Comfort TV Visits Charm School (Better Late Than Never)

I hadn’t planned to post about the New Year. But then I considered how every New Year takes us further away from the time when shows from the Comfort TV era were made – shows that reflected what life in America was like at that time.

We’re 50 years beyond most of their debuts now. Do they still mirror how we live? I don’t mean the cosmetic stuff – the fashions and the cars and the slang; will we reach a point where these TV characters exist in an America we no longer recognize? Are there already elements in these shows that were once acceptable and are now inappropriate or to some even offensive?

Let’s consider one example.

I was raised in Skokie, Illinois, and in that Chicago suburb was a shopping center called Old Orchard, and in that shopping center was a Montgomery Ward department store. And in that store was a place called the Wendy Ward Charm School that taught young girls poise, proper manners and etiquette, among other lessons. 

Attendees received a handbook with tips such as “To be a girl assuredly means more than just being not a boy”, and “A lilting voice – warm, gentle and animated – is a ‘beauty order’ any girl can fill.” Many girls received complimentary sessions at the school through their Brownie and Girl Scout troops. Each class would end with a fashion show. 

This was the 1970s, in case any of you are now wondering whether I grew up during the Eisenhower administration.

Would Millennials even know what a charm school is? Do they even exist anymore?

Such places were familiar in the Comfort TV era, so not surprisingly they were featured in our favorite shows as well.

As is often the case with TV comedy, Lucy got their first. In “The Charm School,” a 1954 episode of I Love Lucy, Lucy and Ethel become jealous at the attention their husbands pay to a refined woman at a party. To up their game they enroll in the Phoebe Emerson Charm School, where they take lessons in how to walk, speak and dress.

The scenes that follow, featuring a pre-Lovey Natalie Schaefer as Miss Emerson, are classic Lucy.

I don’t think the writers really grasped the charm school concept, as the facility created for the show looks more like a health club. Of course, suspension of disbelief was already required, as Lucy and Ethel had already surpassed the charm school demographic.

That was not the case on The Patty Duke Show; in “The Perfect Teenager” (1964) Patty fails a magazine quiz on how teenagers should act. That sends her into a depression until she sees an ad for Miss Selby’s school promoting the ABCs – Attitude, Brightness and Charm.

The most bizarre aspect of this episode was the casting of Kaye Ballard as Miss Selby. Based on her body of work she seems an odd choice for a role model of demure grace. 

But the lessons taught in class are straight out of Wendy Ward. Patty’s attempted self-makeover lands her a modeling job in which she is sprayed with a seltzer bottle and takes a pie in the face. Just what a teenager seeking self-confidence needs.

Even the lovely Cissy Davis on Family Affair was not immune to insecurity. In “The New Cissy” (1968) she is convinced boys don’t notice her: “I can’t go on being me!”

Uncle Bill being rich, he doesn’t send her to charm school, he has the charm school come to her. Top industry consultants are hired to coach her in how to dress, how to carry on a conversation, and how to intrigue her male classmates: “99% of the time your face should reveal nothing; it should remain calm, placid, enigmatic…men will be intrigued. They’ll imagine you’re thinking much deeper thoughts then you really are.”

The episode also features the one scene without which no charm school episode is complete – learning to walk with a book on your head for balance and poise. 

Patty Lane tried it as well, and you’ll find similar scenes throughout the Comfort TV landscape, from The Beverly Hillbillies to The Brady Bunch to the opening credits of Charlie’s Angels’ final season.

The lessons work for Cissy, but she realizes (as Lucy and Patty did before her) that the person she’s become wasn’t really her. It’s a conclusion that is almost unavoidable given that the alternative is having the characters continue to act in a more refined way (though in Cissy’s case she was already as well-mannered a teenager as TV produced).

That’s not a message that likely did much for charm school recruitment, however, which is unfortunate. These institutions, archaic as they may now seem, once strived to make the world a more gracious place.

Comfort TV Classroom Crushes

One of the most popular family sitcom stories of the Comfort TV era is the student who develops a crush on a teacher.

I wonder, in the wake of so many news stories about inappropriate teacher-student relationships, if this trope is still popular today. Perhaps, like episodes in which characters get drunk in a funny way, it has been relegated to the scrapheap of ideas that can no longer be explored without offending someone.

That would be unfortunate. For decades the teacher crush was a go-to plot because it could naturally accommodate both comedy and earnest, sometimes painful emotion, which most viewers can appreciate having gone through a similar experience.

For me it was Miss Bobbin in second grade, a hippie chick with long dark hair that wore flowery sundresses and taught barefoot. Ah, the ‘70s.

Looking back on a selection of these episodes, there is an almost even divide between boys falling for female teachers, and girls falling for male instructors.

Most happen in high school, which is understandable. And when the series is set in high school at least one story like this is inescapable. Even the nerdy, reedy-voiced Wally Cox, who played a science teacher in Mister Peepers, became the object of a student’s affections in “The Teenage Crush” (1952). 

No series went there faster than The Patty Duke Show. “The French Teacher” was the first episode of the first season, and has Patty failing French (“a moth-eaten drag”) until her teacher leaves to get married and is replaced by dashing substitute Andre Malon (Jean-Pierre Aumont).

Starry-eyed looks turn to genuine hope after Andre offers to show her Paris if she ever visits. But when Patty starts to make plans for their future, Andre turns to her father for help:

Andre: “I think she wants to marry me!”

Martin: “It would serve you right.”

Patty was among the luckier students in these stories – a solution was found that spared her any feelings of rejection. Bud Anderson of Father Knows Best was not as fortunate during his infatuation with a French teacher in “Bud Branches Out.” Now a college freshman at the start of the show’s sixth and final season, he gets herded into French by mistake and decides to stick around after an amour-at-first-sight glance at Miss Luvois. 

Through one of those patented sitcom misunderstandings, a dinner invitation to Bud sent by his girlfriend is delivered by Miss Luvois, and he thinks it’s from her. Standing outside her home with flowers in hand, he learns the hard way that it wasn’t. But don’t feel too bad for Bud, as the girlfriend he returns to is played by gorgeous Roberta Shore.

Heartbreak usually passes quickly in these situations. In The Brady Bunch episode “The Undergraduate” the family can’t figure out why Greg is flunking math. Alice finds a note in his pocket addressed to “My true love Linda,” but after paging through a yearbook they can’t find a Linda in his class. The mystery is solved when Mike opens a school conference invitation from Greg’s math teacher – Linda O’Hara. 

Greg remains smitten until he meets Linda’s fiancé, Dodger first-baseman Wes Parker (playing himself). He offers Greg tickets to the season opener if the kid gets his math grade up, and Greg happily chooses baseball over love.

Such bribery would not work with Cissy Davis on Family Affair; her crush vanished when she learns the object of her affection is a jerk.

In “Think Deep” Robert Reed plays philosophy teacher Julian Hill, the kind of supercilious twit still found in higher education. But he has a goatee and says things like “The true personality is hidden beneath a welter of self-denigration,” and that was enough for Cissy. But then Uncle Bill invites him to dinner and the twins spill coffee on his suit, prompting the outraged Julian to call them “little monsters.” The shattered look on Cissy’s face says it all. 

The show seemed to take another run at this plotline two seasons later in “The Substitute Teacher,” in which Jody develops a fascination with Miss Evans, wonderfully played by June Lockhart. Turns out this time it’s not puppy love, but Jody gravitating toward her because of her resemblance to his late mother. Few shows delivered that kind of emotional gut-punch better than Family Affair. 

While most crush stories are told from the student perspective, Room 222 explored how the situation can be just as distressing to the teacher. In “The Coat” guidance counselor Liz McIntyre (wonderful Denise Nicholas) helps a troubled student get a job at a department store, and he mistakes her professional interest for something more. He buys her an expensive coat from the store to show his affection (actually he steals it, but it’s the thought that counts). Liz agonizes over the proper response, knowing that the wrong one may drive a dropout risk out of school for good.

Then there are those rare episodes where the student’s attraction is actually reciprocated. On The Facts of Life, the two-part episode “Taking a Chance on Love” has 19 year-old Jo embarking on a romance with her 30 year-old photography teacher. And on Wings, Brian gets to live the dream by spending the night with his ninth-grade English teacher (played by Peggy Lipton!) in “Miss Jenkins.” 

Unfortunately, he gets so caught up in the fantasy he can’t handle reality.

Joe: “You mean…”

Brian: “I got an incomplete.’

Do I have a favorite? Glad you asked. The episode is titled “I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Think” and it’s from Gidget. It starts when Gidget meets an older guy on the beach and they start surfing together. 

She loves it when he calls her “a pint-sized adorable doll,” though he won’t admit they have a relationship. “At least for the next five to six years,” he tells her. “Talk to me then and I might make you a serious proposition.”

With school starting next Monday, the mystery man urges Gidget to forget him, and she calls it the perfect romance – “over before it had a chance to begin.” But on Monday she walks into math class and guess who’s her teacher?

This was the pivotal scene, because given the flirting and feelings and the now much more obvious age difference, it could easily play the wrong way. But while the moment is every bit as awkward as it should be, it’s also hilarious, because of some unexpected slapstick moments and because Sally Field is a gifted actress.

Teacher and student finally talk things out, but a lot of stuff implied on the beach is deftly sidestepped in the climax, probably because there was no better way out. Still, this is one of those TV episodes that's a lot more complex and provocative than its creators intended.

If you’d like to plan your own teacher crush classic TV night, you have many other options to choose from:

“Beaver’s Crush” (Leave it to Beaver)

“Another Day Another Scholar” (The Jimmy Stewart Show)

“The Love God” (My Three Sons)

“Love at First Byte” (Head of the Class)

“The Communication Gap” (Nanny and the Professor)

Each one offers its own variations on a story that almost always makes for fun television.

Seeing Double: Comfort TV’s 10 Best Dual Role Performances – and the 5 Worst

 

The longer a TV show runs, the greater the temptation to indulge in one of the medium’s most time-honored clichés – having one of its stars take on a dual role. Most of these occasions are little more than one-shot gimmicks, but some shows have elevated this dubious set-up into something unforgettable.

Here, in reverse order, are ten of television’s best double takes, followed by five from actors who should have been content with just one character.

10. Tina Louise as Ginger Grant and Eva Grubb

Gilligan’s Island

Bob Denver and Jim Backus also played multiple roles during the show’s three seasons, but Tina Louise’s dowdy performance as Eva Grubb was the series’ most memorable departure from the usual monotony of foiled island escapes. The episode “All About Eva” also earns bonus points for blending two classic TV chestnuts into one story – the dual role and the “plain Jane becomes a knockout” transformation.

9. James Best as Rosco P. Coltrane and Woody

The Dukes of Hazzard

James Best appeared in more than 80 films prior to Dukes of Hazzard, and was often cast as villains far more menacing than the sputtering Sheriff Rosco.  In “Too Many Roscos,” Best dusted off that steely expression and hardcore persona that served him well in those serious stories.  

8. Barbara Eden as Jeannie and Jeannie II

I Dream of Jeannie

It has taken awhile but of late I’ve been more impressed with Barbara Eden’s one-woman sister act. Beyond the brunette wig and the switch from pink to green harem costume, I think the contrast between her wide-eyed Jeannie and the character’s more sultry, scheming sister is still underrated by classic TV fans. Eden played both roles in several episodes, beginning with 1967’s “Jeannie or the Tiger.” 

7. Patrick Troughton as The Doctor and Salamander

Doctor Who

The Doctor Who adventure “The Enemy of the World” qualifies as a recent addition to any dual role ranking, though the story in which it took place first aired back in 1967. Only one episode of this 6-part story had been known to survive, until the other chapters were recently discovered in a vault in Nigeria. Now reassembled and released on DVD, the story does not disappoint, particularly in the distinction between Troughton’s whimsical, almost childlike Doctor and his portrayal of the brutal dictator Salamander.

6. Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers and Lisa Galloway

The Bionic Woman

You know who really likes actors in dual roles? Emmy voters. In the first-season Bionic Woman episode “Mirror Image,” Lindsay Wagner played Southern belle Lisa Galloway, altered by plastic surgery to look like Jaime Sommers so she could steal some top-secret documents. She won the Emmy for Best Actress over what many felt was more distinguished competition, including Michael Learned (The Waltons) and Sada Thompson (Family). The Los Angeles Times reported there were boos in the pressroom after the winner was announced. With her bionic ear, Jaime probably heard them too. 

5. David Canary as Adam and Stuart Chandler

All My Children

The evil twin story is a mainstay of daytime drama. Fans still recall easygoing doctor Grant Putnam (Brian Patrick Clarke) squaring off against psycho killer Grant Andrews on General Hospital, or Natalie Marlowe (Kate Collins) being thrown down a well by Janet Green, a.k.a. “Janet from another planet,” on All My Children. But David Canary’s work as brothers Adam and Stuart Chandler had more heart and less histrionics than most twin stories. It also won him five Emmys.

4. Jack Larson as Jimmy Olsen and Kid Collins

The Adventures of Superman

Viewers used to Jack Larson’s amiable “Gosh, Mr. Kent!” persona had to be shocked at his transformation into a vicious mobster in “Jimmy the Kid.” His twisted, grimacing smile, clenched teeth and intense stare are a complete departure from that of Superman’s pal. Larson fondly recalled the episode when I interviewed him in 1996: “I’ve had the ultimate compliment of people asking me, ‘where did they get that actor who looked like you?’”

3. Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha and Serena

Bewitched

As is often the case with Bewitched, you can enjoy the show for what it is, a still-funny supernatural sitcom, or you could look just beneath the surface and discover a series that had a little more on its mind. The episodes featuring Serena encapsulate the social and generational conflicts of the 1960s, with Elizabeth Montgomery convincingly playing both sides. Note the contrast between Sam, the sophisticated New England suburbanite who dresses formal for country club dinners, and her free-spirited, flower child cousin who wouldn’t be caught dead with all those stiffs. Note also the barely-hidden glance of admiration Sam betrays toward Serena’s bohemian lifestyle, and consider if Darren is holding her back in ways that have nothing to do with magic. 

2. Brent Spiner as Data and Lore

Star Trek: The Next Generation

It’s the tale of two android brothers, only one of whom can experience emotions. Unfortunately, that’s also the one that needed a factory recall. All of Lore’s appearances are series highlights, but Brent Spiner was never better than in the season 4 episode “Brothers,” in which he played Data, Lore and their creator, Dr. Noonien Soong.

1. Patty Duke as Patty and Cathy Lane

The Patty Duke Show

There’s no way this couldn’t be #1. The dual role here was no gimmick – the entire series was built around the concept of identical cousins, both played by a teenage actress who had already earned an Academy Award. Hardly surprising then that she was able to create two fully realized characters and keep them both interesting through 104 episodes.

Several stories called for Patty to imitate her cousin Cathy, or vice versa, and the modulation that Duke employs here is pretty astonishing. Just by the way she holds her eyes, or the suggestion of a mannerism that doesn’t quite fit, she depicts the character she is playing, and the character her character is trying to play. Even with the sound off, you can always tell what’s going on.

Watch the breakfast table scenes, where Duke makes Cathy left-handed and Patty right-handed, or how natural the conversational rhythm seems when the two characters are talking to each other – after awhile you completely forget the novelty of what’s happening. This is one (or two of) the very best performances in the Comfort TV era. 

The 5 Worst Comfort TV Dual Roles

Christopher Knight (The Brady Bunch)

“Two Petes in a Pod” aired late in the series’ fifth and final season, when everyone seemed to already be phoning it in. Christopher Knight’s transformation from Peter Brady to lookalike student Arthur consisted of nothing more than putting on a pair of glasses. 

Lucille Ball (Here’s Lucy)

One of the strangest episodes in the entire Lucy canon is “Lucy Carter meets Lucille Ball,” in which Lucy, in her usual Here’s Lucy character, wins a Lucille Ball lookalike contest. The show was a 30-minute commercial for Ball’s upcoming film Mame, which was one of the biggest bombs of her career.  Now, if Lucy Carter had met Lucy Ricardo, that might have been something special.

Leif Garrett (Wonder Woman)

Stretching those acting muscles, teen pop star Leif Garrett plays…a teen pop star and his twin brother, who also becomes a teen pop star. “My Teenage Idol is Missing” was an inauspicious start to the series’ last season.

David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight and Garth Knight (Knight Rider)

A classic slice of ‘80s cheese, in which Hasselhoff plays his evil twin by donning facial hair that made him look like Barry Gibb. Rumor has it that The Hoff put an end to Garth’s appearances because the makeup took too long to apply. Ah, nothing like dedication to one’s craft.  

Liberace (Batman)

The flamboyant entertainer seemed right at home as acclaimed pianist Chandell, but as Chandell’s crooked brother, Harry? Let’s just say we’ve seen more intimidating mobsters in our time – like these guys. 

Checking Into Comfort TV Hospital

 

Here’s another under-appreciated pleasure of classic television from the Comfort TV age: it makes places you’d never want to visit seem less terrible.

I was in the hospital recently and found nothing pleasurable about it. You’re away from your home and your bed, in a big building full of monotonous hallways and colorless rooms. You try to rest but are disturbed by the buzzes and beeps of strange machinery. And the food is worse than what they serve on Delta’s red-eye from Minneapolis to New Jersey.

But watch any popular situation comedy from the 1950s to the 1970s, and there was probably an episode featuring one of the main characters logging some hospital time. And for them, it didn’t seem so bad.

What’s the difference? Classic TV hospital stays typically begin with the patient safely ensconced in their room, skipping past the multiple blood tests, book-length insurance forms, questionnaires that ask male patients if they’ve ever been pregnant, and being asked one’s height and weight by every doctor, nurse and administrator, all of whom write down the responses but none of whom apparently share this paperwork with anyone else in the building.

Of course, the best of part of visiting a classic TV hospital is that everyone gets to leave. Healthy.

Do you have a favorite hospital episode from a classic series? Here are some of mine.

“Lucy Plays Florence Nightingale”

The Lucy Show

Lucy is a volunteer nurse at the hospital where Mr. Mooney is recovering from a broken leg. From the moment you see Mooney in his hospital bed, his injured leg suspended above him, you know he’s about to be subjected to every form of comedic torture the writers can devise. There’s also an inventively choreographed wheelchair chase that plays like something out of a classic silent movie. 

 “Hi!”

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Mary has her tonsils out and gets saddled with the roommate from hell, played by the wonderful Pat Carroll. The episode is probably best remembered, at least among the show’s male viewers, for the sexy nightgown Rhoda slips into Mary’s overnight bag before she leaves for the hospital. 

“That’s My Boy?”

The Dick Van Dyke Show

A flashback episode in which Rob recalls how, after Ritchie was born, he became certain that the hospital gave them the wrong baby. The final scene received the longest laugh in the history of The Dick Van Dyke Show.

“The Candy Striper”

Family Affair

Cissy gets a candy striper job and the head nurse provides only one warning – never give a patient food or drink without consulting with a doctor. And just like Gremlins, you start counting the minutes until she forgets the rule. On the verge of quitting, she returns to the hospital after a pep talk from Uncle Bill and finds a way to balance her compassion with responsibility. 

“Bob Has to Have His Tonsils Out, So He Spends Christmas Eve in the Hospital”

The Bob Newhart Show

The title says it all. Bob is subjected to the indignities of peekaboo hospital gowns, Howard’s hospital horror stories, and an ancient nurse played by the veteran character actress Merie Earle, who gets a laugh with every line she utters. 

“Operation: Tonsils”

The Patty Duke Show

Classic sitcom misunderstanding- Patty overhears her handsome doctor praising the trim lines and beauty of his new boat, and thinks the compliments are all for her.  The doctor is played by one-time matinee idol Troy Donahue. 

“And Then There Were Three”

Bewitched

Tabitha is born in this milestone second season episode, that also features the first appearance of Serena, the ever-acerbic Eve Arden as a confused nurse, and a rare moment in which Darrin and Endora are actually kind to each other.