I'm Dickens... He's Fenster (1962-63)

 

The 2011 DVD release of the first half season of I'm Dickens... He's Fenster would have us believe that the series' creator, Leonard Stern, was also the mastermind behind Get Smart, for which he was executive producer. But it's clear after watching the 16 episodes in this DVD set that more credit belongs to Mel Brooks and Buck Henry than Stern for the success and longevity of Get Smart because I'm Dickens... He's Fenster is a sit-com that looks backward, not forward, for its humor. Stern conceived the idea for a series about two bumbling carpenters after having his own home remodeled and observing the workers seal up a ladder inside a newly constructed fireplace, then have to take it apart to retrieve the ladder and redo the construction a second time. This gag is reenacted in the series' opening episode, "A Small Matter of Being Fired" (September 28, 1962) when Harry Dickens (John Astin) thinks he has sealed up his best buddy Arch Fenster (Marty Ingels) in a fireplace they are building on one of their construction jobs (never mind why carpenters Dickens and Fenster are building a brick fireplace), only he has forgotten that Fenster can easily get out through the fireplace opening on the other side. Stern had built an impressive career in comedy beginning with writing for Abbott & Costello and Ma & Pa Kettle feature films in the 1940s and early 1950s, followed by writing for such legendary TV series as The Honeymooners, The Phil Silvers Show, and The Steve Allen Show.

Judging from the content of I'm Dickens... He's Fenster, Stern had an affinity for very broad, slapstick humor based largely on sight gags. The aforementioned pilot episode begins with Dickens' wife Kate complaining to Fenster about magnets that Harry has installed to make cupboard doors snap tight, only the magnets are too strong and not only make the cupboard doors practically impossible to open, but when the magnets are finally removed, they are strong enough to pull the refrigerator across the room. Apparently Stern thought this gag was so funny that it was used again in an episode just a few weeks later, "Harry, the Father Image" (October 19, 1962). Other episodes have Kate wrestling with an overly long cutting board that slides out from below the counter in "The Double Life of Mel Warshaw" (October 12, 1962), a pop-out ironing board that comes out of a cabinet in the wall when you tap the panel in "A Friend in Wolf's Clothing" (November 16, 1962), and an electric eye sensor to make the kitchen door open automatically in "The Toupee Story" (November 9, 1962). The humor from the latter two devices comes because they seem to operate randomly, rather than when summoned, leading to slapstick scenes such as Harry being hit in the face by the kitchen door when it opens unexpectedly. This brand of humor is what one would expect from Abbott & Costello films or earlier TV series such as I Love Lucy, and this is what made the series a delight for Stan Laurel, who wrote congratulatory letters to both Stern and Ingels. Likewise, the review of the program by John P. Shanley in the October 1, 1962 edition of The New York Times said the show "could be the surprise success of the television season" and that the antics of Astin and Ingels "contain some happy reminders of the old vaudeville act of Willie, West and McGinty, whose clumsy routines with hammers, boards and other simple props made another generation laugh." The same review panned the debut of The Beverly Hillbillies as "a succession of events too absurd to be even slightly amusing." Of course, history shows that The Beverly Hillbillies quickly became the most popular show on TV and ran for 9 seasons, while I'm Dickens... He's Fenster was canceled toward the end of its one and only season.

The reason for the show's ratings failure is universally attributed to the success of its competition, airing opposite Route 66 and Sing Along With Mitch. Astin's brother Alexander, a researcher in higher education, conducted a study that showed that viewers of the two competing programs, both 1-hour shows that started a half hour before I'm Dickens... He's Fenster, were unlikely to switch channels to the latter show after investing 30 minutes watching the competition. However, it should also be noted that while Route 66 finished the season 27th in the ratings, Sing Along With Mitch did not finish in the top 30, and the lead-in for I'm Dickens... He's Fenster was The Flintstones, which finished 30th in the ratings, ahead of Sing Along With Mitch. History has shown that a good lead-in can save a series, as it did for The Dick Van Dyke Show, which struggled in its first season on the air and was about to be canceled when the network decided to give it a second chance and moved it to follow The Beverly Hillbillies, vaulting it to #9 in the ratings in its second season. So the argument that scheduling doomed I'm Dickens... He's Fenster doesn't really hold water. Ingels claimed years later that the ratings were delayed for some reason mid-season and that ABC decided to cancel the series before the ratings were finally released, which showed that I'm Dickens... He's Fenster had overtaken the competition, but by then it was too late.

Even so, the show had its deficiencies that probably would have made it difficult to sustain ratings success. Primarily, the episodes played more like variety show sketches with a thinly conceived plot whose sole purpose is to set up a series of sight gags and punch lines rather than telling a fully developed story. And many of these rather flimsy plots were worn-out cliches, such as "Nurse Dickens" (October 5, 1962) in which Harry becomes insanely jealous after Kate takes an evening part-time job working as a nurse at the local hospital, where he worries that the doctors are young hunks like those seen on Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey, two series that had already been heavily parodied practically from the time they went on the air. Arch Fenster being cast as the ultimate playboy with one or more new girlfriends every episode was at least as old as the Andy Hardy feature films. And then there is the gag about two inept men trying to care for a baby in "The Godfathers" (January 11, 1963), which dates back at least to the 1913 short The Three Godfathers and had been recycled countless times on TV comedies and westerns by then. Added to this is the implausible relationship in which Harry Dickens devotes more time and energy to his friendship with Arch Fenster than he does to his marriage to his beautiful and talented wife, a topic addressed in episodes such as "Here's to the Three of Us" (December 21, 1962) in which Kate complains that she and Harry are never alone because Arch is always dropping over or monopolizing their social calendar. When she insists on hosting  a party for other married couples without inviting Arch, he plays the victim when he learns about it and says he won't bother them anymore, but by episode's end he is back to his old tricks--climbing in through their bedroom window for a drop-in after they have already gone to bed.

Despite the show's shortcomings, there are a few bright spots, primarily the acting of bandleader Frank De Vol, who plays Dickens' and Fenster's indecisive boss Myron Bannister. Rather than the tough-talking, take-charge stereotypical boss one would expect, De Vol is so deadpan in playing Bannister that he has to tell people when he is angry or excited (always delivered in a very calm, even tone) because otherwise they would not notice. The other high point is the episode "The Joke" (December 7, 1962), which plays like an episode of Car 54, Where Are You? as a disagreement between Dickens and Fenster about whether a particular joke is funny devolves into an armed gang war on their job site as their colleagues take sides as to whether Dickens or Fenster is right about the joke's alleged humor (just for the record, "The Joke" is woefully corny). Of course, if your taste in comedy favors old vaudeville slapstick and sight gags, then, like Stan Laurel, you'll consider every episode of I'm Dickens... He's Fenster a high point.

The theme and individual episode scores were written by Irving Szathmary, born Isadore Szathmary  on October 30, 1907 in St. Quincy, Massachusetts. He was the oldest of six highly talented children, his youngest brother being comedian, writer, and actor Bill Dana. Szathmary was a child prodigy who began playing piano at age 5 and formed a neighborhood band with his brother Al, a drummer who would go on to be Don Adams' stand-in on Get Smart. In high school the elder Szathmary took the first name Irving, and by the mid-1930s he had moved to New York where he would find work arranging for some of the biggest band leaders of the day, including Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Paul Whiteman, and Jack Teagarden. In 1936 he had his own radio show called Symphonique Moderne on the NBC affiliate WJZ. During World War II, he composed and arranged for transcription recordings, sometimes under the name Szath-Myri, provided for radio airplay both at home and abroad. Around 1948 he composed his one hit song, "Leave It to Love," which was recorded by Dinah Shore  and Perry Como as well as other bandleaders such as Hugo Winterhalter, Ray Anthony, and Ted Heath. His first known film score was for the anti-drug drama Shooting Gallery narrated by Gary Cooper and released in 1950. When his brother Bill arrived in New York in the early 1950s and began performing as a comedian, Irving insisted that he use another last name to avoid sullying his older brother's reputation as a serious musician, so Bill adopted the last name Dana, a derivative of their mother's first name. Irving worked in New York throughout the 1950s arranging for TV shows such as The Lucky Strike Hit Parade and The Ed Sullivan Show and for vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, The Modernaires, and Diahann Caroll. Dana brought Irving to California in 1961 where Dana worked with Leonard Stern writing for The Steve Allen Show. When Stern was putting together I'm Dickens... He's Fenster he agreed to audition Irving on Dana's recommendation and told him he wanted the theme for the program to resemble the Laurel & Hardy theme from their films. Stern liked what he heard and hired Szathmary, but when the program was canceled after a single season, Dana brought his brother over to score for his own sit-com based on his popular Jose Jimenez character. The Bill Dana Show lasted for a season and a half before being canceled, at which point Stern was assembling Get Smart and hired  Szathmary to create the now-legendary opening theme for the spy spoof, as well as scoring individual episodes. When Get Smart finished its run in 1970, Szathmary retired and then moved to Malta in the mid-1970s with his fourth wife Monica. When the couple traveled to London for Irving's 76th birthday, he died there on October 29, 1983 at the age of 75.

Half of the one and only season has been released on DVD by Lightyear Entertainment.

The Actors

John Astin

John Allen Astin was born in Baltimore on March 30, 1930. His father, Dr. Allen Varley Astin, served as the Director of the National Bureau of Standards, and his younger brother, Alexander W. Astin, was a renowned scholar in the field of higher education research. Because his father worked for the U.S. government, the family moved to Washington, D.C. when Astin was still a child. Although he has said that he did not have a particular career interest growing up, his first foray into show business was putting on marionette plays with his brother for which they would charge the neighborhood children a penny or two for admission. He had a keen interest in sports growing up and remembers seeing Joe Dimaggio play against his hometown Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium. The first time he saw television was on a visit to one of his father's colleagues to watch the 1944 Army-Navy college football game. When he was in high school, his English teacher heavily criticized him in front of the class after he gave an irreverent oral book report on Moby Dick, making him vow he would never study English again, but after earning a tuition grant in mathematics to Washington & Jefferson College, he was required to take a freshman English class, and the professor for that class revived his interest in literature and persuaded him to take part in a table reading for a play. After hitch-hiking to Ohio one weekend to see a friend's roommate in a production of Thornton Wilder's play The Stage Manager, which greatly impressed and moved him, the table reading inspired Astin and another classmate to put on a pair of one-act plays one weekend at their own college, which further solidified his interest in the theater. At the end of that academic year, he took acting classes with Shakespearean actors in the Washington area and then decided to transfer to Johns Hopkins University because they offered courses in drama, though he still remained a math major until he was finally offered a scholarship in drama by the Johns Hopkins dean. After graduating from Hopkins, Astin attended graduate school in theater studies at the University of Minnesota until one day while conducting research in the library for an English bibliography course, a Classics professor approached him and asked him what he was doing and why. When Astin explained that he was pursuing a Ph.D. in English so that he would have a measure of security and be able to write and act, the professor advised him to leave academia and just go work in the theater, so at the end of the semester Astin left school and moved to New York, where he studied acting while working as a cook. He studied for 5 years with renowned actor, director, and critic Harold Clurman, whom Astin credits with crystallizing what he had long felt intuitively about how acting should be done. He broke into New York theater in 1954 playing the role of Ready-Money Matt in an Off Broadway production of Threepenny Opera and an understudy role as Morrison the butler in Charles Laughton's production of Major Barbara. He broke into television around the same time, with his first union job coming on an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents that starred Wendell Corey (Corey appeared on the program 3 times, and though Astin has not said which episode he appeared on and is not listed in the credits since he was an extra, the first two Corey appearances were in 1953 and the third in 1954). In 1956 Astin married his first wife Suzanne Hahn, and the couple had three children before divorcing in 1972. After appearing in Broadway productions of The Power and the Glory and Tall Story in 1958-59, Astin felt that his career had stalled somewhat until he was recruited by Tony Randall in 1960 to audition for a roadshow production of Goodbye Again, and during rehearsals while they were exchanging ideas about the production, Randall told Astin he would do well in Hollywood. When the show opened in Detroit, Astin met Randall's agent Abby Greshler, who by the end of the show, when Astin was getting thunderous applause from the audience, signed Astin and persuaded him to move to California. Greshler got Astin his first Hollywood TV appearance as a guest star on a 1960 episode of Maverick. That same year he also made his feature film debut playing a detective in The Pusher, which was shot in New York and starred Robert Lansing. Besides an uncredited part as the social worker Glad Hand in West Side Story, Astin guest starred on 7 TV shows in 1961, including The Twilight Zone, The Donna Reed Show, and The Asphalt Jungle. He had a supporting role in the 1962 romantic comedy That Touch of Mink starring Cary Grant and Doris Day, and appeared in 8 more TV shows that year, including Checkmate, Hazel, Dennis the Menace, Ben Casey, and 87th Precinct. Astin believes that he was recruited by producer Leonard Stern for a starring role as Harry Dickens on I'm Dickens, He's Fenster after he performed in a John Houseman production of a theatrical revue based on John Dos Passos' novel trilogy USA, though a cover story in the December 1, 1962 issue of TV Guide says that Tony Randall brought Astin to the attention of Leonard Stern when the latter was head writer for The Steve Allen Show. Astin has described his role as Harry Dickens being a straight man who set up the payoff jokes for co-star Marty Ingels and to take the slapstick falls that got him his own laughs.

Towards the end of I'm Dickens... He's Fenster's one and only season, Astin was cast in a supporting role in the James Garner comic feature film The Wheeler Dealers, and Astin tested so well with preview audiences that Filmways approached him about signing a contract. Once he was signed, they offered him one of three projects: two feature films--The Americanization of Emily and The Loved One--and a television adaptation of Charles Addams cartoons, The Addams Family. Astin had long been a huge fan of Addams' cartoons and jumped at the chance to play one of his characters. He originally was selected to play the butler, but after a discussion with producer David Levy, the two agreed that Astin would be better cast as the father of the family. Astin was given free rein to develop the character of Gomez Addams and contributed ideas such as his grandiose and passionate relationship with wife Morticia. He has said he tried out the mustache he wore as Gomez in two 1964 TV guest spots on The Farmer's Daughter and Destry, though the latter mustache was more of a handlebar seen in the Old West. Astin believes that the series was canceled because network executives saw how the emergence of Batman decimated the viewership of The Munsters airing in the same time slot, and since they equated The Addams Family with The Munsters, they figured that the concept had already played itself out. Unlike some other actors who played iconic TV characters, Astin had no problem finding work after the cancelation of The Addams Family. He guest starred on Occasional Wife in 1966, and the following year appeared on The Wild, Wild West, Hey, Landlord, The Flying Nun, Gunsmoke, and He & She, played The Riddler in a Season 2 episode of Batman, and had a supporting role as Rudy Pruitt on The Phyllis Diller Show. He also appeared in the feature film The Spirit Is Willing and first played the character of Roy Slade in the TV movie Sheriff Who. In 1968 he was one of a long list of big stars who appeared in the sexual coming-of-age feature film Candy, but more importantly that year he also made his debut as a film director for the short Prelude, which earned him an Oscar nomination and accolades from famed director Federico Fellini. Astin has recalled that the praise for Prelude opened up directorial opportunities for him, first directing 3 episodes for Rod Serling's Night Gallery beginning in 1970. He was also recruited to direct 2 episodes of Leonard Stern's popular TV series McMillan and Wife in 1971 and would later direct episodes of Holmes and Yoyo, Operation Petticoat, CHiPs, Just Our Luck, and Murder, She Wrote as well as several TV movies. At the same time he was continuing to act in a combination of feature films, such as Viva Max, Bunny O'Hare, Get to Know Your Rabbit, and Freaky Friday; TV series such as Bonanza, The Odd Couple, The Doris Day Show, The Virginian, Arnie, Night Gallery, Love, American Style, The Partridge Family, Police Woman, and Marcus Welby, M.D. (to name a few), and a slew of TV movies, the most popular being the title character in Evil Roy Slade in 1972. That year was also the first time he reprised his role as Gomez Addams in the animated TV series The New Scooby-Doo Movies. That year was also momentous because he started an affair with actress Patty Duke, which led to divorcing his wife Suzanne Hahn and then marrying Duke, with whom he had a son, actor McKenzie Astin, and adopted her son from her 13-day marriage to Michael Tell, actor Sean Astin. In 1977 Astin and the rest of the original cast reunited for the TV movie Halloween With the New Addams Family. That year he also had his next recurring TV role playing Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Sherman on Operation Petticoat, as well as contributing a variety of voices for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels. Around the same time he guest starred on Fantasy Island and The Love Boat, but he logged no film credits between 1980-84 (this does not seem to be explained in any of the sources I have consulted). He returned to guest starring on TV series in 1984, including The Facts of Life, Diff'rent Strokes, and Simon & Simon. In 1985 he had a supporting role playing Ed LaSalle on Mary Tyler Moore's short-lived sit-com Mary, in addition to appearing in National Lampoon's European Vacation. That same year he and Duke divorced after 13 years of marriage. Beginning in 1986 he began playing the character Buddy Ryan on Night Court, appearing just once in Season 4 and Season 5, but then 3 times in Season 6, and 5 more times in Season 7. He appeared in Teen Wolf Too in 1987 along with guest spots on St. Elsewhere, The Charmings, and Webster. In 1988 he made his first appearance as Professor Gangreen in Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (alongside George Clooney), a role he has continued to play in each of the following Killer Tomato feature films up to this day, including Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence currently in post-production. He likewise provided the voice of Prof. Gangreen in the 1990-91 animated TV series Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. In 1992-93 he provided the voice of Gomez Addams in the animated TV series of The Addams Family, and when The Addams Family was resurrected yet again for the 1998-99 TV series The New Addams Family, Astin was cast as the now elderly Grandpapa Addams. The previously mentioned animated roles led to a new career for Astin on cartoons, including providing the voice for Bull Gator on Taz-Mania in 1991-94, Sydney on Aladdin in 1994, a variety of characters on Problem Child, Terry Duke Tetzloff on Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man, and Superintendent Skinner on Recess in 1998-99. In 1993-94 he had a recurring role as Prof. Albert Wickwire on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., and he has popped up on a number of TV series, TV movies, and feature films over the years, including 5 times on Murder, She Wrote and twice each on Step by Step and The Nanny. Beginning in 1998, Astin starred in a one-man play based on the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe, titled Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight, which toured over 100 cities through 2004. Beginning in 2001 Astin taught acting at Johns Hopkins University, eventually becoming Director of the Theater Arts and Studies Department until his retirement in 2021. As of this writing, Astin is still living, at age 95, with his third wife Valerie Sandobal, whom he married in 1989.

Marty Ingels

Born Martin Ingerman in Brooklyn on March 9, 1936, Ingels was a nephew of Abraham Beame, Mayor of New York City from 1974-77. He attended Forest Hills High School in Queens, and then briefly attended Queens College before dropping out to work a variety of jobs, including being a bartender at the Stork Club in New York City. Though his parents wanted him to become a dentist, he wound up joining the Army, where he was spotted by a talent scout who got him booked on Name That Tune. He won enough money to fund moving to California and attending the Pasadena Playhouse when he returned to civilian life. Considered as a new version of Red Skelton, Ingels broke into television in an uncredited part on a 1958 episode of The Phil Silvers Show, but it would be a couple more years before he started getting regular guest spots on shows such as Peter Loves Mary, Dan Raven, The Ann Sothern Show, and The Aquanauts. Ingels first met Leonard Stern in May, 1959 when he was a guest on The Steve Allen Show, for which Stern was head writer. In 1961 he made his feature film debut playing himself in the Jerry Lewis comedy The Ladies Man and followed that up with another role in the military drama Armored Command. He twice played Rob Petrie's Army buddy Sol Pomeroy on The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1961-62 and also had several other guest spots and a role in the 1962 feature film The Horizontal Lieutenant before being cast as Arch Fenster on I'm Dickens... He's Fenster. Ingels said that he just happened to bump into Stern on the street when the latter was putting together the pilot for the show and remembered him from when Ingels appeared on The Steve Allen Show where Stern was head writer.

Though Ingels would continue to find somewhat regular guest-star work for the remainder of his career, up until his death in 2015, he would never again have a lead role in a live-action TV series. He appeared on Burke's Law and had a supporting role in the Tony Curtis romantic comedy feature Wild and Wonderful in 1964, and after drawing a blank in 1965, he appeared on Bewitched and alongside Astin in an episode of The Addams Family in 1966. He landed a supporting role playing Norman Krump in 8 episodes of The Phyllis Diller Show (some of them, again, alongside Astin) in 1967 in addition to appearing in the Sid Caesar comedy feature The Busy Body and an uncredited appearance in A Guide for the Married Man. The remainder of the decade was spent largely on feature films such as For Single Only, Silent Treatment, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, and Picasso Summer, but he also launched a successful second career as a voice actor in cartoons, beginning with the character Autocat on Cattanooga Cats, followed by Motormouse and Autocat. At the same time, his personal life was undergoing some upheaval, though his early marital history seems unclear. Wikipedia claims he married Jean Marie Frassinelli in 1960 and divorced her in 1969, whereas imdb.com says he married Phyllis Senzer in 1962, divorced her in 1963, then married Frassinelli in 1964 and divorced her in 1966. He returned to guest starring on TV series in the early 1970s, appearing on The Partners, Banacek, The Rookies, and Adam-12 as well as feature films such as How to Seduce a Woman and Linda Lovelace for President. However, he recalled in a 2012 interview that in the early 1970s he was swamped with financial problems and had just gone through a divorce when he appeared on The Tonight Show and was doing a stand-up routine when he suddenly froze up and passed out. He says that he retreated to his home and became a recluse for a few months but then decided to go into business as a talent agent for other actors because he felt more in control, and was particularly successful in lining up celebrity endorsements for commercials, such as Orson Welles as the TV pitchman for Paul Masson Wines. He also arranged deals for Howard Cosell, Don Knotts, Farah Fawcett, and Rudy Vallee. In 1974 he first met actress Shirley Jones at a party at the home of Michael Landon and thereafter pursued her relentlessly, much to the chagrin of her friends. After she divorced her first husband Jack Cassidy, Ingels and Jones married in 1977, and though they separated at one point and she even filed for divorce in 2002, they eventually reconciled and remained married until his death, nearly 40 years in total. Meanwhile, Ingels found more work in cartoons, voicing Beegle Beagle on The New Tom and Jerry Show and The Great Grape Ape Show in addition to guest spots on Police Story, CHiPs, The Love Boat, and Family in the late 1970s. In the 1980s his lone credits were voicing Pac-Man on Pac-Man and the TV movie Christmas Comes to PacLand. By 1984 Ingels embarked on what appeared to be a hobby of lawsuits when he and Jones sued The National Enquirer over a fabricated story that he was driving her to drink. Though they won a settlement in this case, Ingels' later litigations were less successful, such as his 1993 suit against his client June Allyson in which he claimed she had not paid him his commission for a series of ads for Depends, and his 2003 suit against radio host Tom Leykis and Westwood One for what Ingels alleged was age discrimination. He continued working sporadically as an actor, appearing on Murder, She Wrote, Baywatch, and Walker, Texas Ranger in the 1990s and on ER, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and New Girl in the 2000s and 2010s. His last credit came with Jones playing a grandfather and grandmother in the Bruce Lee-inspired feature film Bruce the Challenge released posthumously in 2016. Ingels suffered a massive stroke and died on October 21, 2015 at the age of 79.

Emmaline Henry

Born Emilin Frances Veronica Henry in Philadelphia on November 1, 1928, Henry contracted polio at age 3 and was paralyzed for several years. However, when she recovered, the musical director at St. Roberts School, Sister Sacre Coeur, discovered that she was an incredible singer, and by age 10 she was performing at the country club her father managed. By age 12, she had her own radio show and was front-page news on the Chester (Pennsylvania) Times. However, at age 13 when her voice broke she could not sing for 2 years, but after her family moved to California she was encouraged to join her high school choir, and when composer Walter Donaldson heard her perform in a school play, he tutored her into singing popular material rather than the operatic fare she had sung before. At age 19 she moved to New York to pursue a show business career. By 1950 she had moved back to California and appeared in a production of Little Boy Blue at the El Capitan Theater. In 1951 she replaced Carol Channing in a touring production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She then landed a part in the touring production of Top Banana, which led to an uncredited part as a singer in the film version. She made her TV debut in a dramatic role on a 1955 episode of I Led Three Lives, followed by two more guest spots on Highway Patrol in 1956 and 1958. She made her Broadway debut in 1960 appearing in the short-lived revue Vintage '60. In 1961 she guest starred on Lock Up and made the first of 14 appearances on The Red Skelton Hour before being cast as Kate Dickens on I'm Dickens... He's Fenster in the fall of 1962.

After the cancellation of that series, Henry appeared in a western-themed musical Go For Your Gun in Manchester, England, but then chose to play the role of Nora on the Mickey Rooney sit-com Mickey rather than the role of Ginger on Gilligan's Island, a choice she came to regret as the former series lasted only 17 episodes compared to the 3-year run and continual syndication of the latter. But she did not lack for work, appearing on The Munsters, The Farmer's Daughter, Petticoat Junction, and The Double Life of Henry Phyfe over the next couple of years. In 1966 she also made the first of 9 appearances playing Clara Appleby on The Red Skelton Hour spread out over the next 5 seasons. That same year she made her first appearance on I Dream of Jeannie, initially playing a magician's assistant Myrt in a single Season 1 episode, but beginning in Season 2 she had the recurring role as Amanda Bellows, which she played 34 times over the remainder of the series. Beginning in 1967 she also began getting supporting roles in feature films such as Divorce American Style and Rosemary's Baby. By 1969 she was also taking guest spots on other TV series such as Mayberry R.F.D., Love, American Style, and Bonanza. In the 1970s she appeared in the final episode of Green Acres, and guest starred on The Bob Newhart Show, The Streets of San Francisco, Police Woman, Barnaby Jones, and The Love Boat. In 1978 she made her first appearance as Chrissy's boss J.C. Braddock on Three's Company, a role that was intended to be recurring, but Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumor that required surgery, so she appeared only once more in the role in 1979. The tumor grew back aggressively, and after a guest appearance on Eight Is Enough that same year, Henry died on October 8 at the age of 50.

David Ketchum

Best remembered for playing unlucky Agent 13 on Get Smart, who was given surveillance assignments inside mailboxes, sofas, washing machines, and the like, Ketchum was ironically born in an elevator on February 4, 1928 in Quincy, Illinois. Despite performing for audiences at an early age, Ketchum majored in physics at UCLA with plans to become an electrical engineer because he figured he needed a career at which he could make a living. But performing seemed to be in his blood because he joined a group of fellow students to entertain military troops overseas as part of the USO and by the end of the 1940s he was hosting his own radio show in San Diego. He persuaded Bob Hope and Doris Day, then visiting the city, to be guest stars on his first episode. By 1951 he was serving in the National Guard when he was slated to appear in the John Wayne war drama Flying Leathernecks but was then activated for service and missed out on the film opportunity. In 1957 he married singer Louise Bryant, to whom he stayed married until his death. An appearance on The Steve Allen Show in 1957 led to being a regular on The New Steve Allen Show in 1961. He also appeared twice as a guest performer on the summer replacement series The Spike Jones Show in 1961, as well as guest spots on The Jim Backus Show and Angel. That same year he was amongst the cast of The Billy Barnes Revue, along with Ken Berry and Jo Anne Worley, that made it to Broadway. He recorded a comedy album titled The Long-Playing Tongue of David Ketchum that received a glowing review in the February 17, 1962 issue of Billboard magazine a few months before appearing as Mel Warshaw on I'm Dickens... He's Fenster.

After the series ended, Ketchum appeared on The Real McCoys in 1963, in commercials for Hertz Rent-a-Car in 1964 as well as guest starring roles on The Jack Benny Program, The Tycoon, and The Joey Bishop Show. In 1965, he appeared on The Munsters and voiced the announcer on the animated series Roger Ramjet before being cast in his second regular TV role as Counselor Spiffy on Camp Runamuck. Ketchum's casting for this role may have come from one of the comedy routines on his previously mentioned album, which had Ketchum playing a summer camp counselor. Over the next two years he would appear 4 times on the sit-com Hey, Landlord and 13 times as Agent 13 on Get Smart, taking over for Victor French, who had played Agent 44 in Season 1. Both of these series also opened up a new career for Ketchum--screenwriting. He penned the episode "Classification: Dead" for Get Smart and the episode "The Dinner Who Came to Man" for Hey, Landlord, as well as 2 episodes for the superhero spoof Captain Nice. From then on, Ketchum had a dual career, guest starring on shows such as The Carol Burnett Show, The Andy Griffith Show, Petticoat Junction, Gomer Pyle: USMC, Mayberry R.F.D., and The Mod Squad while also writing scripts for Here's Lucy, Love, American Style, and Barefoot in the Park. In the 1970s he moved into writing for cartoon TV series such as Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp, The Funky Phantom, The Roman Holidays, Jeannie, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, and Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels. He also wrote for live-action series such as M*A*S*H, The New Temperatures Rising Show, The Six Million Dollar Man, Happy Days, Wonder Woman, and The Bionic Woman, to name but a few. His acting assignments included That Girl, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, My Three Sons, The Odd Couple, The Partridge Family, Happy Days, Maude, and Mork & Mindy, amongst many others. By the late 1970s and 1980s, the acting roles began to dry up--he had unnamed roles in a few feature films such as Love at First Bite and The Main Event as well as guest spots on Happy Days and Perfect Strangers--but the scriptwriting work continued on series such as Laverne & Shirley, The Love Boat, Too Close for Comfort, MacGyver, Sledgehammer!, and Highway to Heaven. He reprised his role as Agent 13 in the 1989 TV movie Get Smart, Again! and the 1995 TV series reboot of Get Smart before retiring from acting after a 1999 unnamed role in the feature film The Other Sister. His last writing credit was a 1990 episode of Full House. Ketchum died from heart failure on August 10, 2025 at the age of 97.

Frank De Vol

Frank Denny De Vol was born September 20, 1911 in Moundsville, West Virginia but grew up in Canton, Ohio, where his father was the band leader for the Grand Opera House vaudeville theater. His mother worked in a sewing shop. Young Frank was something of a musical prodigy who began composing at age 12 and by 14 was a member of the musicians union while playing violin in his father's orchestra as well as performing at a Chinese restaurant in Cleveland. He used the money earned from his restaurant gig to buy a saxophone which he also learned to play. After attending the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, De Vol  joined Emerson Gill's Orchestra, which toured the state of Ohio. In 1935 he married Grace Agnes McGinty, to whom he remained married until her death in 1989. By the late 1930s he was hired to play in and arrange for the Horace Heidt Orchestra. When guitarist Alvino Rey left the band, De Vol went with him and arranged for Rey's newly formed band. In the early 1940s De Vol was living in California and working the graveyard shift at Lockheed when radio station KHJ recruited him to be the band leader for one of their musical programs, which provided the opportunity to work with stars such as Dinah Shore, Ginny Simms, and Rudy Vallee. This is also where De Vol first worked as an actor, as he was used for supporting roles in some of the radio comedy sketches. By 1946 he was musical director for Simms' radio show when he was named to a similar post for the Capitol Records transcription service, which led to working with some of Capitol's biggest artists, most notably Nat King Cole, for whom De Vol provided the arrangement on Cole's hit "Nature Boy" in 1948. While with Capitol, he began releasing music under his own name, beginning with the mood music LP Memory Waltzes in 1946. In 1949 he also sang on the  Capitol single of "The Teddy Bears' Picnic." By the early 1950s he was lured away by Columbia Records, where he arranged and conducted for stars such as Doris Day, Tony Bennett, and Robert Goulet, to name but a few. At the same time, he was also providing backings for some of Ella Fitzgerald's albums for Verve Records. He made his first appearances as an actor on TV with several bit parts on Betty White's comedy series Life With Elisabeth in 1953. His career took an important step in 1954 when he was hired by director Robert Aldrich to score for the low-budget feature film World for Ransom. He would write for 15 more Aldrich productions, including Kiss Me Deadly, The Big Knife, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (which received Oscar nominations for Best Score and Best Original Song), The Dirty Dozen, Ulzana's Raid, The Longest Yard, and The Choirboys. He got into composing for television in 1956 with the series Who Do You Trust?, and he reunited with Betty White in composing for her series Date With the Angels in 1957-58. De Vol's first Oscar nomination came for the score of the 1960 Doris Day & Rock Hudson romantic comedy Pillow Talk, and he would go on to provide scores for many of Day's romantic comedies, including Lover Come Back, The Thrill of It All, Send Me No Flowers, and Caprice. In 1960 he composed one of his most memorable TV themes for My Three Sons. Meanwhile, his acting career began to pick up after playing himself in a 1959 episode of State Trooper, which was followed by a supporting role in the 1961 comedy The Parent Trap and a guest appearance on a 1962 episode of the TV series Father of the Bride. He then received his first recurring role as construction boss Myron Bannister on I'm Dickens... He's Fenster in the fall of 1962.

His role as Bannister paved the way for a slew of guest spots on other TV series throughout the 1960s and beyond, including Grindl, My Favorite Martian, Mickey, The Cara Williams Show, Camp Runamuck, The Farmer's Daughter, Gidget, Get Smart, Petticoat Junction,  I Dream of Jeannie, That Girl, and Bonanza. In the late 1960s he picked up two more Oscar nominations for his scores for Cat Ballou and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner while also providing scores for The Glass Bottom Boat, The Happening, and What's So Bad About Feeling Good? He also composed the themes for the TV series Family Affair, To Rome With Love, and The Brady Bunch, perhaps his most famous composition of all and certainly the one that garnered the greatest applause whenever he would perform it with his orchestra thereafter. In the 1970s he provided the theme and scores for TV series The Delphi Bureau, Henry Fonda's sit-com The Smith Family, and Bob Denver's Dusty's Trail. He also provided scores for feature films (besides those mentioned above) such as Emperor of the North, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, Hustle, and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. The decade would also provide his longest-running role as an actor, playing bandleader Happy Kyne on Fernwood Tonight and its follow-on America 2-Night. His acting continued through the 1980s on Diff'rent Strokes, The Jeffersons, and Silver Spoons with his last credit coming in a 1990 episode of Charles in Charge. On TV he provided scores for multiple episodes of The Brady Brides, Vega$, Herbie, the Love Bug, The Love Boat, and The Fall Guy as well as feature films Herbie Goes Bananas and All the Marbles. In 1989 De Vol's wife Grayce passed away, and 2 years later he married former big-band singer Helen O'Connell. For the next 2 years the couple performed together on cruise ships until O'Connell died in 1993. De Vol stayed active in the Big Band Academy of America into the mid-1990s, then died from congestive heart failure on October 27, 1999 at the age of 88.

Henry Beckman

Henry How Beckman was born November 26, 1921 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He joined the Canadian military service in 1939 and survived the D-Day operation at Juno Beach on June 6, 1944. After the War he ran a theater in New York and made his Broadway debut in a production of The Golden State  in late 1950. He made his television debut a few months before that in a June, 1950 episode of the suspense anthology The Clock. Through the rest of the early 1950s he alternated between Broadway appearances in Darkness at Noon and serving as Assistant Stage Manager for The Deep Blue Sea with TV appearances on The Philco Television Playhouse, Terror, Suspense, The Web, and Studio One. His first feature film roles were uncredited in Niagara and The Glory Brigade, both released in 1953. He landed his first recurring TV role playing Commander Paul Richards on Flash Gordon, appearing 8 times in 1954-55. On November 25, 1955 he married actress and later Broadway producer Cheryl Maxwell, and the couple purchased and ran the Duke Oaks Theatre in Cooperstown, New York before eventually selling it 2 years later and moving to California. In the meantime, Beckman continued appearing on TV series such as I Spy, Appointment With Adventure, Camera Three, and Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion along with an uncredited part in Hitchcock's The Wrong Man. In 1957, Beckman finally landed his first credited feature film role in So Lovely... So Deadly, but his television work was still somewhat spotty through the rest of the 1950s, appearing only on a single episode of Decoy in 1957 and one episode of Armstrong Circle Theatre in 1958 before things started to pick up in 1959 with guest spots on Naked City, The Phil Silvers Show, Peter Gunn, and Police Station. During the lean years, Beckman returned to New York to serve as an understudy in a 1958 Broadway production of The Body Beautiful. However, with the new decade starting in 1960, Beckman was suddenly in demand for TV roles on Black Saddle, Mr. Lucky, The Donna Reed Show, Two Faces West, Hong Kong, Perry Mason, Death Valley Days, Dennis the Menace, and The Twilight Zone. He appeared in two episodes of The Ann Sothern Show in 1960, the second with his wife Cheryl Maxwell. The next two years were also incredibly busy with guest spots on The DuPont Show With June Allyson, Cain's Hundred, Hazel, Laramie, Route 66, Have Gun -- Will Travel, Dr. Kildare, and The Eleventh Hour, to name but a few. He also had an uncredited part in Breakfast at Tiffany's and a credited role in 13 West Street as well as a semi-recurring role as Gerald Spangler in 3 episodes of Sam Benedict before being cast as Bob Mulligan on I'm Dickens... He's Fenster in the fall of 1962.

Though his workload would not be quite as heavy after the series was canceled, he had no shortage of guest spots on TV series such as Arrest and Trial, My Favorite Martian, The Jack Benny Program, The Fugitive, and The Third Man in 1963-64. He also began to pick up a number of recurring roles, sometimes, as with Sam Benedict, only for a few episodes, such as Major Al Barker on The Lieutenant and Dr. Carl Miller on My Living Doll. But he also had a number of longer-running roles, playing abusive husband George Anderson in 34 episodes of the first season of Peyton Place, followed by 14 episodes as conniving Colonel Douglas Harrigan in the fourth and final season of McHale's Navy. With the cancelation of the latter series, Beckman returned to guest-star roles on The Wild, Wild West, Tarzan, Rango, The Flying Nun, The Andy Griffith Show, The Virginian, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees, Run for Your Life, and many others, in addition to supporting roles in the feature films The Caper of the Golden Bulls, Madigan, and The Stalking Moon. Then in 1968 he was cast as Captain Roland Francis Clancey on Here Come the Brides, appearing 34 times over the show's 2-season run. Beckman fell in love with the wilderness areas around Seattle where the show was filmed and moved his family to Deming, Washington. After appearing on Bonanza, The Interns, Night Gallery, Love, American Style, Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, and  Nichols, he was cast as Pat Harwell on the Sandy Duncan sit-com Funny Face, but the series lasted only 13 episodes in 1971. More guest spots followed on Columbo, Hec Ramsey, Mannix, Here's Lucy, and Shaft, feature films like The Merry Wives of Tobias Rouke, Between Friends, and Peopletoys, as well as several TV movies until his role in the feature film Why Rock the Boat? won him his first Canadian Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. He would win another for the 1978 feature film Blood & Guts. Meanwhile, he appeared on most of the notable TV series of the mid-1970s, including Ironside, Marcus Welby, M.D., Barnaby Jones, Cannon, Police Story, Barney Miller, The Six Million Dollar Man, and McMillan & Wife. In 1975 he was cast in the supporting role of Harry Mark on the Jack Palance crime drama Bronk, which ran for a single season. In 1977 Beckman and his wife were awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Award for their contributions to Canadian culture. After Bronk, it was on to more guest spots on Happy Days, Welcome Back, Kotter, The Rockford Files, Quincy, M.E., Trapper John, M.D., and Matt Houston amongst many others until he was cast as security guard Alf Scully in the Don Adams supermarket sit-com Check It Out, which ran for 3 seasons, though Beckman's character appeared only in Season 1. Though now in his mid-60s, Beckman never slowed down, appearing on Simon & Simon, St. Elsewhere, Booker, MacGyver, The Commish, and The X-Files to name but a few of his TV guest spots in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He also logged credits on TV movies and mini-series in addition to feature films such as Family Reunion and I Love You to Death. In 1998 his wife Cheryl died, and he remarried to Hillary Beckman the following year. He continued working into the early 2000s, the last of his over 200 credits coming in the TV mini-series Johnson County War in 2002. He then retired to Mallorca and finally Barcelona, Spain, where he passed away from heart failure on June 17, 2008 at the age of 86.

Noam Pitlik

Born in Philadelphia on November 4, 1932, Pitlik graduated from Central High School, Gratz College, and Temple University. His acting career began on a daily live Western-themed television program called Action in the Afternoon on WCAU in Philadelphia. By October 1951 he was part of the set design and construction crew at The Philadelphia Experimental Theater, and while still a drama student at Temple he played the part of C.K. Dexter Haven in a production of The Philadelphia Story staged in Indiana, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Temple in 1954, he moved to New York and made his Off-Broadway debut in a 1957 production of The Threepenny Opera. His years in New York were interrupted by a 2-year stint in the U.S. Army, but he also completed a Masters Degree in Theater at New York University and played a number of roles as a replacement actor in a long-running Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera. In 1961 he moved to California and made his television debut on an episode of Cain's Hundred that year, followed by two appearances on Dr. Kildare. By 1962 he was an in-demand character actor on many TV series, including The New Breed, The Detectives, Death Valley Days, The Untouchables, The Lloyd Bridges Show, and The Rifleman as well as being cast as the semi-recurring construction worker Bentley on I'm Dickens... He's Fenster.

After the series' cancellation, Pitlik continued his guest roles on other series such as Wide Country, Breaking Point, Combat!, and My Favorite Martian in 1963, along with his feature film debut with an uncredited part in A Child Is Waiting. The year 1964 was a lean one for Pitlik, but 1965 picked up again with guest spots on The Littlest Hobo, The Munsters, Gunsmoke, Gidget, and Convoy, as well as 6 appearances as a pathologist in Season 5 of Ben Casey and the first of 7 appearances in different roles on Hogan's Heroes. In 1966 he began finding more work in feature films, with uncredited parts in Texas Across the River and Penelope in addition to his first credited part in Billy Wilder's The Fortune Cookie. In 1967 he had multiple appearances on Hey, Landlord, The Flying Nun, The Monkees, and Run for Your Life, an uncredited role in The Graduate, and the role of Charles in the Dick Van Dyke comedy Fitzwilly. The connection with Van Dyke would prove to be a turning point in his career 6 years later. In the meantime, he finished out the 1960s and the first few years of the 1970s appearing on many of the top TV programs of the era--The Andy Griffith Show, Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, Gomer Pyle: USMC, The Doris Day Show, That Girl, Bewitched, The F.B.I., Mannix, and All in the Family-- as well as the occasional feature film and TV movie. Then in 1971 he played the part of a director in the second episode of The New Dick Van Dyke Show, and ironically would then go on to actually directing 5 episodes in Season 3 of the series in 1973-74. As Pitlik would explain in a 1979 interview, by this point he had grown dissatisfied with his acting career because, despite the good pay for his work, he did not enjoy the amount of inactivity waiting around between takes and between jobs. He wanted something that would more fully engross his creative talents, and he found that directing provided this fulfillment. So once he broke through on The New Dick Van Dyke Show, he devoted himself much more to directing than to acting, though he did appear 5 times as Victor Gianelli in the first two seasons of The Bob Newhart Show. His big break came 2 years later when he was hired to direct 7 Season 1 episodes of Barney Miller. He would go on to direct more than 100 of the show's 171 episodes over its 8-year run and win an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Directors Guild of American Award for his work on the series. It would also open the door to directing on many other TV series, at first a few episodes of Phyllis and The Betty White Show, a couple of the Barney Miller spin-off Fish, but then 12 episodes of The Practice in 1976-77, 5 episodes of A.E.S. Hudson Street, 11 episodes of Taxi, 18 episodes of One Day at a Time, 44 episodes of Mr. Belvedere, and 27 episodes of Wings. His final directing work came with 14 of the 20 episodes of the 1995-96 legal comedy The Home Court. Meanwhile, he continued taking an occasional acting role, such as the feature film The Front Page in 1974, a couple of episodes of Police Story in 1974-75, and a few TV movies, with his last credit coming in a 1998 episode of the Ted Danson sit-com Becker. He died from lung cancer the next year on February 18 at the age of 66.

Notable Guest Stars

Season 1, Episode 1, "A Small Matter of Being Fired": Yvonne Craig  (shown on the left, starred in Gidget, High Time, Kissin' Cousins, Ski Party, and One Spy Too Many and played Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, on Batman and Grandma on Olivia) plays Arch's second girlfriend Hillary.

Season 1, Episode 2, "Nurse Dickens": Jane Dulo  (see the biography section for the 1962 post on McHale's Navy) plays the first hospital nurse receptionist. Lee Meriwether (shown on the right, starred in Batman: The Movie, Angel in My Pocket, and The Undefeated and played Anne Reynolds on The Young Marrieds, Nurse Bonnie Tynes on Dr. Kildare, Dr. Ann MacGregor on The Time Tunnel, Tracey on Mission: Impossible, Lee Sawyer on The New Andy Griffith Show, Betty Jones on Barnaby Jones, Lily Munster on The Munsters Today, Ruth Martin on All My Children, and Birdie Spencer on Project: Phoenix) plays her replacement. Peter Lupus (Willy Armitage on Mission: Impossible) plays Kate's ride to the hospital Dr. Bartlett. Ray Kellogg (Deputy Ollie on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays a hospital security guard. Booth Colman (Zaius on Planet of the Apes, Prof. Hector Jerrold on General Hospital, and Dr. Felix Burke on The Young and the Restless) plays hospital resident Dr. Hammond.

Season 1, Episode 3, "The Double Life of Mel Warshaw": Joan Patrick (shown on the near left, see the biography section for the 1961 post on Dr. Kildare) plays Arch's date Sandy Moore.

Season 1, Episode 4, "Harry, the Father Image": Ellen Burstyn (shown on the right, starred in For Those Who Think Young, The Last Picture Show, The Exorcist, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and Same Time, Next Year and played Dr. Kate Bartok on The Doctors, Julie Parsons on Iron Horse, Ellen Brewer on The Ellen Burstyn Show, Dolly DeLucca on That's Life, Bishop Beatrice Congreve on The Book of Daniel, Nancy Davis Dutton on Big Love, and Evanka on Louie) plays Arch's girlfriend Joan. Elaine Devry (daughter of a Disney animator and Mickey Rooney's fourth wife) plays Arch's standing Thursday date Rhonda.

Season 1, Episode 5, "Part-Time Friend": Ann Prentiss (shown on the left, sister of Paula Prentiss, appeared in Any Wednesday, If He Hollers, Let Him Go, and California Split, played Sgt. Candy Kane on Captain Nice, and voiced Gene/Jean on Quark, sentenced to 19 years in prison for assaulting her father and trying to hire someone to kill him, brother-in-law Richard Benjamin, and one other relative) plays psychiatrist Dr. Elise McClinton.

Season 1, Episode 6, "The Acting Game": Harvey Korman (shown on the right, played various characters on The Carol Burnett Show, the voice of The Great Gazoo on The Flintstones, Harvey A. Kavanuagh on The Harvey Korman Show, Leo Green on Leo & Liz in Beverly Hills, and Reginald J. Tarkington on The Nutt House) plays TV commercial producer Mr. Rembar. Sue Randall (see the biography section for the 1960 post on Leave It to Beaver) plays Arch's current girlfriend Bianca Russell. Jack Perkins (Mr. Bender on The Good Guys) plays construction worker Greneker.

Season 1, Episode 7, "The Toupee Story": Hank Ladd (shown on the left, writer for Jackie Gleason: American Scene Magazine and The Jackie Gleason Show) plays building contractor Heckendorf. Pitt Herbert (the telegrapher on The Virginian) plays a milkman.

Season 1, Episode 8, "A Friend in Wolf's Clothing": Carolyn Kearney (shown on the right, appeared in Hot Rod Girl, Young and Wild, and The Thing That Wouldn't Die and played Ellen Holt on Lassie) plays Susan Drexel, daughter of Harry's old Army sergeant.

Season 1, Episode 9, "Party, Party, Who's Got the Party?": Karla Most (shown on the left, second wife  of actor, director, and choreographer Gower Champion) plays Arch's date Arlene Hudson.

Season 1, Episode 10, "The Yellow Badge of Courage": Sandra Knight (ex-wife of Jack Nicholson, appeared in Thunder Road, Frankenstein's Daughter, and Blood Bath) plays Arch's girlfriend Bonita. Quinn O'Hara (shown on the right, appeared in A Swingin' Summer, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Foursome, and The Teacher and played Ashley Davidson on Dallas) plays Arch's second girlfriend Laura Pelton.

Season 1, Episode 11, "The Joke": Edy Williams (shown on the left, third wife of director Russ Meyer, appeared in The Last of the Secret Agents?, The Secret Life of an American Wife, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and Dr. Minx) plays Miss Safety, Loretta Standish.

Season 1, Episode 12, "Love Me, Love My Dog": Tracy Morgan (shown on the right, played Brandy Wine on Hell Town) plays Arch's girlfriend cook Helen Wilson. Colette Jackson (wife of actor Solomon Sturges, appeared in Teenage Doll, Unwed Mother, and House of Women) plays Arch's girlfriend Caroline.

Season 1, Episode 13, "Here's to the Three of Us": Donald Briggs (shown on the far left, see the biography section for the 1962 post on The Lucy Show) plays the Dickens' new neighbor Phil Finkel. Robert Darnell (Doug Russell on The Bold and the Beautiful) plays a restaurant waiter.

Season 1, Episode 14, "Get Off My Back": Francine York (shown on the right, starred in Wild Ones on Wheels, The Doll Squad, and Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars and played Lorraine Farr Temple on Days of Our Lives and Queen Medusa on Jason of Star Command) plays physical fitness instructor Linda Holloway.

Season 1, Episode 15, "How Not to Succeed in Business": Charles Watts (shown on the left, played Judge Harvey Blandon on Bachelor Father) plays building contractor Hobart. Buddy Lester (appeared in Ocean's Eleven, The Ladies Man, Sergeants 3, and The Party and played Nick on The New Phil Silvers Show) plays electrician Mr. Barnes. Jan Arvan (Nacho Torres on Zorro and Paw Kadiddlehopper on The Red Skelton Hour) plays French restaurant maitre 'd Irving.

Season 1, Episode 16, "The Godfathers": Jack Perkins (see "The Acting Game" above) plays a construction worker who gets thrown through a window.