently remembered cast members Nancy Kulp and Joi Lansing favorably, giving both of them roles several years later on The Beverly Hillbillies, Kulp as Miss Hathaway (secretary to banker Milburn Drysdale — a character similar to Pamela Livingstone, the one she played on Cummings' show) – and Lansing as Gladys Flatt, wife of Lester Flatt. A decade after The Bob Cummings Show left the air, Davis went on to play the housekeeper Alice in The Brady Bunch . In the 1995 film The Brady Bunch Movie , which featured another actress playing Alice, Davis reprised the role of Schultzy for a cameo that suggests the character went on to become a truck driver.
Olive Sturgess appeared in 12 episodes as Carol Henning, girlfriend to Bob's nephew, Chuck. Versatile character actress Kathleen Freeman appeared in six episodes as Bertha Krause. Perhaps the biggest career boost was received by young Dwayne Hickman, a student at Loyola University in Los Angeles, who appeared as the nephew and became a favorite with young female viewers. During the last season of The Bob Cummings Show, he was cast as the lead in CBS's The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis .
This program represented the height of Cummings' television career. Although he later starred in two other early-'60s series, The New Bob Cummings Show and My Living Doll , and made guest appearances on several other TV series, he never again achieved that level of success on television.
Cummings had earlier starred in the 1952 sitcom My Hero , which ran one season. Taft Schreiber of MCA brought George Burns and Paul Henning to Cummings and pitched him the idea for The Bob Cummings Show. They formed a company, Laurel, to make the show. Rod Amateau wrote many episodes. [3] Henning drew extensively on Cummings' real-life past in creating the show. [4] [5]
The show was sold in August 1954, but Cummings did not agree to go on air until January "when we had a comfortable backlog of scripts." [6] He did this due to his experience on My Hero, where he felt the show went to air without a sufficient supply of scripts. [6]
"I also resolved we wouldn't aim at the kid audience", he added. "Sure, it's easy to develop a following that way, but kids are the most fickle audience in the world. Once they drop you, you're finished forever. So we aimed at the adults, but strangely enough, we started to develop a strong kid following anyway." [6]
The role of Schultzy was created for Jane Withers. However, she had too many demands, which the producers were not willing to meet. Eddie Rubin suggested Ann B. Davis, who was cast. [7]
The show started in January 1955 on NBC at Sunday 10:30 pm. In June, the series was shifted from NBC to CBS on Thursdays at 8 pm by its sponsor RJ Reyolds Tobacco to get more access to markets. [8] In April 1957, the show moved back to NBC on Tuesday nights at 9:30 pm. [9]
Dwayne Hickman became a break-out star on the show. [10] The series had various recurring models who were given opportunities to act, including Suzanne Alexander, Sally Todd, Norma Brooks, and Joi Lansing. [11]
Rod Amateau, who worked on the show, said the reason it was successful was:
He [Cummings' character] was unsuccessful. He would never score with these girls because his nephew, his sister, or Schultzy would show up. He had dreams and illusions of being a playboy, but he wasn't making it. His frustration is what made the show funny. [12]
|In December 1958, Davis signed to make two more years of the show. [13] The same month, Hickman left for his own show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis , [14] although he had filmed enough episodes so that he appeared regularly on The Bob Cummings Show straight through to the series' conclusion.
In anticipation of Hickman's departure, a new character was introduced midway through the final season: a six-year-old waif named Tammy Johnson played by Tammy Marihugh. [15] This character was seen in eight episodes, and presumably would have continued on as a precocious foil for the Bob Collins character had the series continued into season 6.
In January 1959, the show celebrated its fifth year. Henning put part of the reason for its success down to the fact that it was a tight operation – Henning wrote most episodes, Cummings directed, and Cummings' wife handled business. [16]
During the making of the show, Cummings became increasingly under the grip of his addiction to methamphetamine, although this was kept from the public. [17]
The series ended in 1959. Cummings said it was his decision, claiming he needed a break. He also said he had financial considerations, as he wanted to sell the show into syndication and wanted to do that before the show became too dated. He also claimed if he kept making it, he would be hit with a tax bill. [18]
Reruns under the title Love That Bob appeared on ABC's daytime lineup from October 12, 1959, to December 1, 1961. Repeats were popular through the 1960s on local stations before reappearing on the CBN Cable Network in the mid-1980s. The series remains in syndication on some smaller stations today. The original opening credits for the series incorporated a commercial for Dunhill cigarettes and were replaced with the Love That Bob opening.
Twenty episodes have lapsed into the public domain, and all were released by DigiView Productions in 2004, Critics' Choice Video in 2004–5, Platinum Disc, LLC in 2005, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment in 2005, and Alpha Home Entertainment in 2006, among others. Also, on March 20, 2012, MPI Home Video released a Region 1 DVD collection of episodes from Cummings' mid-1960s series My Living Doll , and a standalone episode of The Bob Cummings Show was included as a bonus feature.
In 1956, Cummings was nominated for an Emmy for Best Actor in a Continuous Role and Ann B. Davis for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The show was also nominated for Best Comedy. [19] In 1958, the show was nominated for an Emmy for Best Comedy. [20] Davis won for Best Supporting Actress. [21] In 1959, the show, Cummings and Davis were nominated for Emmys. [22]
Ann B. Davis's character, Schultzy, was the inspiration for the comic-book character Pepper Potts, a supporting character in the Iron Man comics. Potts first appeared in Tales of Suspense #45 (September 1963), and was depicted with brown hair in a style resembling Schultzy's. Eventually, the editorial team decided that the resemblance was too great, and in Tales of Suspense #50, her appearance was altered to give her red hair and a different style. [23]
Richard McCord Long, also known as Dick Long, was an American actor best known for his leading roles in three ABC television series, The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor, and Bourbon Street Beat. He was also a series regular on ABC's 77 Sunset Strip during the 1961–1962 season.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is an American sitcom starring Dwayne Hickman that aired on CBS from September 29, 1959, to June 5, 1963. The series was adapted from the "Dobie Gillis" short stories written by Max 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 for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1953, titled The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, which featured Bobby Van in the title role.
Robert Lansing was an American stage, film, and television actor.
Dwayne Bernard Hickman was an American actor and television executive, producer and director, who worked as an executive at CBS and had also briefly recorded as a vocalist. Hickman portrayed Chuck MacDonald, Bob Collins' girl-crazy teenaged nephew, in the 1950s The Bob Cummings Show and the title character in the 1960s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. He was the younger brother of actor Darryl Hickman, with whom he appeared on screen. After retirement, he devoted his time to creating personalized paintings.
Lee Ann Meriwether is an American actress, former model, and the winner of the 1955 Miss America pageant. She has appeared in many films and television shows, notably as Betty Jones, the title character's secretary and daughter-in-law in the 1970s crime drama Barnaby Jones starring Buddy Ebsen. The role earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations in 1975 and 1976, and an Emmy Award nomination in 1977. She is also known for her portrayal of Catwoman, replacing Julie Newmar in the theatrical film Batman (1966), and for a co-starring role on the science fiction series The Time Tunnel. Meriwether had a recurring role as Ruth Martin on the daytime soap opera All My Children until the end of the series in September 2011.
My Living Doll is an American science-fiction sitcom starring Bob Cummings and Julie Newmar. The series was aired on CBS from September 27, 1964, to March 17, 1965. It was produced by Jack Chertok and filmed at Desilu studios by Jack Chertok Television Productions, in association with the CBS Television Network.
Peter Thomas Scolari was an American actor. He was best known for his roles as Henry Desmond in the ABC sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980–1982) and Michael Harris on the CBS sitcom Newhart (1984–1990) the later of which earned him three consecutive nominations for Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series from 1987 to 1989.
Tuesday Weld is a former American actress. She began acting as a child and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960. Over the following decade, she established a career playing dramatic roles in films.
Joi Lansing was an American model, film and television actress, and nightclub singer. She was noted for her pin-up photos and roles in B-movies, as well as a prominent role in the famous opening "tracking shot" in Orson Welles' 1958 crime drama Touch of Evil.
Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings was an American film and television actor who appeared in roles in comedy films such as The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) and Princess O'Rourke (1943), and in dramatic films, especially two of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, Saboteur (1942) and Dial M for Murder (1954). He received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Single Performance in 1955. On February 8, 1960, he received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture and television industries, at 6816 Hollywood Boulevard and 1718 Vine Street. He used the stage name Robert Cummings from mid-1935 until the end of 1954 and was credited as Bob Cummings from 1955 until his death.
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, sometimes called The Burns and Allen Show, was a half-hour television sitcom broadcast from 1950 to 1958 on CBS. It starred George Burns and Gracie Allen, one of the most enduring acts in entertainment history. Burns and Allen were headliners in vaudeville in the 1920s, and radio stars in the 1930s and 1940s. Their situation comedy TV series received Emmy Award nominations throughout its eight-year run.
Edward Byrne Breitenberger, known professionally as Edd Byrnes, was an American actor, best known for his starring role in the television series 77 Sunset Strip. He also was featured in the 1978 film Grease as television teen-dance show host Vince Fontaine, and was a charting recording artist with "Kookie, Kookie ".
Ann Bradford Davis was an American actress. She achieved prominence for her role in the NBC situation comedy The Bob Cummings Show (1955–1959), for which she twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, but she was best known for playing the part of Alice Nelson, the housekeeper in ABC's The Brady Bunch (1969–1974).
Joan Darling is an American actress, film and television director and a dramatic arts instructor.
Rodney Amateau was an American film and television screenwriter, director, and producer.
The Fountain of Youth is a 1956 television pilot directed by Orson Welles for a proposed Desilu Productions anthology series that was never produced. Based on a short story by John Collier, the short film narrated onscreen by Welles stars Dan Tobin, Joi Lansing and Rick Jason. The Fountain of Youth was televised once, on September 16, 1958, on NBC's Colgate Theatre. It received the prestigious Peabody Award for 1958, the only unsold television pilot ever to be so honored.
"Ghost of a Chance" is the second episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on February 3, 1993. The teleplay was written Noel Behn based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana, and the episode was directed by Martin Campbell. In it Bayliss begins his investigation into the murder of 11-year-old Adena Watson, Munch and Bolander investigate the unusual death of an elderly man, and Howard insists she is receiving advice about her murder case from a ghost.
My Hero is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC on Saturday nights from November 8, 1952, to June 20, 1953, under the sponsorship of Dunhill cigarettes. It was also shown in Melbourne, Australia, on ABV-2 during 1956/1957. The programme was the second import to be shown by ITV on 24 September 1955.
The first season of the American television comedy series The Golden Girls originally aired on NBC in the United States between September 14, 1985, and May 10, 1986. Created by television writer Susan Harris, the series was produced by Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions and ABC Studios It starred Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White, and Estelle Getty as the main characters Dorothy Zbornak, Blanche Devereaux, Rose Nylund, and Sophia Petrillo. The series revolves around the lives of four older women living together in a house in Miami.
Vivi Janiss was an American actress, known for such films as The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955), Man on the Prowl (1957), and First, You Cry (1978).
Media related to The Bob Cummings Show at Wikimedia Commons