Earlier this week, as most of you already know, Bob Denver passed away. Most famous today for playing the title character in the TV crapfest "Gilligan's Island", his obits also contained fleeting references to an earlier TV role, as Maynard G. Krebs in the series, "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". This LA Times column recounts the uniqueness of that character, a goateed, jazz-loving, bongo-playing hipster.

What is truly odd about this is the fact that Denver would have become so well-known for one character, but almost forgotten for the other. "Gilligan's Island" has been a staple on TV for generations, even though it was astonishingly bad and unfunny, and lasted for only four seasons. Very few people younger than 50, on the other hand, have any memory of "Dobie Gillis". In fact, that show lasted longer than "Gilligan", is said to have been a much better comedy (I have to rely on the opinions of others for this, since I have never seen a single episode of the show in the nearly forty-two years I've been on the planet), and had a much more famous cast. Besides Denver, the show also included a young Warren Beatty, who is only one of the most famous actors in the world, Tuesday Weld (as Dobie's infatuation), who came pretty close to becoming a star, and who was nominated for an Oscar for Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Michael J. Pollard, who was also Oscar-nominated, for Bonnie and Clyde, and Sheila Kuhle, who might not be a name many of you have heard of, but in California she is a pretty well-known political figure. And yet, other than a few odd episodes that might have been shown on Nickelodeon once upon a time, I don't know if its ever been syndicated. Strange.