The Joey Bishop Show (1961)

Spun off from a 1961 episode of The Danny Thomas Show as a vehicle for suddenly hot stand-up comedian Joey Bishop, The Joey Bishop Show initially had the titular actor playing somewhat incompetent PR man Joey Barnes working for irascible boss J.P. Willoughby, whose secretary Barbara Simpson secretly has a crush on him, and living with and supporting his widowed mother and younger siblings Larry, a medical student, and aspiring actress Stella. He also supports his married sister Betty and her constantly unemployed husband Frank Grafton. Like Rob Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, the Barnes character is cast in the mold of Thomas' character Danny Williams--working in the entertainment industry with a soft spine that makes him unable to speak the uncomfortable truth to others, resulting in a series of misadventures easily avoidable by just growing a backbone. Like Danny Williams and to a lesser degree Rob Petrie, Barnes' character is supposed to derive comedy from the portrayal of the unconfident, ineffectual male. 

To begin with, Barnes is a grown adult male living still living with his mother, a subject that is mined for comedy in "The Bachelor" (October 25, 1961) and "Five Brides for Joey" (November 1, 1961). In the former episode he brings home actress Connie Bowers after escorting her to a premiere and the two begin to have a romantic interlude before being interrupted by the steady stream of relatives who either live with him or drop by announced. He decides to try on the role of swinging bachelor when another client, playboy actor Brian Taylor, loans him his swank bachelor pad while Taylor is off on a theatrical gig, but the down-to-earth Barnes fails miserably to pull it off. He is also too dense to notice that Willoughby's secretary Barbara Simpson pines for him, so when his family tries to set him up with several eligible females they know in the latter episode, he clumsily asks Barbara to pretend to be his steady girlfriend, thinking that she is the last person on earth who would really want such a position. She manages to turn the tables on him by showing up to meet his family dressed like a floozy, as she also puts the pressure on him in "Ring-a-Ding-Ding" (November 22, 1961) when she is pursued by notorious wolf Ricky Hamilton and decides to accept Hamilton's offer of a date to spur jealousy in Barnes. His solution for extricating her from Hamilton's clutches is both hilarious and proof that he really cares about her, but nothing develops thereafter and the Barbara Simpson character was dropped after only 8 appearances all in 1961.

Another weakness is Barnes' constant fear of being fired; in fact, he is fired in the first minute of the very first episode, "On the Spot" (September 20, 1961), when Willoughby blames him for failing to pick up one of their clients at his hotel the previous evening. Over the course of the episode, Barnes is reinstated when Willoughby realizes that he sent him to the wrong hotel, but only after Barnes has aired his grievances about his ex-boss for a Candid Camera-inspired TV show, which is a favorite of Willoughby, and then goes to ridiculous lengths to try to keep Willoughby from seeing it. His fear of being fired also has Barnes weighing that outcome versus being killed by jealous husband Danny Williams (played by Danny Thomas, of course) when he is assigned to bring Williams to Los Angeles for a surprise appearance on This Is Your Life in the fourth episode, "This Is Your Life" (October 11, 1961). Barnes decides that being murdered is less worrisome than being fired by Willoughby, but he gets fired again a few episodes later in "Charity Begins at Home" (November 15, 1961) when all of the Barnes and the Willoughbys get swept up in a police raid that mistakenly thinks they are running an illegal bookmaking operation. Needless to say, Barnes gets reinstated at the insistence of Mrs. Willoughby and is even given a raise. But in real life it was Bishop who wound up firing the Willoughby character and the rest of the Season 1 cast because he thought the set-up was not suited to his talents as an ad-libbing comic, so beginning in Season 2 he was the host of a talk show who had the opportunity to play off a series of celebrity guests. Bishop's show business cachet already helped land such celebrity guests as Danny Thomas and Marjorie Lord, Jack Paar, and Barbara Stanwyck in the first four episodes alone, and he certainly had ample opportunities to give a steady stream of comic zingers in the Season 1 format, but in a 1998 interview with The Los Angeles Times, Bishop said about the original set-up, "it wasn’t something I couldn’t wait to go and do. They just happened to make a big mistake in casting me in my family because I had to kind of play sympathetically [toward his mother] Madge Blake. I couldn’t kid with her."

And yet he had the perfect comic foil in those episodes in the character of his chronically unemployed brother-in-law Frank Grafton, played brilliantly by Joe Flynn. Grafton goes through a series of jobs that rarely last a week because he does something outlandish or decides the job doesn't meet his high standards. Yet he is always happy to drop by and eat dinner at the Barnes' house or borrow money from Joey. And yet Frank is a talented salesman because he always seems to hook Joey into his latest get-rich scheme and is dogged in brushing aside any objections or even refusals. In "The Contest Winner" (October 18, 1961) Frank enters a contest to come up with a new slogan for a baking company with a $10,000 prize but before learning that he has won, Joey pressures him into accepting a job with a pretzel company. The only problem is that the baking company and pretzel company are part of the same conglomerate, making Frank ineligible to accept the prize, so he shames Joey into playing along with a ridiculous attempt to pretend that Frank stole the slogan from Joey, who is the rightful winner of the contest. The plot almost works, until Joey learns that his PR firm is also part of the same conglomerate, making him also ineligible. 

In "Back in Your Own Backyard" (November 8, 1961) Frank is now selling swimming pools and in an attempt to show Joey that his backyard is perfect for swimming pool excavation, he appears to strike oil, which would make both of them wealthy beyond their dreams, only it turns out the oil is over the property line and actually in a vacant lot behind Joey's. So Frank pressures Joey to borrow the $10,000 needed to buy the lot from Willoughby, whom they make a partner, only to discover the oil actually came from an underground heating oil tank. But all is not lost because a movie theater wants to buy the vacant lot for possible future expansion and is even willing to pay them $7000 more than they paid for it, only Frank thinks that isn't enough and tries to figure out why they want it so that they can make more money for themselves than the mere $7000. Needless to say, things don't pan out the way Frank envisioned. Joey is even pressured to get Frank a job at his own firm in "Help Wanted" (November 29, 1961), and Frank finally finds a job that he feels suits his unique talents. However, when he convinces a comedian client to expand his horizons by playing Shakespeare, Willoughby demands that Joey fire him, a task one would think Joey would relish given the number of insults he hurls at Frank for his slacker approach to work. Instead, he tries to evade any unpleasantness by thinking Frank will quickly grow tired of the job and quit, then assigning him demeaning menial tasks, and forbidding him from talking to the client again. These indirect tactics only spur Frank to go over Joey's head, which only forces Joey into another opportunity to be fired by Willoughby, whom he mistakenly berates while banging on the comedian's hotel bathroom door, thinking that it is Frank inside when it is actually Willoughby. 

These episodes with Flynn playing Frank are the best of those aired in 1961, but they definitely posed a problem for Bishop because despite delivering a succession of zingers aimed at Frank, Bishop is actually the straight man for Flynn, who was never seen again after the "Help Wanted" episode. A feature article about Flynn in the August 10, 1963 edition of TV Guide explains what happened: after Variety reviewed the show and said it would "need a lot of work to keep Bishop from stooging for Joe Flynn instead of starring on his own," Flynn remarked in the TV Guide interview, "When I read that, I knew I was through." He was paid off after appearing in only 7 shows though his contract called for 10. The producers of McHale's Navy put him to good use beginning the next fall in the best known role of his career as Capt. Wallace B. Binghamton, a role that bears some resemblance to the dyspeptic Willoughby character. Bishop was already at work changing the series as of the December 2, 1961 edition of TV Guide, which notes about the show, "at this writing it already has undergone some changes in response to criticism, despite its early success in the ratings race." The criticisms were likely the comments in Variety, but The Joey Bishop Show entered the top 30 at #24 for its first season in 1961-62 never to crack the top 30 again in its revised format for Seasons 2-4. Bishop seemed to think those later seasons held up well in the aforementioned 1998 interview. Sounds like the viewing public didn't entirely agree with him.

One final footnote for the 1961 episodes: The Joey Bishop Show was part of NBC's push to be the leader in color television programs, which began for fiction-based programs with the popularity of the all-color introduction of Bonanza for the 1959-60 series. Prior to the introduction of Bonanza, color broadcasts were reserved for variety shows such as The Dinah Shore Chevy Show and The Perry Como Show and for game shows like The Price Is Right. For 1960-61 NBC only added color for about half the episodes of the children's anthology series Shirley Temple's Storybook, but for 1961-62 they began to expand their color offerings in a big way. First, they lured Walt Disney's popular anthology series away from ABC and renamed it Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. Second, they tried reviving three existing westerns by filming them in color a la Bonanza--Laramie, Tales of Wells Fargo, and Outlaws. And finally, they experimented with three new sit-coms by broadcasting test episodes in color--one episode each for Hazel and The Bob Newhart Show and three episodes for The Joey Bishop Show. For the latter program these episodes were "A Windfall for Mom" (October 4, 1961), "Five Brides for Joey" (November 1, 1961), and "The Ham in the Family" (December 6, 1961). The experiments apparently proved successful because both Hazel and The Joey Bishop Show were broadcast entirely in color beginning with the 1962-63 season.

The theme music and for The Joey Bishop Show was composed by longtime Earle Hagen and John Williams collaborator Herbert W. Spencer. Spencer was born in Santiago, Chile on April 7, 1905. He broke into film scoring with uncredited stock compositions for The Wolf Dog in 1933, though he was more often the orchestrator and/or arranger on dozens of pictures through the 1930s and 1940s. He contributed to such classic musicals as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, There's No Business Like Show Business, Guys and Dolls, and Carousel in the 1950s. In 1953 he joined forces with Hagen to create the Spencer-Hagen Orchestra and provide music and orchestration for TV shows such as Hey, Jeannie!, The Danny Thomas Show, and The Andy Griffith Show, whose memorable theme "The Fishin' Hole" he co-wrote with Hagen. Spencer and Hagen broke up their association around 1960, but Spencer continued to find steady feature film work on titles such as Cleopatra, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and A Guide for the Married Man. Beginning with Valley of the Dolls in 1967, Spencer began a collaboration with composer John Williams that lasted through Home Alone in 1990. This included the original Star Wars trilogy, E.T., MASH, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the Indiana Jones series. He received Oscar nominations for his work on Scrooge in 1971 and Jesus Christ Superstar in 1974 and passed away at age 87 on September 18, 1992. 

The complete series has been released on DVD by SFM Entertainment.

The Actors

For the biography of Madge Blake, see the 1960 post on The Real McCoys. For the biography of Joe Flynn, see the 1961 post on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

Joey Bishop

Born Joseph Abraham Gottlieb in the Bronx on February 3, 1918, Bishop's family moved to South Philadelphia when he was an infant. His father was a bicycle repairman who also played the ocarina and taught his son Yiddish songs, and Bishop decided he wanted to be an entertainer at an early age. Dropping out of high school at age 18, Bishop first performed as part of a comedy duo with his older brother Maury and then in 1938 teamed up with two friends as the Bishop Brothers Trio, taking their last name from a friend who let them use his car to drive to gigs. After the outbreak of World War II, the group split up, but Bishop hung on to the last name and began performing as a single comedian. He met his wife Sylvia Ruzga in 1941 when she says he wasn't even earning $20 a week, but that changed when he was offered $100 a week at the club El Dumpo in Cleveland. The couple married in January 1942, and later that year Bishop was drafted into the Army, where he served for 3 years in the Special Services and considered making a career of military life until Sylvia became gravely ill and was hospitalized at great expense, which prompted the Army to give Bishop a special discharge. He went back to being a comedian, relying on his keen ability to ad lib rather than working from a regular routine, and he found work at the Greenwich Village Inn at $125 a week, gradually working his way up to making $1000 a week at clubs in the Latin Quarter. He made his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1950. His career received a big boost when Frank Sinatra caught his act in 1952 and tabbed Bishop to open for him at Bill Miller's Riviera in Fort Lee, New Jersey later that year. By 1958 he began appearing in films such as The Deep Six, The Naked and the Dead, and Onionhead and the TV talk show Keep Talking, which in turn led to semi-regular appearances as a guest on The Jack Paar Show and Steve Allen's The Tonight Show. In 1960, the year in which he also appeared in the Rat Pack's first film Ocean's 11, Danny Thomas and Louis F. Edelman decided to build a sit-com around Bishop and had his character introduced in an episode of The Danny Thomas Show. Bishop was also chosen to MC the inaugural gala for President John F. Kennedy in January 1961 (after turning down a request to perform the same function at the Republican National Convention the previous year) at which the Rat Pack performed. In fact, Bishop would play a pivotal role in the Rat Pack's Las Vegas shows, serving as MC and writing most of the material.

During the 4-year run on The Joey Bishop Show, Bishop appeared in another Rat Pack feature film, Sergeants 3 but reportedly had a falling out with Sinatra during the filming of Robin and the 7 Hoods two years later. But he found small roles in other features such as Johnny Cool, Texas Across the River with Dean Martin, Who's Minding the Mint?, and Valley of the Dolls. After playing a talk-show host over the last 3 seasons of The Joey Bishop Show, Bishop took up the role in real life, when he was given his own talk show, also called The Joey Bishop Show, by ABC in 1967 with a young sidekick named Regis Philbin. The show ran a little over two years, but while the program couldn't compete with Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, Bishop filled in for Carson a then-record 177 times both before and after his own show. His quick wit and penchant for ad libs also made him a popular panelist on game shows such as The Match Game, What's My Line?, The Hollywood Squares, Celebrity Sweepstakes, and Break the Bank. He also returned to nightclub performances for a time, but by the late 1970s was scaling back all of his show business ventures. He made single guest spot appearances on Trapper John, M.D., Hardcastle and McCormick, and Murder, She Wrote in the 1980s and made only a few more feature film appearances during this time, his last being in the 1996 mob-themed movie Mad Dog Time directed and written by his son Larry Bishop. His wife Sylvia died of lung cancer in 1999, and Bishop thereafter lived with companion Nora Garabotti until his death from multiple organ failure on October 17, 2007 at the age of 89.

Marlo Thomas

Margaret Julia Thomas was born in Detroit, Michigan on November 21, 1937, the eldest of entertainer Danny Thomas' three children. Her name "Marlo" came from a childhood mispronunciation of the family's nickname for her, "Margo." Thomas grew up in Beverly Hills, California, attended Marymount High School in Los Angeles, and then matriculated to USC, where she earned degrees in teaching and English in 1959. Despite her hugely popular TV star father, Thomas cites as her first time on stage performing a number from West Side Story with her sorority sisters at the annual USC homecoming variety show. Shortly after finishing college, she began getting guest spots on TV programs, beginning with The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in January 1960. She and her father co-starred in a memorable 1961 episode of the western anthology Zane Grey Theater, but her only appearance on her father's hit series The Danny Thomas Show was the 1961 episode that launched The Joey Bishop Show, "Everything Happens to Me," in which she played Bishop's younger sister Stella, the role she continued when The Joey Bishop Show launched in the fall of 1961.

However, Thomas appeared on the program only 22 times during Season 1, as it was then retooled and recast for its last three seasons. For the next few years she received guest spots on programs such as Bonanza, My Favorite Martian, The Donna Reed Show, and McHale's Navy before she was cast in the lead for a TV pilot that aired as the TV movie Two's Company in which she played a newlywed opposite Ron Husmann in 1965. The pilot was not picked up, but ABC and sponsor Clairol saw potential in Thomas, and wanted to develop a new series around her. She later commented that she had no interest in the typical roles they offered her as a wife, daughter or secretary. She eventually persuaded head of programming Edgar Scherick to do a series about an independent single working woman living on her own in New York City, and thus the series That Girl was born, a show that garnered Thomas 4 Emmy nominations, won her a Golden Globe in 1967, and blazed the trail for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and many others thereafter. Towards the end of the series' 5-year run, Thomas made her feature film debut playing the title character opposite Alan Alda in Jenny in 1970. After That Girl ended, Thomas studied with Lee Strasburg and Sandra Seacat at the Actors Studio and performed in Broadway, Off Broadway, and local theatrical productions. In 1972 she authored the children's book Free to Be...You and Me, which spawned a series of sequels and an Emmy- and Peabody-winning children's special in 1974. In 1973 she co-founded the Ms. Foundation for Women with Gloria Steinem, Patricia Carbine, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin. In 1977 she appeared as a guest on Phil Donahue's television talk show and the two immediately fell in love, marrying in 1980. For the next two decades her filmography consisted solely of feature films and TV movies, including an Emmy-winning role in the 1986 film Nobody's Child. She won another Emmy in 1989 for the children's special Free to Be...a Family. She returned to TV roles in the late 1990s, playing Jennifer Anniston's mother on Friends, appearing four times as Judge Mark Clark on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and playing the character Vivian in 3 episodes of Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later. She won a Grammy in 2006 for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for Marlo Thomas and Friends: Thanks and Giving All Year Long. In 2010 she founded the web site MarloThomas.com for women over 35 years of age, and in 2014 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She last appeared in the feature film all-female re-spin of Ocean's 11, Ocean's Eight in 2018 and currently serves as the National Outreach Director for the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital founded by her father in 1962.

Warren Berlinger

The nephew of comedian Milton Berle (whose real last name was Berlinger), Berlinger was born in Brooklyn on August 31, 1937. His father was a building contractor and the owner of the Berlinger Glass store on Avenue D. Young Warren made his stage debut at age 9 in the original Broadway production of Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Mermen. He attended the Professional Children's School from 1952-55 and appeared as a guest on the original Howdy Doody TV program. His first television credit came in a 1955 episode of Kraft Theatre and the following year made his feature film debut in Teenage Rebel, during which he met his future wife, actress Betty Lou Keim. He also appeared that year in Three Brave Men as well as his first TV sit-com role on The Goldbergs. He attended Columbia University in 1958 while also taking occasional roles on television. He won a Theatre World Award for the theatrical version of Blue Denim and then reprised the role of Ernie in the 1959 feature film version. In 1960 he was in demand as a character actor in Because They're Young, Platinum High School, and The Wackiest Ship in the Army starring Jack Lemmon and Ricky Nelson. He followed that with the musical comedy All Hands on Deck in 1961 before being cast as Joey Bishop's younger brother Larry in Season 1 of The Joey Bishop Show.

His film career stalled for a few years thereafter but began to pick up again in 1965 with the title role in the Magical World of Disney four-parter Kilroy and a supporting role in the Patty Duke vehicle Billie. He supported Elvis Presley in the car-racing feature Spinout in 1966 and then backed Annette Funicello and Fabian in the similarly themed Thunder Alley the following year. TV guest spots were sparse, but old friend Marlo Thomas featured him twice on That Girl in 1967 and 1970. He then had recurring roles as Artie Halpern on Bracken's World, the Blue-Collar Husband on the sketch variety series The Funny Side, and Walter Bradley on A Touch of Grace, to go along with 7 appearances on Love American Style between 1970-73. A string of feature film roles, such as Lepke and The Shaggy D.A., and occasional TV guest spots on Emergency!, What's Happening!!, and The Love Boat filled the years before he landed another recurring role as Chief Engineer Dobritch on the TV version of Operation Petticoat in 1978-79. That was followed by the role of Herb on Too Close for Comfort between 1982-86. He appeared on virtually all the major 1970-80 series in guest roles--Happy Days, Charlie's Angels, CHiPs, Laverne & Shirley, Dynasty, The Jeffersons, and The A-Team. His film roles included everything from The Cannonball Run to The World According to Garp. But behind the scenes he also served on the Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild, was Vice Chair of the Safom Art Commission, and was a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He was also made both honorary mayor and honorary sheriff of the city of Chatsworth, California.  Though his career has slowed in the past couple of decades, he still showed up in a 2016 episode of Grace and Frankie.

John Griggs

Very little is known about the life of actor John Griggs, who played Joey Barnes' irritable boss J.P. Willoughby on the first season of The Joey Bishop Show. He was born May 19, 1908 in Evanston, Illinois and began his theatrical career in Detroit before moving to Broadway in 1928. He had a lengthy and prolific career as a radio actor, appearing in such series as Roses and Drums from 1932-36, Howie Wing in 1938-39, The Creightons in 1942, My Best Girls in 1944-45, The House of Mystery from 1945-49, was the host of Adventure Parade from 1946-49, and was a regular performer on Casey, Crime Photographer and Mr. Ace and Jane. He also appeared on such anthologies as Words at War, The Cavalcade of America, and Theater Five from the 1940s into the early 1960s. His lone feature film appearance came in Annapolis Salute in 1937, but in the 1950s he began to find more steady work in television, providing the voice of the title character in the 1952 puppet show Fearless Fosdick, based on the Li'l Abner comic strip lampoon of Dick Tracy, and appearing multiple times on The Honeymooners, The Phil Silvers Show, and Robert Montgomery Presents. He appeared 10 times as J.P. Willoughby on The Joey Bishop Show and made only one more TV appearance in a 1964 episode of The Defenders before dying at age 58 on February 25, 1967 in Englewood, New Jersey. In April 1968 the Yale University newspaper Yale Daily News featured an article about the acquisition of some 200 16-mm films, mostly from the silent era, collected by the actor John Griggs of New Jersey whose son had attended Yale. The Yale University Library web site notes, "The Griggs Collection formed the seeds of the Film Study Center’s collection, and many of the prints from the original acquisition survive today."

Nancy Hadley

Other than her filmography, not much has been published about actress Nancy Hadley, born August 21, 1931 in Los Angeles. She broke into films in 1952, playing an unnamed model in Ellis in Freedomland. Her TV debut came 3 years later in single episodes of Luke and the Tenderfoot and Cavalcade of America. She had a string of brief guest spots on a number of series in the 1950s and had a recurring role as Marilee Dorf on The Box Brothers, starring Gale Gordon and Bob Sweeney in 1956-57. More guest spots filled out the remainder of the 1950s with appearances on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Rawhide, and Perry Mason before she landed her lone feature-film starring role opposite Jim Davis in the 1961 B-grade western Frontier Uprising. She appeared in 8 episodes as J.P. Willoughby's secretary in the first season of The Joey Bishop Show, but her career afterward dwindled with only occasional appearances on Bonanza, Mr. Novak, and Gomer Pyle: USMC. At some point she married actor and screenwriter John Falvo after his divorce from actor Fay Spain. Falvo died in 1990. Hadley's last screen credit came in the 1972 TV movie A Great American Tragedy. She is apparently still living.

Virginia Vincent

The actress who played Joey Barnes' sister Betty was born on May 3 either in 1918 (as cited on imdb.com and elsewhere) or 1924 (cited on Rotten Tomatoes and elsewhere) in Goshen, New York. She broke into feature films in uncredited roles in California Passage in 1950 and The Company She Keeps in 1951. Her TV debut came the following year in an episode of The Web. While she had occasional roles primarily on anthology TV series in the 1950s, she found bigger parts in feature films with significant supporting roles in The Helen Morgan Story in 1957 and The Return of Dracula, The Black Orchid, and the Susan Hayward star vehicle I Want to Live! all in 1958. She also appeared multiple times on Perry Mason, The Untouchables, and The Detectives in the late 1950s and early '60s before landing the role of Betty on The Joey Bishop Show, which lasted only for 6 episodes. Her career did not wane thereafter with numerous TV guest spots through the late 1980s and recurring roles as Dottie Clark on The Super and Daisy Maxwell on Eight Is Enough. She also continued to get a fair number of supporting roles in feature films such as Love With the Proper Stranger, Tony Rome, Change of Habit, The Million Dollar Duck, and The Hills Have Eyes. She married actor and casting director Frank London in 1959 and passed away on October 3, 2013 at the age of 95 (if born in 1918).

Notable Guest Stars

Season 1, Episode 1, "On the Spot": Joey Forman  (shown on the left, played Freddy Devlin on The Mickey Rooney Show and later played Dr. Sam Nolan on The Joey Bishop Show) plays TV host Charlie Hogan. Mel A. Bishop (unit manager on Adam-12 and Kojak and production manager on Charlie's Angels and Vega$) plays the On the Spot producer. Casey Kasem (voice of Shaggy Rogers on countless Scooby-Doo programs, Alexander Cabot III on Josie and the Pussycats and Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, and Dick Grayson/Robin on numerous Super Friends programs as well as radio program American Top 40) voices the TV announcer.

Season 1, Episode 2, "Joey Meets Jack Paar": Jack Paar (shown on the right, legendary talk-show host) plays himself. Randy Paar (Jack Paar's daughter) plays herself. Hollis Irving (Mrs. Woodley on Blondie and Aunt Phoebe on Margie) plays monkey trainer Lorraine Rogers. Shirley Mitchell (Yvonne Sharp on Sixpenny Corner, Kitty Devereaux on Bachelor Father, Janet Colton on Pete and Gladys, Marge on Please Don't Eat the Daisies, and Clara Appleby on The Red Skelton Hour) plays Parr's secretary. Jerry Hausner (see the biography section for the 1960 post on The Mr. Magoo Show) plays a singing group's agent.

Season 1, Episode 3, "A Windfall for Mom": Barbara Stanwyck (shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1960 post on The Barbara Stanwyck Show)plays homemaker advisor Dora Dunphy. Walter Coy (Zoravac on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, Jason Farrell on A Flame in the Wind, and was the narrator on Frontier) plays her husband. Leonid Kinskey (appeared in Duck Soup, Les Miserables (1935), Ball of Fire, and Casablanca and played Pierre Quincy on The People's Choice) plays Stella's acting coach. Vera Marshe (Mrs. Franklin on Meet Corliss Archer) plays an attendee at Dora's lecture.

Season 1, Episode 4, "This Is Your Life": Danny Thomas (shown on the right, starred in Big City, I'll See You in My Dreams, and The Jazz Singer (1952) and played Danny Williams on The Danny Thomas Show and Make Room for Granddaddy, Dr. Jules Bedford on The Practice, Dr. Benjamin Douglass on I'm a Big Girl Now, and Jake Hatton on One Big Family) plays singer Danny Williams. Marjorie Lord (Kathy Williams on The Danny Thomas Show and Make Room for Granddaddy) plays his wife Kathy. Sid Melton (Ichabod Mudd on Captain Midnight, Charley Halper on The Danny Thomas Show and Make Room for Granddaddy, Alf Monroe on Green Acres, and Salvadore Petrillo on The Golden Girls) plays his agent Charlie Halper.

Season 1, Episode 5, "The Contest Winner": Les Damon (shown on the left, played Bruce Banning on Guiding Light, Jim Lowell, Jr. on As the World Turns, and Asst. DA Ed Palmerlee on The Edge of Night) plays pretzel company president Mr. Collyer. Addison Richards (starred in Boys Town, They Made Her a Spy, Flying Tigers, and The Deerslayer and played Doc Calhoun on Trackdown and Doc Landy on The Deputy) plays check distributor Mr. Chadwick. Orville Sherman (Mr. Feeney on Buckskin, Wib Smith on Gunsmoke, and Tupper on Daniel Boone) plays contest coordinator Mr. Larraby.

Season 1, Episode 6, "The Bachelor": Sue Ane Langdon (shown on the right, played Kitty Marsh on Bachelor Father, Lillian Nuvo on Arnie, Rosie on Grandpa Goes to Washington, and Darlene on When the Whistle Blows) plays actress Connie Bowers. Dennis O'Keefe (starred in Topper Returns, The Leopard Man, The Fighting Seabees, Brewster's Millions, and Walk a Crooked Mile and played Hal Towne on The Dennis O'Keefe Show) plays playboy actor Brian Taylor. Susan Hart (appeared in The Slime People, Ride the Wild Surf, Pajama Party, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini) plays Taylor girlfriend Marilyn.

Season 1, Episode 7, "Five Brides for Joey": Bek Nelson (shown on the left, played Dru Lemp on Lawman and Phyllis Sloan on Peyton Place) plays Mrs. Barnes' friend's daughter Annabelle Johnson. Jean Carson (Rosemary on The Betty Hutton Show) plays Barbara Simpson's colleague Marge. Shirley DeBurgh (Delia Abernathy on Days of Our Lives) plays Frank and Betty's friend Helen Dimsdale.

Season 1, Episode 8, "Back in Your Own Backyard": Peter Leeds (Tenner Smith on Trackdown and George Colton on Pete and Gladys) plays movie theater representative Mr. Kissinger.

Season 1, Episode 9, "Charity Begins at Home": Howard McNear (shown on the right, see the biography section for the 1961 post on The Andy Griffith Show) plays bookie Chet Cooper. Eleanor Audley (Mother Eunice Douglas on Green Acres and Mrs. Vincent on My Three Sons) plays Mr. Willoughby's wife Ethel. Milton Frome (starred in Pardners, The Delicate Delinquent, and The Swinger and played Lawrence Chapman on The Beverly Hillbillies) plays police Sgt. Thompson. Johnny Silver (Ludicrous Lion and Dr. Blinkey on H.R. Pufnstuf) plays a man in a police lineup. Mel A. Bishop (see "On the Spot" above) plays a police officer.

Season 1, Episode 10, "Ring-a-Ding-Ding": Henry Silva (shown on the left, starred in Johnny Cool, The Manchurian Candidate, Cinderfella, and Ocean's Eleven) plays playboy actor Ricky Hamilton. Mickey Simpson (Boley on Captain David Grief) plays restaurant diner Charley. Angela Greene (Tess Trueheart on Dick Tracy) plays his wife Bessie. Jennie Lynn (Jennie Baker on Love and Marriage) plays their daughter Dottie. Evelyn Scott (Ada Jacks on Peyton Place and Return to Peyton Place) plays wife of restaurant diner Bruce.

Season 1, Episode 11, "Help Wanted": Mickey Manners (Joe Foley on Many Happy Returns) plays comedian Buddy Morgan.

Season 1, Episode 12, "The Ham in the Family": Jack Albertson (shown on the right, starred in Days of Wine and Roses, Kissin' Cousins, The Flim-Flam Man, and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and played Lt. Harry Evans on The Thin Man, Walter Burton on Room for One More, Lt. Cmdr. Virgil Stoner on Ensign O'Toole, Paul Fenton on Mister Ed, and Ed Brown on Chico and the Man) plays comedian Blinky Wilson. Herbie Faye (Cpl. Sam Fender on The Phil Silvers Show, Waluska on The New Phil Silvers Show, and Ben Goldman on Doc) plays talent agent Marty Milford.

Season 1, Episode 13, "Follow That Mink": Eleanor Audley (see "Charity Begins at Home" above) returns as Ethel Willoughby.

Season 1, Episode 14, "Barney, the Bloodhound": Raymond Bailey (shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1961 post on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) plays dog food company president Mr. Collins. Joan Benny (Jack Benny's adopted daughter) plays his secretary. Addison Richards (see "The Contest Winner" above) plays his lawyer. Jack Mullaney (Johnny Wallace on The Ann Sothern Show, Lt. Rex St. John on Ensign O'Toole, Dr. Peter Robinson on My Living Doll, and Hector on It's About Time) plays inexperienced lawyer Harvey Wallace. Charles Meredith (Dr. LeMoyne Snyder on The Court of Last Resort) plays civil court Judge Brandon. Keith Taylor (Harry on Leave It to Beaver) plays a heckling neighborhood kid. Jonathan Hole (Orville Monroe on The Andy Griffith Show) plays costume designer Harlow.